29 May 18

I was up at the crack of dawn, having worried half the night about the outcome of my pending bill for knee surgery. After having been assured that my only expense would be the $1500 deductible, the hospital where the surgery was performed has presented a bill to my insurance company for $173,500, of which the insurance company will cover $11,500; they advised me that I may be responsible for the remainder. After early morning phone calls to all concerned, it appears I must wait for the hospital to make an “adjustment”, to see what my final liability will be. What a stupid game we play with medical insurance. I was on the road by 08:00 and arrived at the marina in Anacortes at about 13:30. After unloading the trailer, I returned it to U-Haul (glad to have that load off my back). I then went back to the marina to check out the boat’s condition and plan my next few days. After freshening up, I went to Anthony’s for dinner and had a nice chat at the bar with a couple of other boaters. 2700 road miles, altogether, in 8 days. Glad to be done with that.

30 May 18

I was up early again and went straight to work on the boat. Today’s list of accomplishments includes: installing the davits and falls, assembling the mast (ready for re-stepping), installing the dorade vents, re-commissioning the stern light, erecting the dodger and forward section of the bimini and associated arch supports (the rest will have to wait until the mast is re-stepped and the back-stays installed and radar arch erected), and re-installing and testing the EPIRB. Also, the topsides were power-washed and the bottom was washed and scrubbed - ready for the new application of ablative bottom paint. The boat was moved to the DIY part of the yard after power-washing, so now I am free to work on it as long as I can. They also moved the mast over by the boat and I spent a couple of hours installing the spreaders and getting the standing rigging all ready for restepping the mast. I still have to sand off a few rust spots on the cast-iron keel and treat them before the application of bottom paint. I got back to the hotel pretty well spent; just enough strength to pour a G&T, have a quick bite and crawl in bed at about 20:00.  

31 May 18

Unbelievably, after going to bed so early, I slept more-or-less straight through till 06:15. Then, it was up and at ‘em, boys. I spent pretty much all day renting a sander and shop-vac, setting up for and executing sanding all the rust spots off the keel. After the sanding was completed, I applied a liberal coating of marine primer to all the bare metal on the keel. The job was done just in time for yard closing at 17:00. I returned the rented sander and shop-vac and, after dinner in the room and a long shower (washing blue anti-fouling dust off of every conceivable surface on my body), collapsed early again.

1 Jun 18

Up again early, I was at the boatyard just after 08:00, spent 2 hours cleaning off all the road dirt from the mast and finished just as the crane and rigger showed up at 10:00 to re-step the mast. That job was done with dispatch and no issues, except one: as we were reassembling the radar mast, the GPS receiver unit, which sits on top of the radar, pulled loose as the coax cable connecting it to the main course computer had chafed right through. It is going to be a challenge to get this unit either replaced or repaired; I checked with West Marine, no luck, and then stopped by North Island Boat, whose instrument tech promised to stop by on Sunday to have a look at the options. In the afternoon, I spent a couple of hours caulking the seam between the cast-iron keel and the bottom of the boat with Marine 5200; I also caulked the seam between the stern gland fitting and the hull. Finally, I applied some Marine putty to a couple of big gouges in the rudder that we collected getting into a marina on the Tennessee River last year.

2 Jun 18

John texted that he was at the border at 06:45: he is coming down to help me with the bottom job. We both got to the boatyard at about 08:15 and set to work. We had the entire bottom job completed (except for a bit of touch up and the bits under the stands, which I will get to tomorrow) by noon. In the afternoon, we started working on waxing and polishing the topsides. John brought his old buffer and I was able to use my new buffer. Between us, we got about 2/3 of the topsides polished; it looks great. I should be able to finish it tomorrow along with the final touch-ups on the bottom job. John’s help has put me at least a day ahead of schedule. After quitting time, we retired to the Rockfish Grill for dinner and a celebratory libation. Then John headed back up to Vancouver and I came back to the hotel to crash.

3 Jun 18

The boatyard did not open until 09:00, Sunday hours, today, so I slept in a bit. The lads came round and relocated the stands about 11:30, so I was able to complete the bottom paint application, except for a little bit on the bottom of the keel, which I will get when they lift the boat up with the Travelift for the launch, presently scheduled for Tuesday, 5 Jun, 15:30. I finished waxing and polishing the starboard side of the boat and started on the after half of the port side, but it started raining at noon and I could not finish; a couple of hours tomorrow should suffice to finish this, my last essential chore prior to launching. In the rain, I pulled the mast cables through the deck penetrations and got them all hooked up, so the masthead, steaming and deck lights all work, along with the WindEx and the VHF antenna. I also hooked up the main sheet and the boom vang. Neither the electronics guy nor the mattress girl from North Island Boat showed up, as promised, so I will have to track them down tomorrow as well. It continued to rain all afternoon, so I knocked off at 16:30 and came back to the hotel for an early evening. I attempted to do a bit of research on the GPS puck replacement, but the Raymarine website is useless, so I will have to talk to someone tomorrow.

4 Jun 18

I slept well last night and arose about 06:30. After breakfast, I stopped by North Island Boatworks and tracked down Darian, the electronics tech. He followed me to the boat and agreed with my proposal to shorten the GPS’s coax cable and add in a coupling. He did the heavy lifting of soldering in the coupling and we installed the GPS on the top of the port-side davit, about 1.5 m from it’s original location atop the radar. A quick check of the on-board instruments indicates that it is working: I now have lat/long. data on the chart plotter. Next, I finished waxing and polishing the port side of the boat; she is ready to go in the water now. With the radar/GPS issue out of the way, I completed the installation of the bimini, so the entire cockpit is well-shaded once again. After lunch, I went up to the marina office to take advantage of their WiFi so I could renew my subscription and update the Navionics data card for the chart plotter. While I was doing that, I received a phone call from my health insurance company’s facilitator (for managing the move to Medicare); I called them back and 1.8 hours later, I’m all signed up for Medicare starting 1 Sep. Back at the boat, I lugged up the life raft and got that lashed down on the transom and completed installation of the newly updated cockpit enclosure; very flash. It is also very warm with the late spring wind, blowing straight off the Straits of Juan de Fuca, sealed out. On the way back to the hotel, I did a bit of grocery shopping and washed off the Admiral’s car. Now that I’m a dab hand at waxing and polishing with my new electric buffer, if I have time tomorrow, I will wax and buff her car before putting it into storage for the summer.