BACK TO THE LAKE!!!!

After two years, we are back where we started.... Sort of...  Yesterday Andrews Trucking picked up our boat and drove it the Ship Shape Marina in St. Catharines...  We were warmly welcomed and given a spot to get the boat put together.  All going well, we will launch on Monday and sail home next Thursday or Friday...

It has been an exhausting couple of days.  First I want to thank Bill S., and Glen B.  for all their help getting the boat on the trailer at the farm...  It was an early start as we were told by the trucking company to be ready at 6:00am.  Well we were but the truck and the crane didn't show up till 7:30....  Oh well...  By 11:00 the truck was pulling out and heading for St. Catharines.

I took the bow and stern pulpits from our house and met the truck at the marina.  Thank you SO much to Martin L. for his awesome help yesterday when the boat arrived.  We worked till about 8pm then Martin went home and I turned in for the night on the boat.  By then we had running water but no toilets (we need to be in the water to get water to flush with).  It was a little cool at night but this morning it warmed up quickly and Martin came back and spent THE WHOLE DAY helping me again...

My son, Steve and my father in law, Ed also came all the way down to St. Catharines for the whole day and Greg G. came this afternoon....  THANK YOU SO MUCH for everyone's GREAT help...

AT 7:30 pm we called it quits for the day and I drove home to Cambridge.  After church tomorrow I will return and finished up the jobs that need to be done before we launch. Ship Shape has promised to launch us and get our masts up at 4 pm on Monday so I will likely stay on the boat Sunday night and get my work done from there so I can be ready when they want to launch us.

Depending on weather we will either sail/motor to our slip at the RHYC (Royal Hamilton Yacht Club) on Thursday or Friday next week... Stay tuned...

The jobs that got done in the last 24 hours are:  The lifelines are re-installed, the bow and stern pulpits are installed, the main mast is re-rigged and has new running rigging, and the mizzen is about half ready to go.  The plumbing system is started up and we only had two little leaks.  Remember we have not tried the system since I replaced it last year...  I would say it turned out pretty good!  I got the binnacle and the helm electronics installed and everything there seems to be working well.

All in all, it has been a pretty productive few days... Now I need to go to bed and get some sleep!

Again THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who helped us yesterday and today, and thank you to the kind people at Ship Shape who have made things go so smoothly....

CHEERS!