No doubt about it, restoration is taking way longer than preparation. Our reasonable excuse is that since things are apart we’re taking time to clean, organize and evaluate and end up in better shape than before. All good stuff for getting ready; not that we haven’t spent the entire summer “getting ready”.

We only had one “oh shit” moment (I said exactly that) during storm prep. One of the last steps was to remove all Strataglass panels. This is something we’d never done before and certainly not since attaching the zipper covers and tabs in an effort (mostly successful) to keep out rain and white water. So I begin at the stern and when I get to the third panel it won’t budge. Yep- that’s the moment. The Flex-A-Rail (the track that holds the Textilene sun shade) was installed over the top tabs I’d sewn on to the zipper covers. Screwed- literally. Without the proper driver (#0 square)(Russ says to forget the details) he had to tear several of the tabs to remove the panels; thus more sewing.

Jon on s/v Big Blue helped Russ raise the anchors but we had to motor out to raise the Rocna. Try as they might the Rocna wouldn’t budge (yes!)

OK, I’LL STEER AND YOU DIVE OFF THE BOW

The cockpit still resembles a teenaged Mr. Fix-it’s bedroom- stuff covering most of the floor and just enough room for us to occupy a few sq feet. Stuff that doesn’t have a storage spot on the boat will be returned to our storage unit next week…., right honey? The 15 gal fresh water head tank was sold on eBay and will be leaving us soon. It needed to be replaced by a much smaller tank to make room for the watermaker in the port bow locker.

The local paper- you know, the one that is not really all that local, but has a special section for your area and an online version with local news and events… they wanted Irene related photos for their online galleries, so of course I obliged. Today we found that one of the photos was the lead shot for an online article  [update: paper has our photo in the print version!- thanks David]. Today The Valley Courier, tomorrow Lats & Atts!