CaribbeanGrenadaWorking on the boat

Hauling Guiding Light out

By August 25, 2020 No Comments

Last blog I left you as I was motoring around the south side of Grenada on my way to Grenada Marine in St David, which is on the southeast corner of the island. It was a three hour trip that I had to motor partly because it was upwind and partly because I already had both sails striped off the boat, folded, and stored in the solon.

By the time I was able to pull up anchor and start heading over there it was 4pm, so I knew it was going to be close to sunset before I arrived. Lucky for me I had already been in and out of St David Harbor and there were mooring balls available. I say lucky because I did not get in at sunset….no, no, no I got in with the last twinkles of dusk and was hooked to a mooring ball with no more than 10 minutes before complete darkness. 🙂

Once there I spent two days on the mooring doing everything I could to finish getting the boat ready to haul out and store for four months. This included bagging all my clothes and linens, shutting off and cleaning out the frig, pumping and cleaning out the bilges, pulling equipment inside, and so much more. I even went to the dock the day before the haul out to have access to the water hose so I could clean the cockpit enclosure (before letting it dry and rolling it up), flushing the dinghy engine, and scrubbing out the toilets.

By the time the boat was hauled out of the water all I had left to do was drop and hang the anchor & chain, flush the main engines, drop the dinghy to the ground, and do a walk through with the yard to get projects done while I am away. The main projects are rather small this year, but starts with a water leak I was having in the starboard side engine compartment. As soon as it was hauled out the water drained from the boat and it was obvious where the leak was and the fact that it was from some old screw holes someone put in the boat to secure the rubber boot around the saildrive.

Another project was my dinghy with became a train wreck the last month I was in the water. It started with me noticing the outer hull was cracked at the stern and letting water into the space between the two hulls. This was something I had repaired last year, but broke again (not real happy with the previous work to say the least). Next I developed a leak in all three of my pontoons over night, which turns out was just one small hole and the pontoons were leaking into each other. The final thing that happened was the pull cord mechanism on the engine broke a small plastic piece that is vital to using it. Of course this happened the afternoon before I sailed from St Lucia to Grenada and then in Grenada I had to spend two weeks in quarantine. It was not until I got out of quarantine that I even need the dinghy and by then I was hauling out in a week, so I left it and was able to start the dinghy the old fashion way of taking a small rope and wrapping it around the fly wheel and pulling. Just like the old engines and lawn mowers. Took time to figure it out, but I got good at it. 🙂

I have other projects and maintenance I am getting taken care off and if you want to hear more about them then you should listen to the YouTube Live video I am doing with my best friend on Thursday at 11am EDT. This is the one I was going to do last week, but Joel was not available. I really hope you will take the time to join us, so you can call in and chat. 🙂

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