Well, the weather wasn't dry. A rainy morning when I hooked Big Red up to the boat trailer. Our friend, Herb, kindly gave me a ride back to our boat from the boat yard where Wild Blue will be hauled out. Joan did her last minute maneuvering of stuff, deciding what goes and what stays. The folks at the boat yard are very cooperative, even suggested we pull the truck inside the storage building so we could do our last minute moving from the boat to the truck where it is dry.
We untied Wild Blue one last time for this season, made a stop at the pump out station, then down the waterway a bit to the boatyard. When we pulled up to the staging area for the Travel-Lift, there was a sailboat there... not much room. We tucked Wild Blue in under the sailboats bow sprit, and waited for the Travel-Lift operator to come back from lunch...
Right on time, they went to work. Joan put Izzy in her carrier and put her in the truck. The lift crew positioned the straps...
Up and out of the water...
The bottom looked surprisingly decent! The lift operator said they could do a "courtesy spray" as part of the lift out...
With the bottom looking good, they lined the boat up with the trailer...
They put her right into place, and we strapped her down...
We pulled the boat to the indoor storage facility, flushed the motor, did the last of our stuff-moving, shut everything in the boat down...
... and hit the road.
Our timing was such that we hit rush hour around Everett... and Seattle... and a few more places as we slowly made our way south. We didn't quite make it out of Washington State, but we are on our way. We'll turn in early and get a fresh start on making miles in the morning.
2 comments:
I'm just curios-- Are there launch ramps up in those parts?
Hi HRB. Yes, there are launch ramps at many places, but tough to find/access at Anacortes. I had the boat pulled because I wanted the bottom powerwashed. The same place that is storing the boat did the pull and wash, so it was all easy to get scheduled.
Our favorite launch ramp in the area is at Bellingham (Squalicum Harbor) - great ramps, lots of parking, they even have long-term parking available. And, VERY reasonable transient slip rates.
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