Robbins Reef Trip Report, Thursday, November 1, 2018

Crew: Carmen Campo, Cooper, Stefan Dreisbach-Williams, Leslie Petosa, Eileen Montanez, Erin Urban

Weather: Sunny, 60s, brisk wind

Access: We could not leave Miller’s until 10:15 AM because of the tide, and we returned at 3:30 PM on the Nicholas Miller captained by Rob Stumley.

Purpose of the trip: We wanted to finish painting the exterior Lantern Gallery walls, start on the roof, and install the ventilation disks in the walls and the hatch cover, and work on the Watch Gallery hatch cover, among other things.

Task accomplished: When we arrived we saw that the 4’ x 6’ plastic container in which we keep the gasoline had blown about 10’ across the promenade, so we moved it inside and cleaned up the gasoline that had spilled inside of it. The approach ladder had come loose, so we roped it on until we can replace the hardware.

Stefan, roped in with our rappelling gear and with help from Erin, applied sealant to the roof and finial, all of which were rusty. Cooper sanded and then finished painting the first coat on the Lantern Gallery walls. Eileen installed the ventilation disks that she had restored in the walls of the Lantern Gallery, and she and Carmen scraped and primed the interior floor and light stand. Carmen was able to put the Lantern Gallery hatch cover, which we had restored last year, back in place.

Leslie working on the Watch Gallery hatch cover.

Leslie took the Watch Gallery hatch cover outside and sanded all of the remaining paint off the surface. Then we brought it back inside, and she sanded and cleaned up the metal hardware and painted it black.

Erin applied sealant to the Watch Gallery balcony rails but the wind was brisk and blowing it around; by the afternoon, we realized that we could not paint the roof or the Lantern Gallery deck as we had hoped because the wind had come up so briskly.

We did an inventory of all of the paint that John Tretout of Armorica Sales has given us; we have enough paint for the roof and stairwell, and, as he suggested, we brought some back to the museum where it can be kept in stable conditions. We checked out the Watch Gallery ceiling windows, two of which have to be replaced with ¾” green glass, and measured them and figured out how to restore the plaster that holds the glass in. Carmen determined that he can grind off the rusty hinges on the exterior cellar door and replace them with hinges that can be screwed into place instead of welding them on, as we do not have welding equipment at the lighthouse.