Three weeks in the boatyard. Hopefully this is our last full day. The new propeller cones arrived yesterday so Mike fixes one together and attaches it to the boat – so much easier when the boat is out of the water.
He then has the laborious job of restringing the trampoline to the crossbeam – we had to untie it all in order to paint it.
We arrange a hire car so that we can go into St George to buy some provisioning for the next week and also to get the missing safety items that we need to comply with the WCC safety regulations. However, later in the morning, Nicholas arrives and tells us that the boat is going in the water at 1 pm today. All change again.
Louis arrives to cut the screws off that are sticking out rather dangerously from the ceiling. As he grinds them down, sparks fly everywhere. I have visions of my lovely (if rather untidy) boat going up in smoke, but he keeps dampening the steel down so that it doesn’t overheat and all is well.
I manage to sweet talk Louis into chopping off the overlarge screws that stick out from the solar panel clamps and have been damaging the outer skin of our dinghy.
I am just cooking lunch when I hear the familiar bleeping of the Travel-Lift approaching. I hurriedly get off the boat, grabbing my camera on the way to film the event. The lift is manoeuvred into place then the slings are arranged in the right place (hopefully), then she is lifted and her supports are removed. While she is in the air like this, men scurry underneath her and paint the very bottom of the keels with antifouling.
Then the Travel-Lift starts to bleep again and she is off. As it heads down towards the sea, we walk behind, rather like a funeral procession. As long as she stays afloat (after all, holes for various wires have been drilled into the hull since she was last in the water) we won’t be having a burial at sea!
I leap onto the back of the boat just after she goes in the water and throw the lines to the guys waiting either side of the slip. Gradually the slings are lowered below the hulls and withdrawn, leaving Jeannius, thankfully floating on the water. We motor out, just managing to clip the wooden pilings at the end of the slip due to a sudden gust of wind, but it’s a gentle clip and my paintwork is not damaged. Heads would have rolled!!!
We tie up just round the other side of the slip. We have already proved that both engines work. We turn on the generator – that works too and both the fridge and freezer come start up so we know we can go shopping. Firstly though, Louis and about 5 other guys come over to put the main up to check that there are no hitches with the new rigging arrangements.
As it is now nearly 3pm we leap in the car with Tim, our ‘neighbour’ from the boat that has been standing behind us for the last three weeks. We visit Island Water World where Mike spends a fortune (the actual amount he refuses to tell me) on safety equipment that we hope we will never has the misfortune to use, then we go food shopping. How we manage to fit everything in the car I don’t know but we just about do.
I unpack everything and fill up the fridge and freezer. It’s so nice to have them working again, and now they both have new seals they should stay colder and use less power.
Having dumped all the safety equipment in the salon, it looks more of a mess than ever. We lock the boat up and go back to the cottage for our last night. We are halfway through watching a film when Mike says he wants to go back to the boat to check that she is OK where we tied her as the wind has changed direction. He is gone for ages, but returns having tied Jeannius even more securely with even more lines.
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