Ugh!  The Haul-out Blues



Nobody likes haul-out. Least me. Years have passed since Anya's  last haul-out in Mexico.  It is time! 

Sunset July 17th at Cowichan Bay

The tide is rising. Cowichan Bay Maritime Center (CBMC) prepares her ways for Anya's arrival.  Like the slow rise of the tide itself, CBMC's ways inch down the rails into salt water.




And then it is nighttime with Anya inching up the CBMC ways and me fretting about my frantic day tomorrow - servicing, bottom-painting and addressing that vexatious and damned profusely dripping packing glan.

I bed down for the evening to this view, somewhat like a cabin in the forest with a waxing moon lighting the night.





July 18 at six bells!

Groggy and grumpy I arise to this vista, my neighbors of last night, the rather charming Cowichan Bay stilt homes and waterside residences - ya gotta love this place!

Then to work in the morning sun.  I steel myself to a day of ass in the air, head in the bilge, a day of dark, nasty, dirty, stinky work.  Then, for a change of pace, there is the toxic bottom painting.  As usual, much of it ends up on me.





Throughout the day, Tony and Jimmy give friendly encouragement and advice.  By dinner I am reassembling things and preparing to put on that last coat of bottom  paint.  Egad! Horror of horrors, I drop a critical bolt into the bilge which precipitates a further half hour of ass-in-the air, head in the grime, bilge diving - the nautical equivalent to dumpster diving for dinner.  




As the sun goes down, she is done.  Ready to ease back into the waters of Cowichan Bay. 

With higher tide and darkness Jimmy arrives.  He sets the ways in motion, slowly sliding Anya past seaside neighbours, down the ways and back to sea.  She floats!  And we are off in the night to our mooring.




No one raves about their haul-out.  But my CBMCentre haul-out is my best such experience ever.  Every minute I was hands-on in a rich, friendly, maritime environment in ways not likely today - a place that smells of craftsmen, fishermen, long-ago adventurers, sailors and explorers.  Culturally and nautically, a magnificent experience.  Bravo CBMC!!