We are in the water!!! Yeah! The 9 days we were in the work yard flew by at light speed. We quite literally worked ourselves silly. We got a spot in the new extended work yard, Nice new power and water pedestals and a better breeze factor. We got her settled into her new spot, hooked up the power and the water and unloaded a few things. She wasn’t moved until close to noon so we called it a day and headed to the condo. It was too hot to contemplate working that afternoon. We had arranged to have the yard do some work on the boat while she is here. They changed the engine’s water pump impellar and the fuel filters. It turned out to be quite a job and at one time there were 3 mechanics and Scott in the engine compartment and cockpit trying to get the fuel filters straightened away. I could see dollar signs rolling out the cockpit drain as they worked. Yikes.
I spoke too soon when I said Light Reach wasn’t nearly as dirty as other years. She was filthy. Two days of scrubbing for hours on end to get her looking even reasonably clean. They must have burned a bajillion acres of cane between the time we came up in October and now. There were ashes everywhere. In all the nooks and crannies I flushed out tons of it. Big sugar swings a mighty political axe in this state. The pollution from the burns wreak havoc on the poor folks downwind from the smoke healthwise. It’s a case of Samson vs. Goliath with Goliath winning the most rounds.
We’d been getting up before sunrise so we could work during the coolest part of the day. On the 27th, while we were traveling up 95 during rush hour traffic we blew a tire. That put quite a damper on that day! We were doing about 75mph when it went. Scott was able to get the car to the side of the road which required crossing four lanes of traffic. Thank goodness we had triple A and they were pretty prompt in getting a guy there to change the tire. Of course the flat was on the drivers side. We were on the shoulder with traffic whizzing by at 70 Plus mph. The poor kid was really taking his life in his hands changing the tire. He took it all in stride though and had the tire changed in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t too much of a delay and we were at the marina by 08:30
After cleaning the decks, on Thursday we moved on to sanding the bottom. It is always a nasty and dusty job. We rented a sander with a vacumn attachment from the marina and suited up in bunny suits with masks and goggles to do the job. We got lucky this year weather wise and while it wasn’t beastly hot it was still warm enough to work up a quality sweat inside those unbreathable suits.
We headed back to the condo for a quick shower and then to the tire store in Boca to get a replacement tire. We had hoped it would be covered under warranty. We thought the tire was faulty as the side wall was totally blown, but it turned out we had picked up a screw somewhere that punctured the tire, which caused the rim to cut through the side as we struggled to get off the highway. The guy did give us a bit of a discount but it was an expensive screw….. and we’ll just leave that at that.
Friday it was a wash job for the top sides. Light Reach had quite a beard from last winter’s set in Stuart which required some elbow grease to remove.
With the wet jobs done we painted the bottom on Saturday. Scott handled the roller while I managed the brush. The day was reasonable in the low 80’s with a breeze which made climbing into our bunny gear a little more bearable. The solvent in the paint stinks to high heaven but it’s a necessary task.
We took Sunday off and got to watch the Bills beat Miami! Go Bills! I did laundry and ordered some groceries for a Monday pm pick up. And we put together a serious load of stuff to take up to the boat.
Monday Scott polished the top sides with at little help from me. Most of my day was spent scrubbing the interior and storing all the stuff we had schlepped up that day. We had Adam move the jackstands in preparation for us to paint where they had been. That was an interesting few minutes as I was up top inside when he did that.
Tuesday was another schlep day and Scott put bottom paint on where the jack stands had been.
Today we brought up another load of stuff, including provisions for the next few days and prepped her to go into the water. I clambored up the ladder and we transferred the stuff onto the boat where I found homes for it. At 11;00 they brought her down from the yard and she was splashed. A quick look down below to insure we weren’t taking on water and she was released from the slings. We had booked a dock when we set our launch date and are now comfortably tied to the dock for the night. Let the season begin!

PIcture is LR going into the water.