Boatless.....

Whilst the poor boat was high and dry in the yard at M and G, we had to figure out what to do. Living aloft with a limited capacity holding tank was not tempting. Neither were the pretty disgusting visitor loos in the yard there. Realistically we spent a few days "doing stuff" then flew back to Southampton on a superannuated Blue Islands ATR aircraft:

It was a bit sad. The crew looked sad. As we only had a 45 minute flight it was not a big deal. Due to an abnormal northerly wind we even flew over the house in Hythe Marina on final approach to Southampton airport. It was still there and seemed to have a roof too.

Whilst boatless (sniff) we had a few nice things in the diary. Staying with the toddlers in Hythe, then visiting John (the knees) and Tina on the Isle of Wight. This is John, looking at Facebook. The picture had to be posted there as John "on Facebook on Facebook":

So, sorry ladies, the photographer carelessly cut off those amazing knees. We will try harder for you next time we meet up.

We also inherited Izzy the Cockerpoo (and our Goddog) for a few days to help out her owner. She joined us in a trip "up north" to Hamsterley Mill (look it up like we had to first time!)  Trundling slowly northwards in our Defender - you have to in a Defender - we passed a broken down Land Rover test mule vehicle on an AA truck heading home:

Kind of embarrassing for them.

"Up north" we and Izzy had a great time. Here is the almost compulsory group photo:

As you can see, Izzy was very girlie and wanted her photo taken. Archie on the other hand was more interested in some scents.

Whitley Bay beach was great fun if a little noisy as both dogs wanted to test out their vocal cords:

Izzy kept busy looking windswept and digging holes for Archie to admire:

Woodland walks around these guys:

and the dogs wisely avoided them as did we.

Meanwhile we knew that work was continuing on the boat thanks to email and some Facebook posts by the yard showing the copper coloured Coppercoat, not the old coating that had turned green:

As you can see, she was in good company;  the Alderney lifeboat looks tempting but we would hate her fuel bills.

St Sampson and the work list

Chocked up, the work for us and the M and G team started. We did the usual cleaning up stuff: making the coolers sparkly again (sort of) after lots of elbow grease and a little brick acid support:

They started sanding the Coppercoat ready to refresh it:

A really horrid job in what was nice warm weather.

The existing coating is nearly 10 years old and we decided to have it refreshed now rather than wait another year or so until it is fully spent and we become an unwitting barnacle farm. We wanted to cram as many maintenance / improvement things into our out of the water time as possible this autumn!

Nearby was a lovely 100+ year old Dutch barge:

which the owners have stripped back to bare metal underneath and recoated. Having seen Justin and his mates after a day doing this, we will NEVER complain about polishing GRP again. Well, perhaps "never" is too restrictive. Charlotte and Justin were great neighbours and most helpful during our time living up in the air. They run the local Oyster farms - see Guernsey Oysters website and work incredibly hard!

Now, the main reason for the out of the water time was to renew the shaft which we know is wearing and has some crevice corrosion too. When the boat was built the factory used chocolate rather than  Aquamet 22 hence we need to replace it. The idea is to also replace the gearbox coupling for a taper version (much prefer those) which is identical to the shaft taper. That way we can "end for end" the shaft if we get wear in the stuffing box / cutless area in future.

As well as boat maintenance, our old laptop decided it needed an update as it hadn't been used for many weeks. This was not encouraging:

and in  the bottom corner:

It took "only" 24 hours to complete so we should be happy we suppose. Thanks Microsoft, thanks so much.

St Peter Port to St Sampsons and lift out

After a couple of days pottering about the island and generally enjoying ourselves, we left the marina and headed north for the massive 20 minute or so run to St Sampson. Yet again we had a little wait for a ferry - this time the Condor Liberation that was passing:

I suppose we should be happy that it was running and at speed too after the litany of problems since she started serving the islands.

As you can see, it is a terribly complex trip:

St Sampsons harbour entrance isn't the prettiest:

It was also strange to go in there and not head straight for the fuel pontoon which looked unusually empty too:

Instead we hung around in the outer harbour and were met by Alex Norman from Marine and General in their workboat. Into the inner area, into the lift and duly hoisted out with one worrying moment when the front stop of the front pair on the hoist slipped forward a bit. Sure enough, the hull was in a real mess, the coolers and props too:

Whilst they were pressure washing we seemed to have grown a much larger exhaust system: