WE ARRIVED AT RIVER FOREST YACHTING CENTER Friday morning. The plan is to haul Broulee out on Monday.  The marina staff here are very accomodating and again, ended up having the whole place to ourselves. Our friends Rick &  Pam on M/V Tourist have been taking care of our car in Ft. Myers during our two month cruise.  Of course, they brought it back to us in better shape then we left it, full of gas and 6 bottles of wine in the back -  I think they could have rented a car for less.  Thanks guys - for taking care of the car and glad to hear you finished in the top three in the swamp buggy race with it - hope to cruise with you again, soon.

After two action packed days of packing, cleaning, and eating everything we could in the frig/freezer we awoke Monday morning to severe weather and our depature looked tenable.  Weather cleared around 10:00 and we finished packing the car, loaded Izzy, hauled out and were on the road north by noon.

The trouble with packing is we all leave home with one ball and after six months of cruising you now have nine.  There was talk of renting a u-haul trailer to get home, but we somehow managed between the roof top carrier and using the old shoe horn method -  finally were able to get it all in the car. 

Izzy trying to negotiate for the front passenger seat. I don't think so! But Mom, stuff is falling on me.

Bye, Bye Broulee have a good summer and no playing with hurricanes.

Broulee's summer home

Now let's talk about the LIST.  We arrived early in November to Columbus, MS so items on the LIST could get done.  It all started the day we arrived and found our freezer had died and the LIST was somewhat set aside for priority NON LIST projects.

   

New fridge/freezer/cabinet (now stained and varnished) but, not on the list.

One rainy day while in the main saloon - a drip of water hit me on the head and appeared to be coming from where the mast is bolted down on the flybridge.  GET THE CAULK GUN!  No it wasn't as simple as that - of course not.  The wood core material sandwiched between two layers of fiberglass was saturated and completely rotted thus another NON LIST item required immediate attention.  New base completely rebuilt and refinished. Further inspection of the upper deck revealed a soft spot and some blisters on the gel coat in a small area near a rail stanchion  - ok another NON LIST item.  Remove part of the fiberglass deck material scrape out wet/rotted coring, fill with fiberglass, replace deck piece and refinish gel coat.  On the LIST was to rebed all of the upper deck stanchion bases - completed now as part of the deck repair.

After rebedding the stanchions on the upper deck, Rick decided to inspect all other stanchions and oh yes the bowsprit showed some minor blistering - that means water in there but caught soon enough so no rot - but this repair is also a NON LIST item

Bowsprit with pulpit removed (railing), repairs completed awaiting new anchor rollers, re-installing anchor and rebedding of pulpit rail.

The chain in preparation of color coded depth markings - this is always on the LIST

This is a project that has been on the LIST in Rick's head  - a bowsprit support. Thanks to the welding equipment Wayne carries with him on Take Time and his knowledge of working with stainless steel he and Rick were able to complete this.  What other hidden list items lurk in the minds' of men?

 

Job well done!

Removing minor gel coat blemishes from the fashion plates and priming and finishing with two part polyurethane paint was on the LIST, however, the project was started in Columbus and not finished until late April due to cold weather and rain.

Again the downside is the pilot house becomes a workshed and sometimes difficult, when necessary, to manuver through it. Oh, well that's boating and everyone back home thinks we are just crusing around drinking Margaritas all day.

Hey, now we are headed home to our 115 year old house - can you imagine what projects await - both LIST and NON LIST!