Finally on dry land
08 May 2012 | Vuda Point Marina
Sunny and hot
Well, we finally got hauled out only about 90 minutes late. The lift needed some care and maintenance so we got delayed a bit. We were half way between high and low tide so we were running out of time just like yesterday. The lift was finally available about 1100 so out we came.
Once out, we were hauled over to the high pressure wash area where George(Marina Forman) took a good 45 minutes to clean off the hull. In years past, when we got hauled out of the water there has always been a good bit of growth that needed to be cleaned off. It's been 19 months since we painted the boat back in San Carlos, Mexico and while we complained at the time about how much the paint cost us, we both wish we had 4 more gallons of it to put on more coats. We were darn close to clean when we got hauled out. Very few barnacles. The only place we had them was on the forward edge of the keel and a few places where we had scrubbed the hull to clean off earlier growth. We had the expected slime that alway grows on anyhing that is the water(you should see our dock lines) but it came right off.
We were in our rack by 1300, just in time for all the yard workers to go to lunch. Everyone was back by 1400 and we started in. We've hired one of the locals to work on our boat with us for $7.00Fijian(about $3.85US) per hour. Out here, that's a great wage believe it or not. Most only make about $3 to $4 per hour. We gave him one of our scrapers and turned him loose. Now we have what we refer to as a "Super Scraper". It's incredible at taking off old paint. Our new worker had never seen one like it and loves it because it is so fast and easy to use. While he started in, Tracy started in or other areas of the hull while I went to the office to see if we could get some power where we were. The outlets near our boat are both dead. One of the local yards loaned me a LONG extension cord but something was wrong with the wiring and lights on our main circuit panel showed a "Reverse Polarity" warning. Not a good sign. One of the main managers came down and looked at the problem and promised us an electrician in the morning. Sure hope so since we still need to keep our batteries full and the air conditioner running to keep us cool when we aren't working.
I stripped all the barnacles off the prop and will be working on it some more in the morning. I want it right down to nice shiny bronze the way it is supposed to be.
So tomorrow will be another day of getting things scraped and sanded and all ready for the new paint on Thursday so we can get two coats on by the time we are ready to launch. It's going to be a labor intensive few days but well worth it.
I'll post some pictures in the next day or so so stay tuned.