Becky Goes To Wiarton!

This day started very early for me. It was like I was a kid again waiting to head downstairs on Christmas morning. I’ll admit it. I was very excited about what the day was going to bring. It was still too early to get up so I checked my email.

This is the email that will notify me if there had been any comments on my blog. It seems that my 91 year old father stayed up until 12:30 to post a comment. I’ve seen him type and I’m pretty sure that he would have had to start it sometime mid-afternoon. Seeing what he wrote and knowing how long it would have taken him made me very emotional.

Of course I may have had something in my eye …

The truck was scheduled to arrive at 10:00 so we got there earlier to get it ready. Tom had driven my father up from Fonthill so he could watch the process.

The first thing he had to do was do a final inspection on the work. We passed.

Then he set himself up in a lawn chair to watch the action.

The entire process took about an hour.

After getting her strapped in…

And a final group photo…

We were on our way.

I’ve seen this boat so many times now I wonder what people must think when they pass it on the road. They probably question the sanity of the person (or persons) who would buy such a huge boat. I question my wife’s state of mind for letting me do this.

The weather was beautiful when we arrived in Wiarton. These photos were taken from our slip. The Niagara Escarpment runs along side the marina and we are definitely looking forward to spending time here.

This is from the end of our dock looking out into Colpoy’s Bay. Yeah…really looking forward to it.

The truck arrived safely with Becky on board and the marina staff immediately put it into the travel lift.

Seriously! Two large straps are all that is holding this thing up.

Pretty cool shots.

… and 10 minutes later she was in the water.

… and 20 minutes later … she was out again!

Yeah! This is where the day took a bit of a turn. The culprit?

It looks like we have a few leaks in the boat.

It wasn’t like water was rushing in … it was more of a small trickle … but leaks they were nonetheless. There were 3 that I could see and they were all at the thru hull fittings. The air conditioning pump in the aft bilge, the water intake for the starboard engine, and one of the transducers.

Donald and I were of course very disappointed. Visions of dollar signs danced in our heads (I did mention that it was like Christmas Day earlier) but I think the biggest disappointment was that it would most likely be a while before we could get it back in the water. The marina is still busy doing repairs on boats and it would be at least 3 weeks before they could work on her.

So they blocked it and we put the bimini back on.

We were also able to get a temporary storage location for the dinghy.

Here is our boat’s spot for the next 2 to 3 weeks.

On the way home I made a few calls and one of them was to Jeff. You remember Jeff?

He’s the one on the right.

Of course this is a trick. Jeff is also the one on the left but I was talking to Right-Jeff.

Anyway … I explained to Right-Jeff what was happening and he spent the next 10 minutes talking me off the ledge for which I will be forever grateful. He explained the realities of boat life and that there are leaks and that there are ways of minimizing them so that the bilge pumps don’t have to working all the time.

I will be heading back to Wiarton on Saturday to do some maintenance on these fittings and will explain more about what I will be doing then.

As for now? It’s late and it’s time to stop looking at a computer screen.

Oh yeah … I also hit myself in the nose today with a bimini pole (this one is for Kevin).

I hope everyone has a great week.