Friday, May 24

What an exciting day today!  It stopped raining!!!!  But exciting for more reasons than that.

It started out with our attempt to move the boat from the marina to the boat yard, where we were scheduled to be hauled out at 8am.  When we went to move the boat, we found out she was sitting on the bottom!  Who knew we'd pulled into the shallowest part of the marina.  (We draw less than four feet, but ... well, there was less than four feet of water under us at low tide this morning.)  After a little coaxing, pulling on the lines each time someone's wake gave us a little lift out of the mud, and a little swearing, we got it out.  Didn't even pull any much into the engine cooling system or sea strainers.  WHEW!

So, off to the boat yard.  If you're wondering, we're cleaning & repainting the hull, gunwales and decks, smoothing out the seams, etc.  And, of course, sealing those darn sidelights!  Glen's very pleased with the caulking, there's nary a leak in the seams anywhere, even after that rough start last September with the stressful transport. We just have to sand down the areas where the wood has swelled and pushed out some of the seam compound.  Glen needs it to look perfect-as-possible when we go on the Coast Guard stations tour!

When I figure out how to get the videos out of iMovie and postable on this blog, you'll see the video of the boat coming out of the water on the travel lift.  It's now sitting up on blocks in the yard, awaiting our TLC.

Besides the lift, we've had a great morning, meeting wonderful people, eating hot meals we don't have to cook :), walking here and there throughout Astoria, making plans, re-organizing stuff in the cabin (did I mention that small-space thing?)...  and of course, catching up on this blog!  Well, enough reading for now.  Get back to work, you lazy bilge rats!  :)