October 6, 2009.

Hey look, it’s freakin’ October; and while you’re lookin’, Hey look, we’re back in the water.

We were out of the water for 12 days, bridging 2 weekends. It allowed me the opportunity to compound Verandas hull. After completing the compounding I applied a coat of wax.

Christy and I teamed up to sand and apply 3 coats of Cetol to all the topside wood with Christy doing the lion share of the work. She also waterproofed the dodger and bimini. She even found the time to get the Maxprop back to its former gleaming self. Then I took it apart to make sure it was tight on the prop shaft, greased it and reassembled it. There were also new zincs for the prop and shaft.

Christy cleaned the dinghy and all the associated paraphernalia. She removed and washed the dinghy chaps which also needed some sewing repairs which included the appropriate swearing etc. She then decided to apply a coat of paint to the dinghy’s deck with a little nonskid thrown in for good measure.

I serviced the thru hulls and attacked the problematic bow thruster. The bow thruster was blowing its breaker after 30 seconds of use. I just figured that it was overgrown with barnacles and the extra mass was too much for the motor. Several months ago it permanently failed and the breaker wasn’t the culprit. Since we very rarely use the thing it wasn’t a big deal and was soon forgotten.

Since we were out of the water and the thrusters blades were freshly cleaned, I delved into the problem. I checked one thing after another before finally finding that the main switch for arming the thruster was badly corroded. So this corrosion was making a lousy connection, drawing more amps than necessary until the breaker was overwhelmed and blew. Finally, the last time the corrosion had become so bad that switch passed no electricity whatsoever.


With the real problem found, it was easily remedied and another thing crossed off the to-do list.

Then we finally applied 2 coats of bottom paint to Verandas tush to keep the slime at bay. On Tuesday morning we were up at 0700 to put the chaps back on the dinghy. After that, the dink was hoisted back up into its resting place on the radar arch.

Tuesday afternoon the travel lift showed up and in short order we were once again back afloat. YEAH!!