Pura Vida is out of the water! We moved across the harbor from the marina to the slipway on Monday afternoon. I recruited Martin to help with the move, and we had Vincent, a 14-year-old French boy from S/V Jonathan, along as well. Getting out of the marina can be a little hairy due to the intense current, but we planned it so that we would move at slack tide, and although we didn’t account for daylight savings time, getting out was not a problem. Getting situated in the slipway was a different story. The men at the boatbuilders weren’t quite ready for us, and although Martin had our bow comfortably placed in the slipway, our stern was getting pulled out by the tide, leaving us setting perpendicular between the narrow concrete walls. Fortunately, the guys from Hutcheson showed up in the nick of time and grabbed our lines to get us straightened out.

Crew for the very short journey across the harbor

The crane haul-out went very smoothly. The only slight delay occurred when the crane operator had to bring down the chains to add on some extra length in order to clear the mast. The guys from Hutcheson had printed out the photo of our haul-out last year and copied the former set-up, with two straps placed fore and aft of the keels.

Easily maneuvering her from the slipway onto the hard

The accumulation of growth on the bottom of the boat was pretty impressive. It was even more interesting to get a closer look and see so many critters crawling around! I was glad that they came off easily with a plastic scraper but wasn’t so pleased at having to rake up the foul-smelling stuff.

Yuck

Since then, my efforts have been focused on scraping and sanding off the old anti-fouling paint from the hulls. It’s a big job, but I’m getting by with a little help from my friends. In addition to Martin and Jonathan who helped with the haul-out, I’ve had assistance from friends with waterblasting and scraping (thanks Marty and Matthew!) and have had tips and loans of tools from the guys in the boatyard. It is pretty monotonous, time-consuming work, though. I’m halfway there and trying to view the glass as half-full!