Tomorrow am, 0730 Salmagal will be launched! We are on the lift and ready to go! Out of the hot boatyard… No more climbing up and down ladders…Yes!

That means we are also checking out of our hotel room tomorrow and moving onto the boat, our home for the next 6 months.  Now the trip is real. The only problem, as you can see from these pictures is that the boat is not actually ready for us to live on at the moment. Stuff everywhere and it is all a mess. And did I mention that ants have decided to make SMG their summer home? A battle to get rid of them that is tough to do with the boat in the yard. The ants climb up the boat stands and find their way into the boat, you can actually see it happening. Once we are in the water we will put and end to that.

So the boat projects that have kept us busy this week:

Keel bolts – SMG’s Keel has had an issue in the back where it separates from the hull a bit and just a little water leaks into the bilge. Our main project has been to loosen all the keel bolts (which hold the keel to the hull), rebed the backing plates and nuts, and the tighten down to keep the keel from separating from the hull. You can see the keel seam on the picture to the right. Here we have ground out the seam and added some sealant to protect the lead of the keel – if you look closely you can see it. Sounds like an easy project, but with the back three keel bolts sitting directly under the engine, it was a much more time consuming project than anticipated. especially since we had to remove 16 years of sludge from the around all the bolts – good times!

Bilge Pump – During our keel bolt project, we manged top break the bilge pump hose (whoops..) Well needless to say, the hose has been upgraded and a new bilge pump is ready.

Alternator – An Alternator creates electricity to charge the boats batteries. It is driven by the engine using a belt. Without

the alternator, we could not make electricity with the engine. The wiring on SMG’s alternator was failing and needed to be sorted out. A big project, that once finished ended up with a touch up and paint job on the engine – she is looking as good as new.

Wheel Pedestal – During SMG’s delivery to Tortola, the pedestal over the wheel (pictures right) failed – it snapped.. So the project, that is not yet complete, is to weld the pedestal back together and reinstall all the instruments.

We have been busy and are excited to get SMG in the water and get her all cleaned up. And since we are moving on tomorrow – we better get started!

Liz’s mom Sally and the kids come down Sunday, and our plan is to stay here at Nanny Cay until November 20th. That way we can by out and about for Peter’s 9th birthday on the 21st!

Cheers,

Andy