Folding up the sails

We are slowly stripping down Blue Pearl, getting her ready for a hot summer on the hard.

We've taken off the sails, changed the engine oil, changed the fuel filters and a myriad of other little jobs.  We've run vinegar through the heads to clean out scale and lubricated with vegetable oil.  Smells like the salad bar at the Olive Garden in there.

Pam has taken an old sail cover and some scraps from other projects and stitched together covers for our drop boards, handrails and cockpit coamings.  We are hopeful that the covers will protect the beautiful teak work we just had done.

New varnish

Oooooooo shiny

Cleaning hinges

Pam's Sail Loft - repairing some stitching

Cockpit coaming cover under construction

Old sail cover protects the hatch and drop boards

Handrail covered

Coaming covered... winch gets covered too

Sails down and folded, inspecting the halyard

We are saving our canvas (bimini and dodger) for last so we've got a place to keep out of the sun... but even that comes down before our last 5 miles to St.  Davids and our haulout at Grenada Marine.

Not looking forward to that.  It is a miserable 5 miles when the seas are up... and they are... so we will bounce around like a cork for an hour before we get there.  Then they will ask us to back into the haulout slip... and we don't back so that will be a fun show for everyone.  All in all, a task we are looking to put behind us.

Once in the yard we will put UV protectant wax on the hull, plug all the through hulls with screen so pests can't get inside, flush the engine with fresh water, clean the prop, knock the barnacles off the hull and so on.

When we came back down after Christmas, John and Jan gave us a card to open when we got back down... which we promptly forgot.  Just opened it to find that they want to take us out to dinner... and a pretty good dinner based on the amount enclosed.  Well, Dear Reader, it just so happens that tonight the Le Phare Bleu Restaurant put on one of their Friendship Dinners.  They served tomato and avocado salad, green salad, stewed okra, curried lambi, blackened chicken, and a host of other things.  We washed it down with a nice Argentinian red.  So THANKS JOHN AND JAN!!!

Mmmmmmm, okra!

Next post will be out of the water at Grenada Marine.  Talk to ya' then!