The boatyard blues... 11.18.07

Well, we were doing pretty good this week - we actually believed we could only be in the boatyard for a week and back in the water by Thanksgiving. HA! But then.....reality hit us. Michael was fitting the new prop and turns out, the prop shaft was too long and the prop was hitting the rudder. So....we had to remove the prop shaft and have it cut to remove approx 1", remachined for the keyway and set screws. And it's the week of Thanksgiving! We have no clue how long it will take to get this done - the shaft is being taken to the machine shop tomorrow and hopefully we can get it back soon!

Other than that, everything else went pretty smoothly. The re-painting of the masts has also been delayed as suddenly on Thursday it began to be cold & wet and Chris couldn't paint in this weather. There were a couple hours on Friday, about an hour on Saturday, and an hour on Sunday that Chris could actually paint. And of course the paint didn't fully cover the yellow primer so he has to paint another coat....and to make matters worse, we're only short about 1 oz of the proper color so Michael will be asking fo some at the boatyard!

One item that was a problem on Friday was the Fishfinder transducer cable turned out to be wrong so Michael had to search & order the correct one, which we expected wouldn't arrive until Monday. Surprisingly though, the correct cable was delivered & installed on Saturday!

So what's left? A 4th coat of bottom paint since we ended up with excess, the final coats on the masts, cleaning & waxing the masts, and the biggie - the newly adjusted rudder shaft & propeller.

We're heading to Palm Springs to on Wednesday to spend Thanksgiving with Michael's family - Mom & Pete, Dad, & Jennifer, Walter, Gracie, & Nolan. We're returning on Saturday so it will more than likely be Monday the 26th before the boat can go into the water, and the following day for the masts to be put back on and the boat moved back to Channel Islands. We moved out of Jeanne & George's boat and have been staying at Sue & Denny Chenoweth's house since Friday. It's always so amazing when you switch between a boat and a house....we forget about all of the modern conveniences or luxuries....hanging out by the fireplace, finding a high-speed unsecured wireless signal alowing you to catch up on everything, large-screen TV, Tivo!, a bathroom you don't manually flush, walking 15 steps out the back door to the car in the driveway, a dishwasher without the name Michael or Rene, and oodles of counter space! And their beautiful house is right on the beach....so we enjoy spending most of Sunday sitting by the fire, watching & listening to the waves crash, and the surfers enjoying the pounding surf. We'll try not to get too spoiled!

Until the next update....Cheers! I hope to have more pictures soon!
Rene