Ready to rock!

Al had been very busy. All the teak had been oiled three or four times and the silverware had had a scrub down making the boat look like new. The marina staff had also been busy servicing the Sail drives and engines, polishing the hulls, repairing the punctured dingy and the Bora smashed engine cover. But….

Nenad, the marina contact through whom all work must be put was as useful as a punctured dingy. He forgot everything. I had to constantly remind him right through their winter about stuff that MUST happen before I got there, while I was there and the boat was out of the water and then when the boat went into the water. The most important item being the water maker. Without the kids we will be doing a lot of anchoring so we need to make pure water out of the sea. Did the repair happen? Did the guy even turn up?

The guys did such a nice job of the Sail drives and propellers that I was effusive with my compliments until I just happened to spin the prop after they had gone. To my utter amazement and disgust one whole section of anode was missing but they had turned the prop such that it could not be seen.  This would have meant un unbalanced prop which would have vibrated itself to pieces on starting the engine and putting it into gear. That would have meant taking the boat back out of the water at huge expense and no responsibility could now be levelled at the marina.

I called Nenad. He copped a strength five. Ask anybody who has witnessed one of those for an unbiased description. It didn’t stop until we left.

They literally had to remove the entire sail drive and take it to the workshop to fix the problem they had tried to cover up.

The boat was scheduled to go into the water at 8:00am on the 29^th June. We had planned to set the GoPro up at the top of the mast to do a time lapse of the launch like we did in Kos two seasons ago, but it couldn’t go up until the last minute to ensure it didn’t run out of battery or memory.

8:00 am came and went. They started launching other boats? 9:00am came and went. Adrenalin reached my face and I wondered down to the chap controlling the machine that picks up and moved boats to the crane and asked when he planned to move the Summer Amy….

“Oh” he says… “you need to pay something at reception before I can move it” Really! “When was somebody going to tell me that?”

The amount to be paid was $40… apparently the bank fee for transferring the many thousands of Euros it had cost to winter here. $40! No problem, just at least tell me so we can get the boat in the water in readiness for the water maker repairer who never showed anyway!

Erwin arrived while this was all happening. A welcome smiley face, an extra pair of hands and as it turns out, a great cook but more about that later. Wasn't long before his training began. Up the mast day one!

And so the journey begins at 11:10 on the 30th of June when we cast off motored out of Trogir and headed for Skradin.