A scheduled bottom cleaning

     The weather lately has been crappy, except for Sunday. I woke up that morning to Joe saying, "I think today's the beaching day!" The sun was shining, a slight breeze was out of the north and the tide was rising. A month ago, we wanted to beach Kyrie so we could change her zincs, but the weather just wasn't right. Despite it being Father's Day, Joe made the decision this could be our only clear weekend day for a while.
     After a good breakfast and alerting the Coast Guard as to our plans, we pulled away from the dock and rounded Mayflower Island. I found myself wondering how many people would notice us nearing the beach and wonder what on earth we were up to. After all, it was a beautiful day and the Gold Rush Days events were in full swing, so there were a lot of people around the beach and park.
     Levi and I stood up on the bows, watching for rocks as we approached the shore. Joe called out our depth and I remember laughing as the numbers fell to single digits. The idea of purposely grounding our boat still seems ludicrous, even though I know Kyrie can handle it. Even as the keels hit the sand, someone called out, "Are you guys okay?" And, it starts!

Kyrie is firmly on the beach, although
not high and dry yet.

     The plan was simply to clean all the scum off the bottom of the hulls and change the zincs, but as always, those plans expanded. As the tide lowered and more of Kyrie's bottom was revealed, we were able to scrub more and more, and discovered she needed some new bottom paint. There was a number of places in which the paint was totally gone. In addition, Joe discovered that the pins for the bracket which allows the outdrive to go in reverse had fallen off and were only still attached to the boat by the bunch of mussels that had set up camp! The one time I think we would say, "Hooray for hitchhikers!"

So, that's what she looks like underneath!

And here's Kyrie, high and dry and
hanging out on the beach!

     The day required a couple trips to the store--one of them for bottom paint that cost $100 for a quart--ouch!--a trip to Joe's dad's shop for some special tools to fix the holes for the bolts in the outdrive, drilling out the holes in the new zincs since they weren't big enough, and a shower on the back deck for Megan since she was completely covered in sand! All in all, it was a pretty successful day. The kids played on the sand. A lot of people came by to see what we were up to, although nearly everyone realized since we weren't frantically on our radio, we must have done this on purpose.

How surreal to know I took this picture of the kids while I was
standing on the sand in front of Kyrie.

      Joe got back from work on Monday and I found him studying Kyrie. I asked him if everything was okay, and he said, "Just admiring her clean bottom." Ah, Kyrie, the one other woman my husband is allowed to admire like that... :)