The Survey!

This Friday was the boat survey! Unfortunately, the marina at which the boat was tied up at had a non-functioning boatlift, so we would have to move the boat up the river to Captain Cove. It meant hiring a captain but it was a short trip.

Easy, right?

I had to catch to 7:00 ferry, and jumped out of bed at 5:45, opening the curtain to a blanket of white powder! Snow! I skipped the shower to allow myself more time to drive to the ferry and hopped in my car. And discovered only one headlight worked. Great. I drove VERY carefully and made it to the ferry on time.

Once there, I hung around for an hour because my shipbroker had a devil of time getting to the terminal (it took over 2 hours from North Vancouver to Tsawwassen, yikes!) but finally we made it to the boat. And were greeting by this:

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Which led to this:

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Anyway, after an hour of digging the boat out we started down the river! In freezing blizzard conditions!

Which looked like this

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I don’t think I’ve been so cold in my life… finally we made it to captain cove. Triumphant, we lined the boat up with the lift – only to hear that all the lift controls were frozen and we were unable to get the boat out of the water. Nooo!

They said we could leave it there over the weekend and hoist it up on Monday. Just so it wasn’t a completely wasted trip, the surveyor and I went on-board and looked at the interior, with the aim to do the complete thing on Monday.

The good thing is that it seems in excellent condition, with zero mould evident, the woodwork being in excellent condition and the engine being in great shape (being converted to use anti-freeze as cooling instead of raw seawater helped a lot in that regard.) And no leaks! The sewage system needs replacing, the water pipes could do with being changed and there is some minor de-laminating on the inside in one of the compartments but nothing too terrible at all so far.

Fingers crossed that the haulout on Monday shows no hidden nasties…

Matt

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