In the Water

[Kevin's Post]We couldn't have asked for better weather for our launch than what we had yesterday. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and very light winds. We were both pretty nervous about maneuvering the boat for the first time in 18 months and discovering exactly what equipment did and did not work. Our objectives for the day were to back the boat out of the travelift bay, head over to the fuel dock to top off the diesel, and tie up in our slip. Hopefully without hitting anything. I had run both the diesel engines for a while in the yard, so I knew the engines would at least start, but we weren't sure what other problems might appear. Before we were even in the water we discovered that all the navigation instruments were dead. No depth sounder, no wind speed, no wind direction. Wind speed and wind direction are useful tidbits of information when trying to dock a 10 ton boat. Fortunately the wind was light so the lack of instrumentation wouldn't complicate things too much. We backed out of the bay and were pleased to discover that the transmissions on both engines seemed to be working just fine. We were also pleased to discover that the starboard engine was no longer belching black smoke like it was before we put the boat in storage. I had spent a day in the yard replacing the exhaust elbow on this engine thinking that it might be the problem and apparently it was. We docked at the fuel dock like old pros and after fueling radioed ahead for some dockhands to help us tie up in the slip. The whole thing was fairly anticlimactic really.

After we were secure in the slip, we began to test the equipment we couldn't check out in the yard. We were relieved to find that the air conditioning worked just fine and also the water pump (for the faucets, showers, etc.) The outboard doesn't look or sound pretty (it never did), but at least it started up and runs in forward and reverse. Neither of the toilets are working and the port shower sump is DOA also. So, it looks like we will be using the marina facilities for a while until I can fix these problems.

It would have been nice to relax after 5 days toiling in the boat yard, but we only had the car for another 24 hours so had to hurry and provision the boat. We were up very late last night and early again this morning trying to organize in the hours we couldn't be out shopping. Today it was go, go, go as we tried to hit Sam's Club, Grande (local grocery store), K-mart, West Marine, Pep-Boys, and also get the propane refilled. Miraculously, we managed to get all our errands done and return the car on time. We'll spend the next few days getting things organized and making repairs and hopefully leave the marina after the weekend.

The marina is very large and has a golf cart service that picks you up and drops you off at your boat. Today we shared a cart with a couple on another boat a few slips down and they invited us over for drinks this evening. We took some rum we had bought in St. Vincent a couple years ago and spent the evening chit-chatting about boating life and sipping rum & cokes. Not a bad end to our first day back in the water.