Captain's log: 2-28-11

      Last day of February and the last trip for 30 Below. Granted , it's a short trip but I got the best mileage of the trip so far. Probably the most expensive 100 yards though, $650, but that covers the pull and first month of storage. I think a series of pics will best describe the day.

Woke up in the "well" this morning.

Starting the lift. Couldn't get a much wider boat between the walls!

Almost all the way up.

The scales say, 9000 pounds on the front strap and 10,000 pounds on the back strap.The boat is supposed to be 17,000 lbs. so that means we really do have a ton of stuff on the boat. Actually I think it was probably quite abit more since we had already removed a lot of stuff before it was pulled.

Yuck!  2 months of salt water. But check the props!

     2200 miles (49 total days of traveling) and not a single nick on either prop. No groundings and no major mechanical problems. I feel safe saying that now that we are safely on blocks.

This is me checking the props etc. Hey! Where did those new shaft anodes go? Both of them completely missing. Next year maybe some locktite.

The guy in the pic is driving the lift from his little yellow box. Dorene asked what kind of training that required. I think it requires a captain's lic. with many hours of nintendo joystick operation.

You can't see it but he is "texting while hauling" I don't think he should let his yellow box get too far away.

And finally... we are trawler trash again. (As you can see, there is a lot of work to be done b/f leaving..)There is about a dozen people living on their boats here in the yard. Some appear to have been here a long, long time. (One guy I talked to has been here 5 years  and hasn't been in the water!)  We will be here about a week then visit our son ,Drew, for three weeks before returning to complete the pickling process. So, probably no blog entries until we start the motorhome adventure back to the north country.

I'm not biased at all but, I still think she is the finest looking vessel in the yard! She served us well, safely carrying us to paradise. Thanks everyone for following along and we'll talk again in April.

2nd chapter: Water To Wheels...see ya in three weeks.