Today officially started “Boat Work Week”.  Well actually it will be two weeks if we’re lucky, three if not.  More than that I don’t want to think about.

Anyway, we motored down to Ray Roberts Marine and Boatyard.  I think it’s actually called Riverside Marine, but “Ray’s” sounds better.  Just getting here took a little drama.  Two days ago I realized I had no clue as to where the key to the engine was.  I had a couple hazy memories that I might have hidden it in case of robbers while we were gone (note to self: Don’t do this again)!  Then after searching high and low through all the boat, I thought; “Well, maybe I gave it to Sharon, the marina manager”.  Problem was, that was yesterday which was a holiday in NZ so we couldn’t call Sharon and see if she had it.  No worries we thought, I probably did leave it with her and we’ll just get it in the morning.  Come morning, Ann went over to the Marina office while I met with Roger the Doyle Sails rep who wanted a couple last measurements before cutting the fabric for the new sails.  We got the measurements but No Bueno on the key.  Oh crap!  Our time to go down to the boatyard was past since the tide had changed.  Rats!  So we decided to double down on looking in drawers, under boards, etc, etc.  Each of us went back to drawers we had searched yesterday and dumped everything out on the floor and voila-The Key!  Turns out it was exactly where it should have been, but I outsmarted myself by taping a piece of grey duct tape over it with the words; “No H2O” on it to remind myself that I had closed the raw water through-hull intake while we were gone.  This was to avoid a potential catastrophic leak while we weren’t aboard.  But the grey tape made the key impossible to see in the dark drawer.

 

Oh well.  We’ve both decided that next year we will write notes about where we store everything and hide them so no burglars will find out where our good stuff is.  That way we’ll be able to find everything…once we find the notes.

 

On to business!  Now that we’ve found the key and were able to start the engine, we have now relocated to Ray’s.   We’re spending a nice, calm evening on their dock and then will haul out tomorrow.  I always get stressed hauling out.  Boats aren’t meant to be out of the water sitting on the ground.  We’ll be living aboard and will have to climb seven feet up a ladder to get to the deck and in the boat.  We have four pages of projects to complete. The biggies are:  bottom paint, varnish the brightwork, wax and polish the hull (makes it easier to clean as we travel) and install the new electronics (Crappy B&G instruments gave up the ghost.  They were only four years old and the line has been discountinued. No replacements available and they are not repairable-we’re switching to Raymarine which at least is easier to find replacements for). These days software compatibility is the issue and I’ve purchased a converter to allow my old network to talk to the new one (hopefully).  For you techies, we’re going to try and get the older NMEA 0183 standard network to talk to the new NMEA 2000 SeaTalkNG net.  Good luck to me.  More on this as the next couple weeks progress.  In the mean time, I’m drilling new holes for the different size instruments and pulling new wire, since the old cables are not compatible with the new instruments.  Grrrrr.

 

OK, time for a glass of wine and some sunset.  More pictures later of tomorrow’s haul out.

 

P.S.  On a more positive note:  We got a knock on the hull and a “Ahoy Charisma” this afternoon.  Turned out Jim Fair from Berkeley Yacht Club is docked right next to us.  He and his wife left Berkeley a year before we did and we’ve heard they were down here.  Funny what a small world.  We’ve agreed we are going to get together in the next couple days to swap lies about our trips.  Yay!