Day minus 7

Most of the people who will read this blog are sailing neophytes like me. A trans-ocean passage on a small sailboat is not something they have a lot of experience with. Pardon the explanation is you already know this.
It seems to me so far that there are two parts to a cruise - the part at sea (which I have yet to do) and the part in port - which has occupied the last 10 of my days. It may seem obvious but much of the time in port is spent preparing for the time at sea. Boats are constantly under attack from their natural element - the ocean. Mechanically, they must withstand enormous forces and sometimes the sea wins. Chemically they are slowly being eaten by corrosion and here the sea always wins. Today we spent the day ministering to Star in both areas.
The boats in the PV marina are moored pretty close together. A few days ago, our neighbor lost control when docking and hit the side of Star just above the deck. The impact bent the stanchion (one of the stainless steel poles that support the lifelines). To repair it means taking down the sunshade, removing the lifelines, removing the stanchion and sending it to a shop to be bent back to its original form. The sunshade has a coating of salt from its month-long exposure so that had to be removed before it could be folded up and put away.
You can see where this is going.
We spent the day washing down all of the above-deck surfaces of star with Simple Green, brushes and sponges. (“Swab those decks, mateys”) Remember what I said about corrosion? You could almost hear Star breathing a sigh of relief as clean water washed off the saline enemy.
We still have to get the stanchion back and replace all the rigging that attaches to it, but we are one step closer to going to sea