She Swims

We relaunched today.  Our stint in the boatyard is over, and Pelagic made the transition from land-bound lump to swimming vessel, nearly animate in her natural realm.  Even if it was just for the 300 meter passage from the ramp to the marina dock.

To get us to this point, I worked in the yard for three weeks and two days without a day off.  In a perfect world, this is more than fun or good sense would allow.  And this is a good indication of why cruising boats and full time jobs are such a poor match - there's just not enough time for both.  Of course, some people pay other people to work on their boats, but our model for affordable cruising involves us doing all our own boat work.  Not having the full time job means not being able to afford professional boat yard help.  And we find that we typically do better work than the pros.  At the end of the day, the pros go home, and the sailors go sailing - who's going to do a more carfeful job?

The grand finale was the two days that I got to the yard at 0630 so that I could put the final coats of paint on the topsides (the part of the hull above the water) before the day heated up and the paint became too difficult to work with.  Repainting her was a huge job, maybe 100 hours all up.  Luckily, all that time seems to have produced a good result.

 

And, in a curious, circle-within-a-circle sort of twist, the boat that came onto the hard just before we launched was named Iolanthe.

This is only the second Iolanthe that I have ever seen.  The first was a Crealock 37 that had been sitting in the back corner of a boat yard in Annapolis for a little too long, waiting for a new owner, and which we proceeded to buy and rename Pelagic.

Meanwhile, the rest of our life is going on.  Elias is enjoying his weekly swimming lesson at the Hobart Aquatic Center, one of those public sport facilities that Oz does so well.

And we are settling into our new housesit in Kingston Beach, about twenty minutes south of Hobart.

Alisa has been busy, too.

The end.