MV DavidEllis' SE Alaska Summer Cruise has officially started. When last I blogged, it was to whinge about how long we'd been "on-the-hard" and how hard the work was on our poor old bodies. Even with the seeming impossible task of putting DE back together, it happened anyway. The new cutlass bearing went into the stern-tube with no drama; propellor in place and cinched down; drive-line re-assembled; new stainless mount for the water-maker and shelf above assembled.

The rust/fairing work was brought to a good stopping place; to be continued in the fall. We had rain the last couple days leading up to going back in the water, which meant the last coat of epoxy went onto the repair areas 2 hours before we were lifted out of our 3 month parking spot by the Wrangell travel lift, barely having gotten the shelter dismantled from over the boat. We went back in the water with masking paper and tape still hanging off the port side; no anchor chutes; no working GPS or VHF; no p-vane / stabilizer poles -- these were still being worked on -- but with layers of boatyard grime and sediment covering DE... not really a triumphant return. Especially the initial bumper-car banging around the inside of the travel lift slot, as I tried (without electronics) to center the rudder.

As for re-coating the pilot house roof, which I figured for a couple days prep and in reality was a solid 3 weeks work to remove all fittings, cables and antennas from the cabin roof; re-bed the rails, radar mount and fittings that are remaining (and are now sealed under the new coating); strip/scrape the old non-skid (wearing down 1/2" from two steel gasket scrapers) chemically remove a layer of goop that was the original non-skid coat, which apparently never cured properly (went through several gallons of isopropyl alcohol and acetone on that -- fortunately found something less toxic than xylene); grinding / sanding with everything but the kitchen sink until we found a 16grit wheel on a low speed buffing grinder would take down the surface; install 3 new 'gooseneck' fittings to bring wires and cables into the boat with piercing the seal on the roof; an epoxy tie coat with garnet blasting material sprinkled in to give the polyurea something to adhere to. And finally, the polyurea, same kind of material as a truck bed liner which is sprayed from this very fancy and expensive machine. Whew! It's not perfect, and maybe a bit industrial looking, but I've worried for years about water-intrusion into the composite pilot house roof from the over 100 holes of various mountings, cables etc and my hopes are that this process will effectively resolve that issue.

Thank you to all at Superior Marine -- Don Sorrick, Beth, Ray, Jimmy, Victor and Carlos -- we will see you in September.

24 hours later, after overnight in a Heritage harbor slip, a quick 'bath' for DE and as much clean up and reassemble as time allowed, we departed Wrangell just before sunset, as Dorothy steered by hand down to Zimovia Narrows, while I was still mounting a GPS on the mast. A full moon up above the cloud cover made for pretty good vis on the 90 nautical mile run thru the night, to Ketchikan; some opposing 1' chop in Clarence Strait the only disturbance.

Within 12 hours (and a good nap) of arriving in Ketchikan, we had Kate, Darrel and DJ aboard, as Dorothy and I scurried around trying to transform DE from an on-the-hard work-in-progress into a ready-to-go cruising trawler, fit for company and a two year old (DJ had his second birthday aboard DE this past week; I was crewing DD382 MV Jubilee, Chesapeake to Lake Ontario via the Erie Canal two years ago when he arrived on the planet and was somewhere mid-Pacific, maybe Palau, crewing MV Shearwater, when he had his first B'day last May).

After a couple days for the kids to settle in and get a look around Ketchikan, we fueled, provisioned and departed for a circumnavigation of Revillagigedo Island. Misty Fjord National Monument is stunning -- when it's not raining so heavily nothing can be seen. Rusty and Rascal were thrilled to get back to a schedule of twice daily (at least) unleashed romps ashore, with DJ in constant hot pursuit regardless of the rough and slippery terrain underfoot -- that boy can get around!

The public landing at Naha Bay, site of the old Loring cannery was deserted when we arrived, so we were able to tie up and have free access to the trail without having to dinghy ashore. Over the next couple days, we did some hiking, some kayaking, met some nice folks (and one complete dickhead) and finally untied to return to KTN via Clover Passage.

Kate, Darrell & DJ wound down their visit -- way too short! -- with some tourist shopping in Creek Street, while I hunted for boat parts and did some electrical wiring in beautiful warm sunshine while visiting with our Bar Harbor slip neighbors, Doogan & Jolene (FV Pacific Bounty).

And now, our guests away, working on laundry and cleanup and a bit more work at getting DE put back together. Dorothy and I are looking forward to Sharon & Bob's arrival tonight and, in the next couple days heading north with stops in Wrangell, Petersburg, Tracey Arm, Baronoff Warm Springs and Juneau. Way better than working on the boat, on the hard, in the freezing rain.