PTB Day...

After a windy Sunday, today was an absolutely gorgeous day.  Getting short with our time here, so after checking the 5 day forecast, today looks like the best choice for...

Pulling The Boat Day.

Not a sad day at all - we have had a spectacular 3 months here in the Tropical Tip.  Instead of just pulling the boat out right away, we decided to run some gas out of it... you know, 'cause it will be less work to drain the tank to put the boat away.  Yeah, that's it - it's a "maintenance" kinda reason for going for a ride before we pull the boat.

Instead of our usual 5 or 6 knots, I pushed the throttle forward and ran at about 15 knots, with no particular destination... just enjoying the beautiful day.  Heading down the ship channel...

South Padre Island ahead.  With no time crunch, I asked Joan if she wanted to run out to the jetties again (it's another great day for it)... "Sure!"  Along the way, we slowed down to no wake speed for this guy on the SUP...

He waved and thanked us.  Looking out towards the Gulf...

We weren't searching out dolphins... but, apparently they got the word that we'll be gone for a while... they came to say good-bye...

We had dolphins swimming all around us...

You can see one of the dolphins through that opening in our boarding gate.  Joan took the following with her phone camera (no zooming)...

Yes, they were right next to the boat...

I pushed a button accidentally on my camera and got a few seconds of video...

Yep, they were pacing, right alongside us!  Nice way to wrap up this boating season.

When we told them good-bye, I took us back to our dock.  Joan made some lunch while I got the Honda ready to pull out the boat.  We ate, Joan hooked up the trailer and headed for the ramp, while I took the boat around.  We have our system for this: she backed down the trailer, I motored the boat up onto it.  The new bunk slicks are great.

Instead of rinsing and flushing at the ramp, we brought the boat right back to the house and did all that in our driveway.  I was amazed at how good the pontoons looked, thanks to the bottom paint!  No critters, not even any slime.  We washed down the boat with soap, looking it over closely.  The only thing on the boat that needed a bit of scrubbing was the transducer for the depth sounder - you can't paint that, so it was expected.  I picked off a couple barnacles from it, Joan hit it with a scrub brush.  Easy.

We took everything out of the storage areas under the seats, wiped that area down; flushed the motor and disconnected the fuel line to run the fuel out of the motor.  I'll empty the tank tomorrow and put that gas in the Honda - no stale gas that way.  All that was left was getting the cover on it...

It is easier to put the cover on it while on the trailer as opposed to doing it at the dock.  I am delighted with how the boat and bottom paint look.

The weather weasels are calling for windy conditions the next couple days.  We'll pick a good time to put it into our storage unit and get the motorhome out.  Nice to get the boat out with perfect weather.

We can take our time with the rest of what needs to get done before we go.