The Cape sun got your boards. Now what

One city, two ways a dock wears down

Every dock in Cape Coral takes the same beating from above. Full sun most of the year, wet then dry then wet again, and storm season leaning on everything once a summer. That part is universal across the city: the color washes out of the boards, the grain lifts and starts catching bare feet, the surface runs hot enough by afternoon to move you along at a trot, and eventually a plank answers back when you put weight on it.

Underneath is where the city splits. On a Gulf-access canal the waterline is the real story, because salt water brings barnacles and borers to the exact band where your pilings pass through it, and a piling can be losing thickness in that band while the deck above it still looks fine. On a freshwater canal that band is calmer, so a tired deck is more often just a tired deck sitting on a frame that still has plenty left. Same symptom on your feet, two different jobs.

Which is why we do not quote a re-deck off a photo of the boards. The owner comes out free and works from the top down: the surface first, then the stringers carrying it, then the band on the pilings your canal keeps crossing. The answer comes back while he is still standing on your dock, and if boards would only be covering for something below the water, that is the version you get.