Had our first sail from Bruce and Johnson today. But first, a few words about spring commissioning.

I spent about four days getting the boat ready. I thought it would only take my usual one or one and half days, but this time, I said I was going to take the teak handrails off the boat to finish them properly. I even bought a can of cetol gloss at the Defender spring sale (along with a new cover for the life sling, and four new fenders). It took me about three hours to remove the things, which should have been a warning. But no, I went ahead and did it. I even had to borrow a ratchet extender from some guy two boats away, and borrow a second set of hands from a power boat owner to undo the last nut. I must admit that I felt a deep sense of accomplishment when I got them off.

But refinishing them was not as satisfying as I had hoped. I cleaned them, but because I didn't remove the existing cetol finish, there were still a lot of dark streaks and spots. I thought the new coats of cetol would cover them, but it didn't. The big issue though isn't the finish, it's the bolts. I thought it would be easy to get them out, but it's proven to be almost impossible. I can't screw them out; there's too much gunk on the exposed threads, and I can't access the heads of the bolts for the most part. The bungs were glued in with so much glue that the heads are still mostly covered. I tried the Grabit thing, and that didn't work. I tried banging them out and that only cracked the rail (which had to be repaired with Gorilla Glue); that also damaged some of the bolts so that I can't reuse them as the threads are now ruined. I tried dissolving the old sealant on the threads, but I can't find anything that works. What's left? I've asked the marina to see if they can help. Hopefully, this won't be a major expense, although I'm betting it will be.

On top of all that, I couldn't get the engine to start. After flooding the thing multiple times, I went to West Marine in the hope that the fuel line was the culprit. One new fuel line later, I was still disappointed. One last hope: bad fuel. I took the tank home, emptied the old fuel and refilled it. Back to the boat the next day, and sure enough, she fired right up. Hallelujah. Dan and Patti came out the next weekend to help put the sails on and do a clean up. No sailing, but we were finally ready.

I wanted to have company for my first sail leaving the new dock (slip E8 North). Luckily, Lily came home for a visit this weekend, and she wanted to go sailing. So off we all go this morning. It's very windy, until we get to the marina that is, where the breeze is very light. I put a reef in at the dock, and out we go. No problems leaving the slip. We raised sail in the outer harbor, and sailed in very light breezes directly south. The wind picked up a bit off shore, and we sailed at about four knots. It was beautiful; the sun was out, the breeze was light and it was in the mid to upper 70's with low humidity. Both Patti and Lily kept saying how relaxing and nice it was. A perfect first sail of the year they said. About a half mile past the Reef, I decided to turn around so that we could get to Mom and Dad's by 3, as I had promised to help them with their deck furniture. It was no fun sailing back directly with the wind, which was dying anyway, so we fired up the engine and motored back. No problems putting into the slip. I washed down the boat while Patti and Lily went to check out the pool. When I got there, they were enjoying the water and took a dip myself. It was really nice, well kept up. I met Anthony from my dock (his 8 year old had played with the hose on my dock and his dad had told him to stop). He's a chiropractor, originally from Orange and a fellow Amity brat. After our swim, we headed over to Linden Shores and helped with the furniture, then had dinner with Mom and Dad at Lenny's. All in all, a great day.