Back in the Water - Adjustments Required

Well, we've not been on the water since last December and it's definitely noticeable. Cups seems to be enjoying it just fine. She's bobbing in the bay water, rocking and rolling with the waves and wakes. She strains on her mooring like a horse at the starting gate, rearing to go. We, on the other and, are finding it necessary to make a few adjustments to living on the water again.

We can't just climb down the ladder and head to the store or chandlery any more. It requires a dinghy ride. Because of security issues here, the dinghy and engine are hauled each night, so it's a bit of extra work getting ashore. On the other hand, we do not have climb down the ladder to empty the pee bucket or to go pee. I'll vote for launching the dink any time. Dropping something from the deck no longer results in “thud” and descending the ladder to retrieve the screwdriver or whatever. Now we just hear “splash” and whatever dropped is gone forever. Not that we've ever dropped anything into the water ...

On the other hand, there's no need for the long, hot, dusty walk to the Massy's Express Supermarket at Crew's Inn for our daily provisions. Instead, we can just dinghy across the harbor, tie up at the Crew's Inn dinghy dock, do our shopping and dinghy back. Much faster, more convenient and definitely less sweaty.

We haven't been taking it easy though. Before we can leave, there's still lots to do now that Cups is in her element. David reattached the jib furler, tensioned the shrouds and tuned the rig. He reassembled the furler and ran the furling lines.

Early on a calm, windless morning, we hanked on the foresails and re-rigged the sheets. I've been working on polishing the stainless, filling up the easy-access lockers from the larder, and stowing stuff we won't be needing and what seems like a million other little chores I can't seem to think of now. I'm also still researching possible ports-of-call along the way north, though time is short and there won't be much time for stopping if we're to be north of Cape Hatteras by June 1. David just completed an oil change on the engine and has begun stowing his tools and supplies.

It's the welcome sound of gulls and terns crying as they fly over that wakes us in the morning now rather than the melodic sound of kiskadees sitting on our solar panels. Frigate birds soar gracefully high above us and pelicans swoop low, just over the water's surface, looking for breakfast. The whir of the wind gen spinning is almost comforting.

The mooring field is quite full and there are anchored boats as well. Chaguaramas Harbour is anything but calm and quiet. There's a certain amount of fetch that comes into the bay when it's windy (and it has been) which can make it a bit rocky aboard. Most of the rock'n'roll however is from the never ending boat traffic around us … fishing boats, ferries, pilots, pleasure boats … all with a penchant to go fast and as close to the moored boats as possible.

One motor boat came so close to a small, anchored sailboat that its propeller clipped the sailboat's anchor rode, cutting it loose. The folks on the sailboat were off the boat at the time and another diligent cruiser noticed what happened and rescued the boat. Earlier today, we were “nudged” by a large sport fishing boat. He just wasn't paying attention. There was quite a racket as he detangled himself from our big anchor sitting on the bow, but thankfully, no harm done.

It's crazy out here … and noisy. Locals enjoy loud music and there are lots of party boats that go back and forth all night long, music blaring. Around 5am, it tapers off. Time for us to get up and start our day. Since our mooring is only ~200' from shore, we're entertained non-stop. In fact, many times it sounds as if the DJ is on our deck!

I think of the rock'n'rollin' ride as a good chance to recover our sea legs a bit and staying up all night with the local music is good practice for night watch. Now if we can only remember how to sail!

Splashed!

A great word … “splash”. It's a figure of speech called onomatopoeia … when a word mimics the sound it actually makes. There's always a little trepidation when we hear the TraveLift rumble up and get into position to lift Cups for her trip back to the water. They hitched up the straps, lifted her a little and then removed the stands. David snuck underneath to paint the small patches at the bottom of the keel that we hadn't been able to paint.

Will those straps hold our 20-ton girl? Of course, they will, but there's always a hitch in our breaths as they pull the stands away.

We followed her down the dirt road to the haul-out/launch bay. The TraveLift moves about 2 miles/hour and Cups swayed ever so slightly as they rolled along. It wasn't hard to keep up.

The driver aligned the TraveLift wheels with the narrow tracks and they moved Cups over the water. Slowly, slowly, slowly they lowered her and then in slow-mo, her keel touched the water. There's no actual loud splash … at least there shouldn't be. It's a gentle reunion with the water and she was once again floating, the straps still in place till we boarded her and made ready to go.

We clambered aboard, a long step from the TraveLift track onto the port side deck. David checked the new seacock and thru-hull for leaks and made sure the engine seacock was open. He started the engine and burped the new shaft seal. We checked there was water coming out the exhaust. He gave forward and reverse gears a try to make sure we were ready. We'd already rigged lines and the dock guys were holding the lines as the TraveLift lowered and released the straps and Cups was on her own. We backed slowly out of the launch slip into the waters of Chaguaramas Harbour.

As luck would have it, Zephyr, a sister ship to Nine of Cups, had been hauled the day before. Bill stopped by just before we splashed to ask if we were interested in the mooring they'd just left which was all paid up for another week. How sweet is that? David maneuvered us to the mooring field, I hauled in the docklines and prepared to pick up the mooring. Two tries before I lassoed the sucker … I'm out of practice. But we're back in the water and making plans for finally putting some miles under the keel in 2016.

Dash & Cash Before We Splash

Even though we reserve our splash date and time just a couple days in advance, the last minute dash to get everything done just before we splash is always hectic. There always seems so much to do and so little time to accomplish it even though it's a planned event. Because the antifouling is always done at the last minute, we applied the last coat the day before we splashed which meant removing the masking tape and doing several other odd chores like replacing the hull zinc on splash morning. We were up with the sun. I waited till the very end to get the laundry done (just one more load) in hopes of limiting the amount of sweaty old t-shirts and painting clothes we'd have aboard before I had the chance to do laundry again. Our bunk had clean sheets. David filled the water tanks to capacity. He washed down the decks which were filthy with soot and bushfire debris along with gravel and boatyard grime. Since we have no refrigeration for this trip, the last minute provisioning of freshies would have to wait till we were in the water and ready to head out.

I cleaned and vacuumed below while we had fresh water and power available and stowed anything that might jar loose with the move and the splash. We disposed of last minute trash while a trash bin was handy. David had downloaded all of our Yahoo emails into a new folder, so that we could sync with SailMail and get shadow mail up and running again for our upcoming passage. He'd also renewed our BuoyWeather subscription. We had plugged in every possible electronic device and battery to charge them up while we still had land AC power. We'd sent as many blogs and pix to Gentry as we could in advance because the odds of having wifi aboard while out in the mooring field were pretty slim. I paid our boatyard bill (No cash … no splash). Ouch … that hurt the old bank account!

We removed the covers from the windscreens and instruments and rigged docklines. A forklift drove up ...they removed the A/C unit from the coach roof hatch. All the scaffolding was cleared away. A last minute cuppa before the ladder was taken away … the last thing to go as soon as the TraveLift arrived.

We're ready … let the splash begin.