Bottom painting and loading up

On Saturday, we arrived at the boat full of energy. Time to finishing painting the bottom, which be began last Sunday.

But first, let's do something fun (at least for us). Put the new registration stickers on the boat. Makes us feel good that now we're legal until April 1, 2018.

Then we popped open the last of our bottom paint, grabbed a roller and a brush and crawled down to where the sun doesn't shine. Two hours later, we came up for air since the bottom was now painted so the little sea creatures can't stick to us. An added benefit this year was that while we painted, we also cut away about a hundred feet of fishing line that was wrapped around our prop shafts. That's a first for us.

Then we sat down for a brief rest, all the while confirming that painting the bottom of a boat is among the worst boating-related jobs we could think of. (The head-mounted light adds quite a lot of charm, don't you think?.)

Time now to start putting stuff back on the boat. Even with a ladder involved, it's easier to do it here than it is in Norwich, There were many trips up and down that ladder.

Normally Frances would be here to help but she isn't feeling all that well and we decided that it would be best if she stayed home.

On Sunday, we put things away inside the boat and then checked the engines, transmissions, thru-hull fittings and hoses. Once we're in the water, it's nice to have that stuff taken care of. Of course, this year, as we go to start the engines, we'll remember that THE SEA COCKS FOR ENGINE COOLING WATER ARE CLOSED! It only takes seconds to destroy the impellers on the sea water pumps if they are run dry.  Guess you realize how we know that!

We do that because we're not usually there when the boat is put in the water and we like to know that every sea cock is closed until we get there and open them. That only seems sensible to us.

Before we left on Sunday afternoon, we took a look at the river. The crew was busy at work using their crane to put more docks in the water. Now that the boss is back from Florida, the crew is working extra hard.

There's some video. Just a little over three minutes and hopefully painless.