We have been in Demopolis, AL for a month and have worked very hard to get Grace Full ready to launch. We spent the first week scraping and sanding the old loose paint off of the hull to prepare for a couple of coats of new paint. It is necessary to paint a boat's hull with a special (very expensive) paint in order to protect it from marine animals that love to attach themselves to any non-moving surface and to reduce the buildup of some sea greenery. If a boat moves every day or two, there is not as much of a problem with these issues, but we plan on staying in a couple of marinas for a month at a time so we needed to make sure our paint covering was sufficient. Each day we would spend 6-8 hours working on the hull and we looked like smurfs as the paint we were scraping was blue. We were finally ready to paint and needed to wear protective coverings for our eyes and mouth because the paint can be toxic if ingested through any opening (even pores). We had just enough paint for two coats with a little extra to paint the areas under the props that were holding our boat steady on the land. Whew, we were sure glad that job was done!!
The next task was to clean her inside and out. She had been sitting on the hard for 20 months without a covering and she was a DIRTY lady! Flint washed the hull and put two coats of wax on her to make her shine and to protect the surface. I worked on the isinglass, which is window covering that is flexible and can be zipped open. It is necessary to get into some strange positions to get all the window surfaces clean, but they are now all bright and clear.
Once we completed those jobs it was time to head back to South Carolina for a final visit with our son and his family. We spent a few days with Kevin and enjoyed a golf game at Wyboo Plantation where we own property. We look forward to the day when we can build there and go out our back door to play a round, but that will be a future life. We then headed to Charleston to pick Kevin's girls up from school to spend some time with them. They were excited that we could attend a show and spaghetti dinner with their after-school group and then we headed for the beach. We had been away from the coast for many months and were excited to see the ocean again. We found an ice cream store and watched the sun go down as we savored each lick. Time to take the girls home for the night, but they were off of school the next day and we hade big plans. We picked them up the next morning and headed for a local park for some hiking, biking and playing in the playground. We then headed to Charleston for a trip to the Children's Museum. The girls had fun going from room to room playing with everything from a medieval castle to a water table that included bridges, locks and even rain. Next was lunch at a local cafe and off to Battery Park. They love to climb the cannons and ride their bikes along the walkways. They met a little girl called Sam who was from Australia and was circumnavigating the globe on a sailboat with her parents. A fun day that will have to serve as our Ma and Pa fix until next Spring. 
Time to get back to the boat and finish the task of getting her ready to launch. We visited with our friends, Don and Belva Bailey in Chattanooga on the way back. It was finally launch day and we were both nervous about whether our engines were going to start up. We call them Esther and Deborah and we prayed for them before we were lowered into the water. The starboard engine started right up, but the port engine needed a little more encouragement. We breathed a sigh of relief and headed toward our slip to check out all the systems that can only operate if we are in the water. We had a few repairs to deal with, but on the whole, everything ultimately worked great.
We will be leaving Demopolis in the next couple of days, headed to Mobile Bay where we will stay at the Fairhope Yacht Club. There are no marinas between here and there and we will be without signal most of the way so I will write again after we get settled there. Join us each week as we enjoy the beauty of the Gulf Coast.
No comments:
Post a Comment