So, since we were delayed a day getting the boat in the water, we slept on the boat in the boatyard last night. Since we are “on the hard” we did not have the benefit of air conditioning, however the weather has cooperated and last night it dropped down into the low 60’s so the weather was great for sleeping with the hatches open. We were up fairly early this morning since we knew they would be launching our boat today. I think we were up around 7 – 7:30 am. The guys started showing up and getting moving about 8 am. We had just made coffee when we heard the, “beep, beep, beep” of the travel lift coming over to our boat to pick us up to put us in the water. We quickly put some lines on both the bow and stern on both sides so that when the boat was put in the water they would have lines available to move and control the boat. Then we scampered down the ladder and out of the way for them to move the boat to the water.

I got one final pic of the boat in the yard with the bottom all painted and the boat looking all nice, washed and waxed.

Then it was show time! It was nice to stand by and watch them work while I enjoyed my coffee this morning.

And just like that, Painkiller was in the water! That feels much better!

Once we were in the water, the guys moved us forward on the dock a few boat lengths and tied us off on the dock. Every marina does things just a little differently and this marina brings you to and from your slip when you launch or come out of the water. They hip tie a smaller boat to our boat and motor us over to the slip. However, before they are ready to move us we have to wait for about an hour or so at this dock. There is another boat they are hauling out and it appears the guy has something wrong with his bow thruster. He works on that for a little bit and then they put the boat back in the water. While we waiting, we check over the boat and look for leaks since we are in the water, we started the engine and let it run a bit to ensure everything is working fine and just sat around and enjoyed our coffee and some morning tunes.

Finally the guys are ready to bring our boat over to the slip. We are back in slip D13 which is exactly where we were over 2 months ago before we took the boat out of the water.

Now the real work begins…the topsides of the boat are filthy dirty. This boat needs a bath. Because the bottom of the boat was soda blasted there is this grey film of fine dust all over the boat and for some reason is worse in the bow of the boat. It appears that it has been there so long that it doesn’t come off with just soap and water, it barely came off with rubbing compound, so I had to resort to using the On and Off cleaner which is a mild acid cleaner to get the grey film off. The only downside to On and Off is that it strips all the wax off so I will need to re-wax everything too.

We also put the sails back on the boat as well.

There are a ton of jellyfish in the water. Here they call them sea nettles. Here is a pic of one of them. I don’t think I want to go swimming.

We worked all day to clean and get the boat live able once again. The next day it rained literally all day, so we literally did nothing and rested. However, we did enjoy a great meal of Leone spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

The next day it rained a bit less, however it was still very cloudy, rain on and off for most of the day. So today was my day to inventory my food pantry. I needed to know what was in there and make sure everything still looked ok after 2 months and not had exploded or gone bad. I also had to compile our grocery list for a major grocery shop to get some food back on the boat. I still have lots of canned goods and non-perishable items but anything perishable was gotten rid of while we were gone for 2 months.

Later in the evening we walked to the other end of the marina and had dinner at the Dockside cafe. We were watching the radar trying to figure out if we would be able to make it back without getting wet. The answer was no. Looking at the forecast, it is looking like the weather tomorrow is going to clear enough for us to leave Herrington Harbor and make our way to Annapolis!