Out here the fasteners go first

What island exposure leaves behind

A dock on San Carlos Bay, on the Pine Island Sound side, or on one of the east-end canal streets has spent its whole life being pushed on. Wind with open water to build across, wake from boats running the Sound, and the wet and dry cycle working the same wood over and over. None of that is dramatic. It is small and constant, which is exactly the kind of load that backs screws out, opens up frame joints and leaves a dock feeling loose long before the boards look like anything is wrong.

So on an island dock the tear-off earns its keep as much as the new boards do. With the decking off, the stringers, the frame connections and the hardware are finally visible in daylight, and until that happens everyone is guessing about whether you are buying a surface or a structure. Tired stringers come out, the sound ones get pulled back tight, and anything the salt ate goes back in as hardware meant for this water. Then the fresh deck goes down over bones you can trust, with the borders and lift cutouts finished clean.

Getting the old dock off the island is part of the job here, not an afterthought. Boards, spent fasteners and offcuts leave with us on the barge, because the water is the easy route. No dumpster parked on your lot, no run down the causeway, nothing staged in the yard while the work is going on.