H a b i b i S a i l s: Camping in the yard

After a year in the water it was finally time to do some Habibi maintenance on dry land. Which means we needed to sail a few miles to Spice Island Marine for the haul out. It's not just the closest haul out, it's also a very professional one. They have roughly 300 boats on storage and the gear to lift and move boats looks very impressive.

Our task list was not that long: Raising the waterline (see the cleaning the attic post) and a new antifouling. And of course some minor things like cleaning the through hulls, changing zincs and other stuff you just can do while on shore. We hoped to be finish in a couple of days, but hoping is probably the wrong word. We wanted to go back into the water as fast as possible - living on the yard is a nightmare!

I always laugh when people compare boating with camping - they have simply no idea! Habibi is very comfortable and we always "park" our comfortable house in the middle of the "wanna be" places. Usually next to a few multi million dollar yachts. Yes, that's cruising - we share the best spots with the wealthy ones! But while rich people have a captain who watches the work done in the yard poor suckers like us have to do that ourselves. Means we live on the boat while it's in the yard. And quite frankly that's worse than camping!

Imagine, you just can reach your boat with a ladder, several feet above the muddy ground. A yard, even a nice one, is usually hot, dirty and dusty. So you stay now on your boat while the work on the bottom starts. Which means a lot of extra dust. The ground of a marina is dirty, soaked with all the old paint and antifouling. Of couse that mud sticks to your shoes and therefore to your boat. I don't want even guess how toxic that stuff is. Maybe I just could smear some dirt on my hull instead of a 300 Dollar per gallon antifouling? I'm sure it will work but it may be illegal anyway....

So even we live now on higher grounds it's not that elaborated. This corner of the island is well known for mosquitoes AND dengue fever - what a combination. And don't ask, I guess not even Darwin could answer the evolutionary secret why this little bastards survive that spoiled soil!
Besides the fun with the mosquitoes you should know as well that out of the water half of the boat systems are not working: The toilet gets no flushing water, you cannot even run freshwater as the sink drain will pour over the wet antifouling paint. Of course the air condition is cooled with sea water as well. Means we have now cosy 37 degrees Celcius inside the boat. With no wind between the boats this gives a real feel temperature of 80 C or so....at night of course. So going to the restroom at night is actually nice as it is cooler down there - even if it means climbing a ladder in the middle of the night.
Did I mentioned that the fridge is barely cooling as everything is simply too hot and the keel cooled freezer is not working out of the water as well... yes' you're right: Beer needs to be served warmer as usual... What a disaster!
I tell you, that really feels like camping and it just sucks!

But, after all it was worth it - Habibi is back in the water after 3 days on land and she has a brand-new bottom paint. Hopefully it will keep the barnacles away for a loooong time...