Haul Out

The day has arrived. We postponed the haul-out several times over the last month, as we were in no hurry to leave the Caribbean. But we were finally approaching some unavoidable deadlines. I had an (online) conference, DebConf 21 that I was helping run, and needed to be on shore with good Internet.

So, with the help of our friends Mark and Michael, again, we motored around the point to Prickly Bay and slowly backed into the Spice Island Marina slip. Mark guided me through the final manoeuvres, and we got the yacht hauled out.

Spice Island Marina's travel lift is slightly too small for us, so we had to take down our back-stays and the stern tower with the wind generator. Taking them down was easy, but getting them up again was a challenge. We had to call in the riggers at Turbulence Marine for help, when we just couldn't get one of the back-stay fittings to line up with the hydraulic ram it attaches to.

Then started a crazy scramble as we did as much preparation as we could in the next 2 days, before flying back to Canada. Some things got forgotten in the rush, and many postponed to pre-launch, but the essentials were done. The water maker was pickled in the morning, before we hauled out. The engines had their oil changed, and got a good fresh water flush. The main sail was parcelled and all the gaps plugged with old towels, to discourage birds from nesting in them. And many other little jobs, like storing everything removable on deck, down below, greasing locks, etc.

We'd finally received our carving and marking notice for the new registration, so we got a local print shop to cut our new name in vinyl.

Boat yard life is hard and hot, thankfully Spice Island marina have some air-conditioned bedrooms to rent, so you can have a cold shower and recover from the heat, after a few hours of pouring sweat off in the sun.

We managed to go out for dinner to celebrate my birthday, and thank our helpers, at La Phare Bleu marina in the middle of the crazyness.

Next time we haul out, we'll try to schedule more than 2 days to pack the yacht away. It can be done, but it's not really long enough.

Navionics Track