Green water good,

Brown water bad.

Hmmmm. . . . Getting there, slowly.
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Nope

We couldn't sell our bicycles after all. looks like we'll have to give them to the kids at hotel Oliandro.

--by Rigel

Our last morning with our Italian bicycles

Trading them in for outboard parts, we hope.
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Windlass fixed,

Fuel tanks full of fresh diesel . . . Ready to head out for Grecia. Now we're just waiting for the channel dredging.

Anyone know how to operate a backhoe?
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Watching

The hailstorm from the safety of our bunks.
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Hauling Out

A boatyard is a place where boats come out of the water and into cradles. You may think that all boats go up in a ramp, but a lot of machinery is involved. For smaller boats, it can be as small as a forklift. But our boat took a travel lift. A travel lift is a machine that is used for hauling out very big boats.

I will now explain to you how the system of hauling out works. The boat that is to be hauled out is driven or towed into a slip. Then the travel lift lifts the boat out of the water. The boat is pressure-washed. The travel lift moves the boat to a cradle and the boat is put there. Other supports are put in. Finally, a ladder is put up to the side of the boat.

Once a boat is hauled out, a lot of work is done. For example, bottom paint is put on. You have to be careful with the stuff, as it is poisonous. That is because it is rich with copper. It also is more that twice as heavy as normal paint because of this. The tools that are used are brushes and rollers.

Another task that is done is putting on zincs. These are for attracting corrosion to them, instead of other things. They are also throughout the bottom of the boat.

You may have thought that boats have to be in the water. In some cases, they must not be!

--by Rigel

More wood!

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Painting the bottom of the boat

It as not as easy as I thought at first. First of all, the paint that we
were using was bottom paint, and four times as heavy as normal paint. It
is laden with copper, and therefore quite heavy. The area below
waterline is very big, and all of it needed two coats of paint. The
paint was applied with rollers, and when you had just put more paint on
it, the weight was incredible. Lifting those rollers for hours on end
was no fun, but we finally got it done. The paint had to be applied dry,
so you can only put it on while the boat is hauled out, which is a
nerve-wracking process if you own or live on the boat. The job is done
with a travel-lift, a large piece of equipment that is like a huge,
rectangular frame with one end open. The boat is lifted using a pair of
straps, or slings. This marina uses skeletal cradles along with thick
posts of wood to support the boat while hauled out. The travel-lift held
the boat up in the slings for about an hour so that we could paint the
patches that we couldn't get when sitting on the supports. The whole
thing was very exciting, and Rigel and I had a lot of fun chasing each
other around on bicycles between all of the boats that were there. We
got all the things that needed to be fixed fixed, and we are now almost
ready for sea.

-- By Orion

Not many visits

Left to our friendly neighborhood supermercato before we shove off for Greece.
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Bottom done,

Back to the water.
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The most dangerous part of the entire journey

Climbing up and down a 10-foot ladder a dozen times a day, just to get anywhere, including the bathrooms.

Life "on the hard" -- Daddy can't wait to get back in the water
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Only two boys

In a hundred, maybe a thousand, can do it the way it's got be done.

"Hey, let ME try!"
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Edee

Teaching creative bottom painting.
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A plea to the

God of Uncharted Hazards. . .
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After a year and a half

In the water . . . not too bad.
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Sure hope we remembered

Where the slings are supposed to go. . .
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First motion in six

Months. To the slipway.

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It works!

A frighter finally returned to our neck of the Ionian . . . Meaning that months after installing it, we now know that our AIS actually works!
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Our new crew member

Long-time friend of Shirish and Mary Beth, in a more civilized pose than hanging backward in the mast-climbing gear. . .

First capuccino in Italia.
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Hazing the new crew member

Thanks for joining us, Edee! Now can you aloft and check the rigging? It's a long-time tradition that new crew have to do this. . .
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