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.

How could this possibly be year #15?!? We’re off to NYC, Cape May, NJ, up the Delaware River, across the C & D Canal & down into the Chesapeake.

First, time to clear the cobwebs, or in this case, floating debris which flows down the Connecticut River.

Last month, we had a nice weeklong shakedown cruise to Mystic & Block Island to test-out all of our systems before heading south. This Mystic Draw is a tourist attraction in its own right, with dozens of people always watching the show & taking photos.

Wind turbine blades being delivered to New London, CT for installation offshore. Not starting off well though near Martha’s Vineyard (a different project, I believe) – a blade splintered into millions of pieces in only 24 knots of wind forcing partial closing of beaches on the south-side of Nantucket for much of the summer. The large pieces can theoretically be eventually collected from beaches on Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard & the Cape, but smaller pieces, chards of fiberglass, foam & other materials will be around for many years…  Has anyone really thought this completely through??

These storm clouds approached Block Island after causing wind damage & hail on the mainland of Rhode Island. Fortunately, the worst of it broke up before it reached us, although several boats dragged anchor with only 22 knots of wind but were quickly rescued by the Harbormaster boats.

One more project to complete though as we head south – we’re hauling out in the Chesapeake for one week (hopefully) for a bottom paint job, replace our leaking rudder seals & some other small projects. Then, our projects should be done … for a while at least! On the other hand, it is a BOAT – Bring Out Another Thousand – although with inflation, it’s another 3 thousand!

We sure had more fun times this summer and next summer is shaping up to be even better!