FEB 13TH - ON THE HARD

Here are blogs I've done the past few days in the website..

We spent Wednesday prepping the boat for travel through the lake to Slidell, LA where we were to pull out for painting the bottom and fixing up the prop and misc fiberglass work. In the afternoon, I was able to find a vet to get Benny all his shots and wormed before we left. I had read Tuesday night that Mexico wanted this done a month before we got there so I was fortunate to find a vet that had time. Our new friend, Benny, was able to drive me and the cat to the vet. Before we headed to the vet, Benny took Brett and I to lunch at a great restaurant called "Sweet Daddy's BBQ". It was AWESOME food.After the vet visit, we snagged Brett and the three of us drove through Benny's hometown of Abita Springs. He showed us the springs and the old brewery where he bought us shirts and, yes, Abita Springs Beer. LOL. I couldn't believe I was going to have beer on our boat. It was extremely sweet though and we couldn't refuse. We found later, that he had bought us fresh strawberries to go with the beer.After Abita Springs, he drove us to Walmart in Covington where we all joined in with the crazy shoppers and stocked up on groceries. This was definitely the busiest Walmart Brett and I had ever seen. Brett and I split up and we got everything on our list at the same time Benny got his groceries. After Walmart, Benny suggested we stop at Cafe DuMonde. It was my favorite place in Louisiana and we dined on FRESH Beignets and Coffee. YUM!!! It was a great afternoon shared by a great friend who knew the town well.

Thursday morning, we got up and prepped the boat for travel. We left around 830. The weather was sunny, cold and calm. We backed out and hollered good-bye to Benny on his boat as we passed. After passing the breakwater into Lake Pontchartrain, we spent awhile calibrating the auto pilot's compass. To do this, you have to spin the boat in two-three circles. The wind had come up a bit and it was challenging to make our circles at just the right speed, but Brett expertly gunned the motor at the right times and we calibrated it perfectly. Then we set the rudder limit and our auto pilot was ready to go. Brett let me adjust the

sails and play with the auto pilot. The wind was blowing around 8-12 knots and we made about 3-4 knots of speed with the main. It felt GREAT to be sailing again. It was the perfect speed, with no heeling. We let the auto pilot do a bit of the driving while we played with the sails and made coffee. Benny did great and remembered everything. He did get a little sick as he wasn't used to it the last few months but after he got sick he did a lot better and even came out in the cockpit with us most of the trip.

After an hour or two, the wind let up. We were slowly sailing at 1 knot. At that rate, we'd make Slidell at 9pm, so we finally succumbed to the motor at around 1130. We used our new binocculars to find the channel into Bayou Bonfouca. The trip was a complete success and we found ourselves requesting the Bayou Bounfouca bridge to be opened at the haulout yard. As the traffic piled up, the swing bridge slowly opened and we made our way to the travel lift.

Within a half hour, our boat was being hauled out. The bottom looked in EXCELLENT shape. There was very little slime on it and only paint blisters. The keel looked in good shape. The prop was full of barnacles and the zinc was half gone. The travel lift operator hastily power washed the bottom for us and moved us to the DIY yard. They blocked us up. We soon discovered that we'd bought the wrong bottom paint! We ordered two more gallons of the soft sluffing paint and offered our expensive hard-sluffing gallon to the yard for a small price. As they blocked the boat we discovered there were no ladders either! Apparantly, they'd been sued so the ladders disappeared or were locked to other people's boats. After searching around, Brett scrambled up the side that was about ten feet in the air. He tied line to our new swim ladder and attached it to the stanchions. After a struggle, I was able to crawl up the ladder onto the deck.

That evening, the travel lift operator offered us a ladder to rent from another boat owner for $5 a day. We gladly accepted. I haven't been off the boat yet, though. :)

We discovered we also needed resin and some supplies. I was going to make my way to the West Marine but discovered they were closed down! We are both anxious to get the boat back in the water. We are ecstatic that the bottom is in as good condition as it is. The bottom paint that Jose had put on it three years ago still held up really well. But the feather prop that we had been using on the engine was extremely loose and was probably the cause of the vibrations we'd been experiencing when motoring. Brett replaced the feather prop for our fixed one in hopes that it would be easier on the new, larger engine.Today, it is stormy- Brett is trying to grind on the hull as I sit inside the boat, sick with a virus. I haven't been sick for months and the day we haul out, I get a nasty virus. ack. We hope to have the bottom painted tomorrow. We are hoping to "splash" the boat (put it back in the water) on Monday.

I have lots of new pictures for you including our table that is FINALLY cut down to fit our boat, our new chart holder, Benny's boat and more.