Friday morning I was wanting to leave from Spanish Waters around to Willemstad early in the morning. When I looked out the hatch I realized that was not going to happen. The sky was pitch dark and it was coming our way.  It was a pretty big squall with some good wind gusts, and it did not clear up till 10 o’clock.
Once I left I had a good ride motor sailing to Willemstad, where the bridge opened just in time for me to squeeze through. When I got to Curaçao Marine it wasn’t quite clear where I was supposed to go, so I dropped the anchor and took the kayak to the yard. I was going to be the first one after lunch.
Things went real smooth, they are using some hydraulic trailer looking thing, behind a big John Deere tractor. It went so fast, the boat was out of the water before I had time to grab my camera, and once it was out of the water I could not climb on board until it was on its stands. They pressure washed for a good hour and most of the barnacles and growth came off. Saving me a lot of scraping and sanding.
The bottom still looks very nice, smooth in most places, except for the bottom of the keel. Which has scrapes as a reminder for the reef encounter on Aruba (in June).
Since then I have worked hard on scraping of the remaining barnacles (mostly where the lift supports where) and a touch cleaning of the growth above the old waterline. Also got the prop scraped clean, the brass looks nice and shiny now.
Monday morning the workshop will come and pull the prop off, that should allow me to get to the cutless bearing, which I plan on replacing.
Need to do some caulking, but the weather is not cooperating much. Showers come and go, and I need a clean and dry surface before I can start smoothing things out with epoxy.
Still thinking about how the new waterline and boot stripe are going to look like. Wanting to do it without requiring too many times of taping and painting.
Yesterday I got a lot done, today the rain is slowing me down. It is going to be a race to get things finished before the end of the week.