One of our least favorite things … hauling out every 2 -3 years. This was our first for our Manta powercat & while our bottom paint was holding up o.k., our rudder seals (which keep the water out from the rudder shafts thru the bottom) were leaking & as you can only put off the bottom painting just so long… Just do it!

With Heidi at the helm, Deltaville Boatyard (Deltaville, Virginia) couldn’t have been more accommodating. While 3 days of rain made our optimistic week-long haul-out impossible, their crew took care of us in only 8 days – even working O.T. on a sunny Saturday to apply our 2nd coat.

This was our “front door” for the duration. Upon being hauled, their crew set us up with a ladder, power, water & even this fancy welcome mat.

For many of 55 years, I’ve been sanding, scraping & bottom painting my family’s, then my own boat bottoms. With more & more boatyards insisting on performing this work themselves, darn, I gave in & let them do it. At least this boatyard does allow most other do-it-yourself owner work, as more & more boatyards require all work to be performed by the yard.

After lowering my folding bike with a rope the 10′ onto the ground, I was off to pick up a few groceries at the Deltaville IGA.

While the boatyard took care of the bottom painting & replacing our rudder seals, we installed new underwater lights, replaced some of the boot stripes & a few other projects only possible while hauled out. Another important upgrade was installing a different type of anode (a sacrificial metal) onto the propeller nuts which I can replace myself diving underwater (the old style required a diver which last time charged us $300!).

Painted & ready to go back in for a few more thousands of miles.

The Deltaville Tap & Raw Bar was nearby (basically next door), so we enjoyed good eats at decent prices a few times, (including Lori’s birthday 😦 on haul-out day).

Can we complain? Sure – they hauled us out early at 7:30 AM on the appointed day (instead of 8:00) & re-launched us at 8:30 AM instead of 10:00 – oh boy, rush, rush, rush 🙂

You never know what exactly to expect at a new-to-you boatyard, but Deltaville Boatyard was a great experience. The cost was more than we’re used to, while being more than fair.

Once re-launched, we continued south to Hampton, Virginia where we could catch our breath, decompress & put our boat back together. Hampton (just north of Norfolk) is one of our annual stops, with one of our favorite restaurants (Venture) & even donuts (Glazed Doughnuts). We’ll be getting some rain from what’s left of Hurricane Helene, then slowly continuing our southern trek.