Saturday, April 19, 2014

Thursday proved a long and very eventful day. We spent the night on OJ as we are now officially transferred to her as crew, however we found we were too tired and achy to sleep well. Plus, the wind picked up about 1am, and as we were sleeping in the aft we had quite a bit of water slapping on the hulls because of how we are situated on the dock. This is bad news in more than one way...one because of the noise, but more importantly because it means that the winds will be blowing as we are trying to get this big baby into the haulout well tomorrow. The first is corrected with earplugs...the second, well that is going to require a lot more effort.

Denise and I are driving her remaining family members to the airport this morning around 4, so since I was planning to be up by 3:30...at 2 I finally got out of bed and took care of some business on the computer while the family all prepared for departure. After the quick drive to the San Juan airport in the predawn hours we were back and ready to wait. And wait, and wait, and worry, and wait while the boat ahead of us, a 115 foot mega-yacht got launched, and floated out...and finally....about 11:15, it was our turn. Backing a 58 foot long, 30 foot wide catamaran into a 35 foot wide slip is even more of a challenge than we had yesterday. And added to that the winds are blowing and the well is on an odd cant that makes it exceptionally more difficult to back straight into. But with some sweet driving by Frank we made it into the well with only one small bite, and then...it's on to the transporting and blocking stage.

We headed off to our respective vessels, and kept going and going til finally about 2:30 pm we were done...mentally, physically, and oh so hungry. We ate, checked into the hotel and then got the first loads of laundry started while we headed to the pool! Embarrassingly, by 7:30pm we all hit a wall, and lights went out.

Friday...here we go again. 4:30 am...the Team OJ is awake, and ready to go, which we should be after 9 hours of sleep. So by 7am we are up and out and headed to the boats. They dropped us off at Regenero and we began our second full day of closedown punchlist. Finish cleaning heads, check; clean out icebox and freezer, check; shut off propane system, check; strip off trampoline & bimini, check; run final messenger and remove and stow final lines, check; tinfoil windows...well, half check as I finally ran out of tinfoil after 2 years...1/3 of the way around the saloon. And on and on it goes, until we are done for the day and so head over to OJ to join back up and see how we can assist with their list. Getting two boats ready (one to stay and one to go) takes a lot of effort....finally we are done, and head off to the hotel and its more laundry, pool time and research on marinas in the DR and what paper charts we need to get us to the US east coast.

We are having an issue with the door locks at the hotel we are at and so periodically...(read; every time we leave the room) we have to get new room keys before we can reenter the room. Funny the first few times, then successively more annoying after the 8th time we have had the problem. At one point we had three of us plus 4 hotel staff trying to assist...ok, for me that's back to being funny!

This morning we are up and going pretty early...so early that nothing is open. So we start at McDonalds, and eventually manage to hit the salvation army store to drop off some donations, post office to ship packages home, west marine for supplies, the sail loft to pick up the screecher, panadaria for sandwiches for lunch, and Walgreens for a few passport photos before hitting the boats, dropping off the sail and supplies, getting some paperwork and a few more chores complete, then on to fill the propane tanks and return them to the boat, with one more stop at the post office to get supplies. Finally, its back to the hotel for the boys, while the girls head off to Alimenses to shop for material for some boat chores. Turns out they are closed so instead we sneak off to Walmart for Mani/Pedi's before picking up the rest of the boat laundry at the landromat and head back to relax. Tomorrow its charts, and menu planning and shopping lists....and maybe a trip up the mast on OJ.