Just a quick note. I hope to get pictures posted later, there are some amazing ones of the sky when the squall line rolled through.

We were prepping on Monday and Tuesday for the haulout, and although we had gotten the Brazilian purpleheart for the starboard rubrail all sawed (awesome work, Derek!), drilled, countersunk, and bolted (to force a curvature before bedding it), we had not had time to take it all off again and bed it with 3M 4200. Grant helped in several ways, marking deck areas that need filling with blue masking tape and holding the rails as Derek and I attached them to the boat -- that took a lot of strength and effort! He says his arms were sore the next day. The weather was looking pretty ominous for Wednesday, so I went back to the boat after dinner Tuesday.

I cut a plastic dropcloth into three long skinny pieces and blue-masking-taped it above and below the rubrail; it covered the entire length of the rubrail with about 6" to spare. I put extra tape on the scuppers, leading over the plastic. Still, with the starboard side turned to the dock, prevailing weather was likely to get the cockpit pretty wet... but then Derek located a wonderful piece of canvas with a vinyl window for the aft end of the cockpit -- wow! It was sitting in the guest compartment along with a spare sail and the Brazilian purpleheart rails. Thank goodness for it, too, because the next day after the tornado warnings had passed, it just poured. And thundered.

We set forth in rain so heavy that it was hard to see. We made it to the haulout slip at the Shipyard and even docked ourselves with no one on the dock to help handle lines (he did come out eventually, just not before we'd tied up). Poor Derek was soaked to the skin! We waited an hour or more for the actual haul because of the lightning. The power wash went well, it was just pouring most of the time; Derek discovered that the speed impeller doesn't even turn, so no wonder the instrument panel speed indicator was off.

We also discovered that oysters like the interior of the portside engine raw water intake. So we'll be de-oystering a lot over the next few days...