Having discovered in Boqueron that our cutlass bearing on our boat was traveling around on its own, Eben knew we had to haul out, asap. I don’t quite understand what the piece does or why it should be staying put, but seeing Eben’s stress levels spike I knew it was something important. From Boqueron we pretty much booked it to St Thomas, the closest haul out where we wouldn’t have customs issues, minus our short stop in Culebra. During that short stop we took advantage of being close to the West Marine in Fajardo to pick up some bottom paint, because if we were going to be hauling out, why not kill two birds with one stone.

   We hauled out on to the “hard” on Thursday morning and were back in on the following Tuesday. Life on the hard is not easy. Especially with two small kids. The breeze we had become accustomed to on the water was non-existant. The mosquitos kept finding their way into our boat through our netting and feasting on us (driving me slightly insane, from lack of sleep and scratching my wounds), and the boat yard placed our boat at polar opposites of the washroom facilities, making nighttime potty breaks a nightmare. The girls didn’t seemed bothered by it and found some of the silver linings, like the “fun” of climbing up and down the ladder to get on and off the boat, no rocking from the waves, and getting to use their baby potty when there was a sudden bathroom emergency. I will admit to having used the potty once or twice myself. You know, when in a pinch. 

   Luckily for us, we had our buddy Joaquin from s/v Mirador, who was been helping Eben out with all the work. Joaquin’s family left early for the Christmas holidays so were keeping him busy with boat bottom work! Together they ingeniously fixed the cutlass bearing, sanded the boat bottom, and got her repainted. While they were hard at work, the girls and I swapped places with Joaquin and were using his boat as our temporary play area, since it was on the dock, away from all the tools and messiness of boat work.

   It took us about a week on the hard, and we got everything done that we wanted. Plus a few little extras. As an early Christmas gift Eben painted our boat logo on the front of the boat for me. It looks amazing and I am so happy with it. But we also had an unfortunate event at the last minute. When Eben was peeling off the painters tape from just above the water line, the white stripe decided to come off with it, in some hefty chunks. We were too close to being put back in the water to fix it so we left it as is and will come up with some sort of cosmetic solution to make it look alright, like either white-out or a stripe of reflective tape. The latter most likely a better solution.

   Eben worked super hard that entire week trying to get us back in to the water as soon as possible and save us too many boatyard fees. The Independent boat yard haul out people were really nice with us and helped us out where ever they could. We were very happy with their services, their costs (given where we are, everything is $$$ in the Virgin Islands), and really professional. The whole experience was quick, efficient, but man are we glad to be back in the water, away from all those mosquitoes!

My surprise boat design addition

The finished result of the logo

going back in