February 06, 2010

True Perry Style

Unfortunately, launch day did not happen as we had hoped on Tuesday. The travel lift that hauls the boats got a flat tire just as our turn came up. The fellows needed to spend the rest of the day getting it fixed with the forklift. It was probably just as well, since we still had plenty of odd jobs to complete but at the time the cup is half full attitude was not happening!

So, on Wednesday we all arrived before 8 with all of our duffels bags in toe. We were moving on regardless of launch or not. Luckily launch did happen right before lunch. In true Perry style though anything that could go wrong pretty much did.

Once we were in the water but tied up to the dock we noticed that we could only go in reverse, forward was not happening. Of course when anything like this happens there is always a time pressure involved to. They needed us to clear the dock so they could launch the next boat since they were behind schedule. Graham and the mechanic got to work on it. I filled the water tank while this was happening. I kept saying to Graham, geesh she seems to be taking A LOT of water......he would check every so often that all was well in amongst all the other things he was doing. Amelia came running up on deck and was shouting, stop the water, stop the water. She had noticed down below that under the one floor board we had pulled up it was full of water! Needless to say the boat launch manager was not a happy camper because it took us a few hours to get organized and get ready to cast off.

Once all had been fixed there was the problem of actually backing Artemo out. Artemo does not like to back out and especially in really tight spaces. We recruited a fellow cruiser to pull/ guide us out with his powerful dinghy and we also had a bunch of yard hands on the various lines letting us out slowly. There was a lot of yelling and shouting and near misses but WE DID IT. We had finally escaped yet another boat yard.

Away we went for what we thought would be a nice calm 1/2 hour motor. The wind unfortunately was fierce and even with absolutely no sails on the boat, Artemo was healing over. The forestay was not attached because we had to take it off for the travel lift and with the high winds it actually got picked up and started to hit the main mast. I was at the front of the boat and fighting madly against the wind to move the forestay forward away from the mast. Graham finally gave the helm to Captain Alex and came and got the forestay under control. I made my way back to the cockpit and let Alex bring us in to the anchorage.

Anchoring went nice and easy. We got it on the first try, thank god! The unfortunate part was that due to all the chaos on launch the boat looked like a bomb had went off inside.....there were no cervasas for us for quite a few hours after arrival but let me tell you, when that moment arrived it was sweet.

Fast forward to 9pm..... sitting in the breezy cockpit, watching MASH and all so happy to be back on water and excited about tomorrow!

7 comments:

  1. Glad you're back on Artemo.
    Does it feel like home again?

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  2. Hey - pictures from last blog look great, The launch sounds like a We make plans, God laughs!!!
    Glad you are on the water and almost ready to go
    Love
    Dad/Grampa Griff

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  3. Happy Birthday Graham!
    Love Mom and Dad

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  4. Hope you had a great Birthday Graham, on the water again, with your family.
    what is a cervasas?

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  5. What happened with the water down below? That launch sounded terrifying to me. Also those winds...stay safe.

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  6. cervasas is drink, I found out, in case there were others that didn't know.

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