We arrived home to Pachina Mia a little over a week ago, and spent the ensuing days getting her ready for launch. As most people in the yard noted (often in surly and grumpy tones), launch day seems way too early this year. Throughout the week winter kept trying to make a comeback as we worked to get the boat ready. So in between sub-zero temperatures, howling winds, and too many days of rain, we managed to get the cover off, get the bottom painted with new anti-foul, and get a seacock operating once more.

Living on a boat that is on land (on “the hard” as we sailors say) is, in the words of Ann’s favourite sailing bardess: “A hard hard life. Life hard, life on the hard.” But despite the challenges and cramped space we managed to sleep and eat some of our meals on board. And we found time to raise a glass or two (or three, or four… 😉 ) to our good fortune.

Timmies and then Panera Bread became our morning brecky ritual, with take-out deli or the occasional finer restaurant filling in the dinner menu. Not too hard I suppose. And of course there is always time to spend chatting with fellow boaters here in our little Stillwater home. In fact, someone claims that I spend more time chatting than working … harrumph I say. I can’t help it if everyone wants to talk to me … all the time 😉

[Ann here. Consider this. In the two pictures in the middle above, Mike was on his way to the bathroom on the other side of the marina. The time between the first picture and the second is 15 minutes, the distance is about 20 feet!]

Just over a week since we arrived back in Belleville, the day we worked for and utterly dreaded was upon us:

Launch Day!!

The morning started out beautiful, calm and cool; a perfect day for “drop down” as Donna put it — something we hoped wouldn’t happen 😉 . Last year we nearly had a ‘drop down’ when the crane started tipping over while lifting us. As it was coming to our turn I gently reminded the operator that we weigh 30,000 pounds.

Not only do we weigh in as one of the heaviest boats in the yard, we also had the added challenge of keeping our mast up over winter. To get the slings around our boat we had to remove the back-stay. No biggy … except this is the wire that keeps the mast from falling down . I managed to rig some temporary supports though, so we were pretty sure no one would have to yell: TIMBER!

Stillwater is more like a self-help yacht club than a normal marina. There is no staff, just the owner and fellow boaters to do all the work. So we all pitch in to help everyone. Since Pachina Mia was one of the last in line, Ann and I helped launch most of the other boats first. But it was finally our turn. Did I mention:  .

In the end it all worked beautifully. No problems at all. Pachina Mia is now happily floating back in her element, and Ann and I are breathing easy. Now the work begins to really get her, and us, ready for the big journey. We have a few projects to get done on the boat, and a lot of logistics to still work out, but it’s all coming together. Most importantly, it feels SOOO GOOOD to be floating once again.