since its only the first coat, nothing to really worry about.  it happens.

just prep the surface for the next coat of varnish by wet sanding with 400 grit on the first coat to rough up the surface a bit (and address any drips or sags), let it dry and then apply your second coat of varnish.

keep following that procedure and by the time you get to the minimum of 3 coats....you will not notice this at all.

as you mention, good light will help you see any gaps and as you develop some experience, you will develop techniques to ensure you don't miss pieces.....  but it will be just fine.

h

Howard answered your question to the point where there's nothing I can add, so instead I'm going to ask why all the tyvek? I normally only use gloves and a shop apron and many folks skip the apron. The reason I'm asking is because unless you're allergic to the varnish to the point that you can't have it make any contact with your skin at all, you'll be a lot more comfortable, less fatigued and more mobile without the tyvek.

On the other hand, unless you're varnishing outdoors, a VOC respirator is your friend.

Laszlo

You guys are always so helpful (and quick!) - many thanks.

h, I will happily skip any kind of patch at this point.  Glad I didn't try a dive-and-save an hour after applying the varrnish since I'm sure I would have made a big mess of the surrounding area (though even that would probably disappear under subsequent layers, I would have had a lot more heartburn about it in the meantime).

Laszlo, I wore a Tyvek suit because I thought it would help me avoid shedding dust onto the varnish, not to protect my skin, but maybe this was overkill (especially since I couldn't even bring myself to clean the  garage beforehand; I think my priorities may be in the wrong place).  I am wearing nitrile gloves and a mask with organic vapor cartridges (and keeping the garage well ventilated with a filtered fan as the intake), but thanks for the reminder.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

When we were building our Passagemaker, we had all sorts of odd lights arranged in the garage to try to eliminate shadows.  In the end, I kept one of my headlamps in the work area to strap on and fire up before beginning a work session--always on me, always on, and always shining light on the next thing I was about to mess up for lack of seeing it properly.

I've come to favor these Energizer HDD32E headlamps:

https://www.energizer.com/lighting/headlights#HDD32E

...available at Home Depot, Amazon, and who knows where else.  I always like to have one handy, feeding 'em a steady diet of NiMH rechargeable AAA batteries.  My hands ain't all that good to begin with (more of a  boatwrong than a boatwright), and having to use one of 'em to hold a flashlight when something needs illuminating renders me even more maladroit.

Mind you, consider the source here.  I am a bit of a nut on this headlamp business--okay, maybe more than a bit of a nut about more than just headlamps--and I might be more fussy about my lighting than folks who aren't blind in one eye.  Nonetheless, I find these versatile little lights really handy for more than just boatwrongery prevention: cycling at night (turns with my head, not with the front wheel), boating at night (the red light helps me find things without killing my night vision), reading books with a lot of fine print, tweezing splinters out of my hands, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, etcetera....

Now, if I can just get 'em to quit teasin' me about wearing a headlamp in church....  <;-)

.....Michael

Michael,

I enjoyed your hilarious and self-deprecating post!  The head-mounted LED lamp sounds like a good plan since most of my delays in my misadventures in boatbuilding (boatwrongery, I suppose) are due to forgetting where I put things in the garage...or out of the garage (I used a jigsaw rather than a bonsai saw to cut my hatch because of this, for example) and I've never been responsible enough to execute complex operations like setting charged/plugged-in work lamps on tables of appropriate heights in appropriate locations.  I will look into acquiring a headlamp since it seems like my best shot at consistently having light other than ambient.