It was a cool 58 degrees with about 15 knots of wind, but we didn’t care. We were excited to sail again after a long winter hiatus! And of course sailing with friends is even better.

It’s always fun and exciting to spend time on the boat after a long winter and we have had a longer and colder than average winter and spring.

First the work needed to get done. We were able to get the winter cover off the boat. This was the first year that we did this job ourselves. When we had the winter cover made for the boat, as part of the purchase, Tom put the winter cover on the first fall and took it off the first spring. So, this year it was our job. Boy, that cover is bigger than it even looks. We were able to get the job done in a couple of hours with it all neatly folded up, stored in it’s bag and placed in the storage shed for when we need it again in the fall.

We also started the ever present list of projects for the year. Mark had taken all 3 winches off the mast in the fall. Each winch has a circular piece of teak wood that the winch gets mounted to. We took these teak pieces home over the winter and refinished them along with the hatch boards to the companionway and our boarding steps. All back in place and they look fantastic.

My job was cleaning up the stainless steel exhaust outlet on the transom of the boat and prepping and painting the scupper outlets on the transom of the boat as well. The paint on the scupper outlets was flaking off and just needed to fixed up a bit and this job is next to impossible to do with the boat in the water, so this is a good time to do it.

I was also able to clean all the stainless support poles for the dodger and bimini before we put the canvas back on those. The dodger and bimini are looking a little rough around the edges and now one of the zippers is coming apart. We have new canvas on the list as a future purchase, we just need to decide when and where that is going to happen.

Mark also greased the prop and checked out the zincs and got all that ready for the boat to get wet.

Boy, when I type the list of things completed, it doesn’t seem like much but we were busy all day. Of course, we are more than happy to mess around on the boat after not seeing her all winter 🙂