Hey, I'm back! I finally got up the gumption to put more holes in the deck. So today was the day to drill holes for some of the deck hardware. I only did the hatch areas today. Hey, I gotta start slow to get back in the groove! Here you'll see that I'm using some twine as guides. I wanted to make sure things were straight. Then I used some clamps to hold the pad-eyes in place. This is the front hatch.

This is a close-up on the front.

And the back.

And the back again. After this was all set up, I drilled a small pilot hole straight through the open pad-eye holes. Then I removed all of the pad-eyes and drilled a larger hole (1/4 inch diameter).

Next was the brainstorm of the day. One of the most fun parts for me throughout this whole kayak building ordeal has been the problem solving. Sure, folks who know what they're doing have all sorts of ways around these things. But I have no idea what I'm doing -- for the most part, I've got a book and some pictures, and the rest I get to make up as I go along. And that's what happened here. I wanted to make sure my pad-eyes would line up, I think they'd look dumb if they were crooked. So ... I got the screw/washer/nut and ran it through the big hole. Then I used some of the twine and wrapped it around each of the screws, tightly. Next, line up the pad-eyes, and -- voila! -- I knew right where to drill. This is the front hatch.

And the back hatch.

And here's the front hatch, with just the holes. These will be filled with some epoxy-schmutz. Then after the thing is joined together, and varnished, the pad-eyes will be screwed in through the hardened epoxy -- keeping the wood watertight.

And the back hatch.