Splashdown!

Thanks to everyone for a great Thanksgiving get-together, and a big shout out to Carrie for holding down the fort and letting Pat and I bail out for the Iron Bowl. The way the game turned out sucked, but being there was a lot of fun anyway. It's the greatest show on earth!

In other good news, the yard completed the bottom work on Moon this morning and we got her back in the water after lunch. The bottom work looks great, and the fiberglass work on the cutlass bearing hanger is really nice. There were a few things that didn't go exactly as planned, but all in all the work they did turned out really well.

I didn't have time to get her out for a sail today, but hopefully the weather will hold and I'll be able to take her out for a spin on the weekend.

Dinner at Sunnyside

I dropped in for a visit with Uncle Lee and Aunt Carol this afternoon after working on the boat for a while in the morning. Lee's making a strong recovery after being in the hospital last week, and I can tell he's eager to get things back to normal. He gave me one of his trade-marked scowls when I broke out the camera, which is a good sign he's starting to feel better....

Aunt Jeanene came by for a visit, too, and it was good to see her. She's going to St. Pete this weekend with Ron to test drive a retirement center - she's not too excited about that but it seems like it would be good for her to be closer to Ron and Lynn and the grandkids...... 

Carol had fixed dinner, and it was a feast....pork roast, black eyed peas, yellow squash, baked sweet potatoes, creamed white potatoes, and yeast rolls, all served up with an extra little bit of butter thank you very much. And apple pie and ice cream for dessert afterwards. Hush up yo mouth honey child.

All in all a great way to wrap up the weekend.

Bottom job

OK.....Moon's on the hard and we've had a chance to check out her bottom. No bad news so far - just the three little blisters that need attention and the repair to the cutlass bearing support strut.

I have no idea what could have caused the damage to the strut, by the way. The strut hangs between the back of the keel and the front edge of the rudder, and I would think that anything that hit it hard enough to crack the glass around it would have done some damage to either the keel or the rudder. Not the case, though. Odd.

The yard's been a little backed up, so it looks like it might be next weekend before the work can be finished at this point.

More pics to follow once the bottom work is done.

Repair started on cutlass bearing hanger strut. The glass at the top of the strut will be ground down,
 the strut sandblasted, and then new glass placed around the strut to cover all but
the actual cutlass bearing hanger.

This is a view of the cutlass bearing strut from starboard.....

This is one of the blisters that needed some attention. The area around the blister has been ground away,
removing all of the soft fiberglass. This will be filled in with new fiberglass and then covered
 with an epoxy barrier coat before the bottom paint is applied.

Is it just me, or do sailboats out of the water look like beautiful women
standing around in their underwear to you too?

Moonrise

Hey friends....how are things going in your world?

Life is good here, and getting better every day. An oppressively hot Florida summer has recently started to give way, and for the last few weeks we've enjoyed open window nights and windbreaker mornings. It only took a few nights shivering under just a top sheet for me to realize it was time to track down last year's blanket stash....

With the cooler weather I've been able to spend more time on Everlasting Moon, and the sailing has been great. The winds have been reliably easterly, which is perfect for sailing the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoon. Katydog and I have enjoyed a few overnights on the hook in the quiet up at the north end of the lagoon, and several happy evenings dockside here at the marina. The snowboat crowd has started to drift back in, and it doesn't take long to get caught up in conversation about their trips and adventures as they get settled in. The couple two boats down arrived from Boston last week in a 30 foot express cruiser, and they are great story tellers with an abundance of adventures from this trip and a dozen others to recount. There's also a sailing newbie a couple of slips the other direction that sold his house in Ohio, bought a boat online, and sailed it around Florida from Tarpon Springs. His enthusiasm for life in general and boats in particular energize everyone who walks past his slip.

Spending time in the marina and with the boating crowd has, of course, led to much daydreaming about carefree days on remote island beaches........and much deliberation about what really needs to be done to get Moon ready for extended cruising. My plans for a comprehensive refit have been dormant for almost two years now for a variety of reasons, but it feels like now is the time to get back to work on making the dream of sailing away.

The boatyard hauled Moon for me this morning, and this week she'll get treated to a new bottom job, installation of new depth transducer, and r&r of a couple of her original seacocks. Over the next few months will come some upgrades to the safety equipment, installation of a new dodger and bimini, installation of a solar panel and charge controller, replacement of the refrigeration system, updating the ground tackle, etc. etc. etc.......no timeline at this point for when everything needs to be done, and at this point I'm just focusing on enjoying each new improvement project as it comes.

Here's a short video of Moon in the slings.......

There were storm clouds building as the yard guys were getting her pressure washed and blocked up, and it was starting to rain as the yard manager came over to give her a quick inspection. Before running for cover we did have time to see that there are a few blisters that need to be repaired and there's a crack in the fiberglass covering the strut that holds the propeller shaft cutlass bearing . I don't think either of those things will be big issues, but they'll check'em out tomorrow and let me know what it will take to get them fixed.

That's it for now. I'll catch up with you later.