update 24 January 2019

We’ll start our workday a little later today thanks to a storm.  Heavy rains in the late night hours leave things wet and messy and morning squalls with high winds are still passing through.

It has been a busy week here in Make Boat be Gone.  Jobs are getting crossed off Barbara’s to-do list.  We appear to be on schedule for a launch on Saturday the 26^th of January in this new year 2019.  Some jobs have been pushed to a future date.  We could have done the hull repaint to change from the wrong color they sent us last year to the correct color we ordered originally, claret.  Or, we could keep the existing color and arrive in time to pick up Madeline, our granddaughter.  Fire engine red for this year it is!

Cruising friends Larry and Barbara from SV “Hoodless” came from St Augustine for a visit.  That created a nice afternoon work break and an excuse to go out for shrimp dinner specials.  If we head south on the Intracoastal Waterway from Jacksonville we would pass through St Augustine and may get to see them again.

A couple nights ago, Tommy, our host and boatyard manager, invited us and several others to his home for a low country boil dinner on the veranda of his home. 

It was our first and I hope not our last.  The food was delicious, the folks enjoyable and the after dinner music played on beautiful custom Kight guitars most entertaining.

One day the mail delivery person saw Barbara working on the bow and stopped to take this pre-bottom paint picture and send it to us.  

At the time I was in the anchor locker putting nuts on the screws Barbara is holding. I’m not divulging my secret for getting into that tiny space. Alice in Wonderland, perhaps?

While I worked on other projects, Barbara took on the task of painting the boat bottom with bottom paint to protect the boat from barnacles, etc.  She has applied two coats all by her lone-self and will finish up some final spots later today if the sun comes out.  She’s a great worker.

We are down to little tasks such as bottom paint touch up and applying the boat name, hailing port and registration numbers, and then getting the motor home ready for several months sleep.  One big task left to complete is moving everything aboard and stowing it.  Tools, spare parts, cushions, clothing, bedding, and boat supplies.  Going through everything and deciding which to take aboard, which to store for now and which to throw away takes lots of time and trips up and down the ladder.  

We fired up the behemoth motor home for a day trip through town to complete last minute tasks; laundry, mail a couple items, pick up 1 needed machine screw, pick up the boat name, etc., and grocery shopping.

Oh yes, provisioning and stowage of those provisions is a huge task.  Many items are unavailable in tiny towns near anchorages in the Bahamas and are often more than triple in cost if you do find them.  Wine is hard to find and expensive and how would we survive without a glass in the evening to toast the most recent beautiful desert island anchorage?  Therefore many boxes of wine, with boxes removed, find their way into various hiding spots.

Between jobs yesterday we hauled armloads of the $600 worth of groceries purchased on the day trip.  It is one story up the ladder into the boat.  All is not yet loaded and each armload must be carried about a block from the motor home to the boat.  Then, late in the afternoon, the UPS truck arrives to drop off the two day delivery order from online shopping at Costco.  Everything had to be hauled up and sequestered in the boat before the rain. 

A reward presented itself in the evening.  We sat down by the shore of the St Johns River to enjoy a rest and an evening libation and were joined by boatyard friends. We shared treats and stories and a cloudy sunset before the storm.