After the usual 28+ hours flying from LAX to Barcelona Spain via JFK in New York, we arrive safely on Weds, Aug 28. Because of 4 large 50 lb duffel bags of boat spare parts, we elected to rent a car instead of taking the "shuttle-bus-to-train-another-train-to-taxi" route. So we drove the 100+ miles south to the marina of Sant Carles de la Rapita, where the boat was safely in a berth for the past 6 weeks while we were back home in CA.
Unpacking, storing and restarting all the boat systems always take longer than we hop. This time the salt water intake for our refrigerator seemed clogged, so Dave had the nasty job of diving in the "nutrient-rich" delta-fed water to check out the problem. What a unpleasant surprise! Evidently our bottom paint (only in the water for 7 months) had failed and the delta-fed marine growth had attacked our hull! Dave came out the water with lots of little cuts from all the barnacles attacked to our hull.
We definitely needed to have the boat hauled and get new bottom paint, something we had planned to do in the spring of 2015 back in the Caribbean. We did many boat projects while waiting for our haul-out date on the travel life on Saturday. Despite this set back we still hoped to be back in the water with new bottom pain on Tuesday morning when Dave's brother and sister-in-law, Carl and Pat, were to join us for 10 days of sailing.
On Saturday after being hauled out and having the boatyard complete the high pressure wash of the hull, it was clear that all the paint was peeling and we made the difficult decision to have all prior paint sandblasted off and apply a new epoxy based copper coat paint. This expensive paint reportedly lasts up to 10 years with minor touch-ups. We talked to others with this paint and they verified up to 7 years and had high satisfaction. It had better work because at the price it should be called "Gold Coat".
Prep work with a good crew of 4 men was done on Monday. The 4 coats of paint were applied on Tuesday. The biggest problem was to our schedule because this epoxy paint needs extra time to cure. So we could not be re-launched back in the water until Friday. It was time to re-plan the itinerary.