Chapter 2: Boat prep

We arrived Tuesday in Key West on time about 5pm.  I had Tim drop me off at the boat while he ran to pick up our order at West Marine.

OMG-so hot and still.  Heat stroke imminent.

By the time Tim got back I had most of our overly complicated bimini/dodger off and my first concussion from the boom.  Tim helped me with some of the more stubborn snaps and zippers and while I started folding and stowing our canvas he worked on removing our solar panels. Our solar panels are fold down so mucho/major windage.  Also down was the grill.

We dropped our headsail in record time and have it stored in our upper seating area. 

Tim started dock line engineering while I worked on odds and ends. Extra halyards stowed. All lines up on the mast lashed down. Mainsheet tied off and stowed down in cockpit and snubbers to help keep the stress (and chafe) off the main sheet to the block. (We have a 3:1 system with main sheet off the end of the boom).

By this time we ran out of daylight and were about ready to drop, so we grabbed a good meal and wandered around the beginning of the ghost town that was Key West.  Our normal parking by the fire department was closed off to become a staging area.

So, at this point, we could see some work done, but not a lot and we felt like (at the time) some folks were being a bit blase.  I think most of the work happened in the evening when it was cooler. Not like our dumb asses, but then again we had time working against us.

Mandatory evacuations for both visitors and residents were called at this point.

Next morning we continued with what we could do, talked to some boat neighbors that were starting to feel the pinch a bit.  A lot of boats were starting to get pulled at that point.  We had an empty slip beside us, but the one past that still hadn't done anything, a fishing boat with all of its trolling rigging intact, bimini and dinghy on the foredeck.  Hope somebody showed up to do something.

The marina was doing a good job removing EVERYTHING.  Fire exstinguishers, WiFi attennas, garbage cans. You name it. We ran in to take a shower before heading up to the mainland and all the outdoor plants were inside, it was like wading through a jungle (but with a/c).

Boats that were bow out dropped anchor.  Not an option for us.

We took our normal tie off of about 5 lines and increased it to 13+ lines.  Essentially turning our slip into a mini spiders nest, we brought out the paddle board so that Tim could get off the boat.

All seacocks and vents got closed. Opened up some floor panels so that the bilge was open to the boat, picked up anything that could be a water absorber and stored it higher.  Even if we just got a couple of inches of water in the boat because of a failure, that becomes a lot heavier when you have bathmats or sails or anything else that can absorb water at that level.

Last thing we did was take pictures of the boat and I also took a few of both neighboring boats that I was a little dubious about.


Moral of story: If you have to go down to prep, or reprep, there are always more things you can do.  We now wish we had plywood to cover our deck salon windows.  Also a backup for our vents because the wind pressure could force them open.