It's been 6 days - 5 of a ton of work on the boat. But first, as most of you know we had 2 snowstorms just before leaving Boston - a total of 19" on the ground as we flew out - 20 degrees and 30 mph winds. Here is a picture of our house as we left.
We got to the boatyard and Catatonic didn't look too bad on the outside - as opposed to last year when she was literally green with mildew and such. However on the inside, as we slowly discovered over the course of the week, it was different. Rainwater had gotten into one of the rear lockers and then worked its way into the rear port cabin. Also, our attempt to save the hatches from getting fried in the Florida sun had resulted in leaks through them - large growths of mold on the cushions. Bottom line we had to tear apart the rear cabin, wash everything with chlorox, and dry everything out.
The one piece of good news was that we thought we had mice - large droppings everywhere, but we discovered about 2 dozen large ( 3/8") white eggs hatched in our silverware drawer from an obviously large reptile - no one knew what - probably a lizard. While we did not find any snakes or lizards, neither did we find any mice - probably eaten or run away in fear.
As I said earlier, 5 days of work later and everything is almost working. The mechanic working on rebuilding the carburetors is a bit slow - hopefully he will be done today. But because of all the work, we decided to delay our launch to the day after Christmas instead of the day before.
Here is a picture of Catatonic soon after we arrived. She's sitting on wooden blocks in the marina.
We will check in with everyone next week sometime. By then we hope to be in or near Miami - by New Year's Eve.
Arnie and Ronnie
