7:30 PM. I am happily sitting at Central despite having nothing better to drink than boxed red wine. Somehow I left GANNET spiritless, a catastrophic deficiency I will rectify tomorrow. It is wonderful to be here. To be sitting precisely at sea level. To have water beneath me, not land.
When I walked down to the tiny boat yard at 9 AM I found GANNET already gone. I saw her in the travel lift at the far end of the pier just about to be lowered into the water. I made it there in time to see her smooth clean white bottom. Compare with the photos posted last Thursday.
The yard workers turned GANNET around so her bow was pointing out and asked if I wanted to tie up. I pushed the button on the Torqeedo which started, bless its electronic heart, said “No.” One of the men pushed the bow away from the dock and we whirred back to our slip.
The difference between the way GANNET moved through the water returning with a clean bottom from when we moved toward the haul out last week was dramatic.
Once we were in the slip, I hosed down the deck which was littered with leaves, and then went below and just sat at Central for a few minutes, glad to be home.
Then I found a dock cart and became a beast of burden. Two trips to the condo and back, followed by a few hours sorting and stowing.
I had bought replacements for all five of the Blue Performance cockpit sheet bags, however Blue Performance has slightly redesigned them so that the attachment loops don’t reach the hooks that the old ones did, After futile efforts to make them stretch, I ended up tying loops of Dyneema into the lower loops of the bags. They are in place. Whether this will withstand the sea is not yet known.
Not everything is yet properly stowed and there are still two bags of freeze dry meals at the condo and perhaps the new halyard shackle, I recall thinking that it might get lost, but what I did with it I do not know, So far I haven’t found it. I’ll check the condo tomorrow. It is only a $30 item and I may order another,
I inventoried my oatmeal, powered milk, and lunches. Other than buying Laughing Cow cheese and crackers, I’m set, as of course I am for dinners. I need more Starbucks instant coffee, dried fruit, Cheese-Its, chocolate, cookies, paper towels, and, of course, spirits, but I am already more than 90% provisioned,
I was listening to music before I began writing and will again after I post this. At present almost perfect silence broken only slightly by the sound of a distant halyard against a mast and GANNET’s fenders softly nudging the dock from time to time.
