Well we have been in Shediac for a few days at Pointe du Chene Yacht Club. Wonderful facilities with great people. Walter, staff at the club has been very helpful in getting all our arrangements made. Maurice has been helping us get some of our things up to storage. The weather has not been great, lots of rain and wind. It was a good decision to stop here at this time.
Dave and Mary Lou hosted a pot luck for us with some of their sailing friends on Saturday. It was wonderful to meet with everyone and share stories.
Most of the time is spent getting the boat ready for the winter. Everything is coated in salt so this means washing and cleaning.
SAILS : We left them up in the rain to get the salt off, then put them back up in the sun to dry.
MOTOR: we ran fresh water through it for 5 min. Once MODAKI is on the hard we will run it for 1/2 hour with fresh water before antifreeze. Note - next year we will run fresh water thru at least once a week
BLOCKS and FITTINGS: corrosion is evident on many of them, so we cleaned and oil/grease as much as we can. Once we are out of the water all of the turnbuckles will have to be cleaned. This means rubbing kerosene into the threads with a tooth brush and then greasing everything before putting back together. It's amazing, salt even corrodes stainless steel
DECKS and HULL: Although the rain has removed much of the salt we will still give everything a good scrub.
INTERIOR: Once empty we will wipe everything down with vinegar and water to prevent mold over the winter.
Friday, Sept 14, is lift out for MODAKI. Here they use the big crane to take the mast down before putting the boat on the truck for transport to the storage area (about 2 miles inland). It's my understanding that we get 20 min with the crane so everything will have to be loose and ready.
Last night and this morning we are getting the tail of hurricane Leslie, that went east and out over Newfoundland. Winds topping out at 40 km, so we were thankful not to be at anchor.
We have been exploring town, Pointe du Chene/ Shediac on the bikes, Dave and Mary Lou lent us but as the weather improves we hope to walk the great Parlee Beach near by.
