A Little Criminal Behavior Perhaps?

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Ah well. My apologies for trailin' off on the bloggin' commitment. Criminal! Just criminal! I hate startin' stuff and then slowing down to a crawl. Anyway, for those who are still interested in the varnishing project on the ol' Betty Jane (but whose interest was waning due to my in flagranto derelicto blogomondo behavior), here's a short but sweet update.

(I got an excuse for not blogging for a month, by the way. I have been traveling all over the place for PMY. You-name-it-I been-there kinda thing. Australia was the farthest away I got. Will toss in a few photos of yours truly with a koala bear here at a later date. Close encounter of the cutest kind. Stay tuned.)

Anyhooooooooo. As you can see from the photo above, the stripping-off-the old-varnish-and-annointing-anew project on the Bettster has been completed. And what a gorgeous result. More details later. You know, the specifics, like kinds of varnish used (there were two), number of coats (there were a whole bunch), old-varnish removal techniques (they were exquisitely laborious), the time required to perform the work (figured in hours and dollar signs), the rip-snortin' cost, etc.

But heck! Let me enthuse first!!!!!!! Just look at this stuff...the whole boat looks like this!!!!! I know...I know. I wrote a story in PMY extolling the virtues of various forms of synthetic varnish and I am sorry. I apologize. I aplogize!!!!!!!! Never did Betty look this good when adorned with synthetics of any description. With a real, genuine, pain-in-the-neck-back-and-posterior varnish job she looks like a grand piano!!!!!! Think I am overdoing the exclamation marks. Gonna dial it back from here on out!

According to Mr. Brian Hicks, the genius who spent a whole pile of weeks on this job, the finish will last nine months, maybe even a year. He suggested I keep a sharp eye on things so he can come back and recoat when necessary and "keep 'er lookin' the way she oughta look," as he says. You can bet yer bottom dollar I will follow instructions to a V-for-varnish on this one. Afterall, (I hate to say this but) Betty was starting to look just a tad ho-hum. I mean, she was tending in that direction of late, more's the pity. Now she looks like she oughta reside in The Metropolitan Museum of Maritime Arts. Hip, hip, hooray!