Irony now has a new owner and is tucked up safely in Spice Island Marine for hurricane season. We have been living on her almost 11 years since July 2002. She has kept us safe and been the catalyst for a decade of amazing adventures. On to a new chapter for us and for her.

Our new website is www.CutlerChronicles.com

Nearly a week on and we are making progress, sort of, although Irony is looking worse every day. Allen Downden's team have sanded the topsides and, despite daily delays due to rain, have sprayed two coats of primer. they are currently sanding and filling ready to do the top coats. Roger is still sanding away the barnacles on the bottom, hampered by the work going on above him. We've also deconstructed the inside of the boat and sent off the saloon table, chart table and 5 pieces of flooring to be stripped and re-varnished. The heat, humidity and dust have been overwhelming but we have had air-conditioning installed today which should make life more bearable.

Nic has done as much as possible in the keel box so it was time to move to a new position in the yard. Peakes were incredibly helpful (as always) in re-organising the travel lift schedule so we could move this morning instead of yesterday. We are spending the weekend preparing the boat for the team to start on painting our topsides on Monday. The days are long (12+ hours) and it's hot and humid here, not much fun, nor is living on the boat out of the water in a dusty boatyard.

An early start with Nic going off to get a second load of cheap fuel from the fishing dock. He wants to leave the tanks full while we are away to avoid condensation and with the torrential rain we had yesterday afternoon, only one trip was possible.
We were in the travel lift and out of the water just after 8am. Then came the pressure wash, tragic to see hundreds of dollars of paint being washed off! The hull is in reasonable condition although with two colours of antifounling showing through spattered with the white calcified remains of our barnacles it has an interesting look.
We were moved to our first position here, over the drainage ditch by the front gate. We attract a lot of attention here because it's not a normal place for boats - it's a temporary spot for us to work on the keel.

As we set sail from Grenada yesterday afternoon we realised that this would be our last sail on Irony until we return from our trip across the Pacific on Spiip. It's odd to think we will be leaving her for such a long time after almost 9 years of living onboard. It was good therefore that we had a fast and pleasant trip here to Chaguaramas. The winds were favourable and the seas were relatively calm considering the high winds that have been blowing all week. We actually arrived earlier than expected, before dawn. Our haul out is scheduled for 9am tomorrow morning so we have to hit the ground running today.

A quick move across the bay to our usual spot here! The anchorage is less rolly, there's free internet and it's nice a breezy. Time to start painting the cockpit which we didn't get to last summer.