Now back on Peaks Island awaiting the passage of what is now Tropical Storm Irene, together with Nana's sister Irene, their mother and Nicky's cousin Pearl. The picture above was taken on Peaks Island's back shore at low tide, about 4 hours before the forecasted closest point of approach of Irene.
No sooner did we have Namani ready to sail again, than we had her hauled again to sit out Irene on the hard. While forecasted wind strength has gone down a bit after Irene made her first landfall in the Carolinas, we fear that any safe anchorage will be overcrowded as there are hardly any boats left on their moorings in Casco Bay. All marinas seem to have cleared and pulled out their docks. In fact the ferry ride back to Peaks Island where we will sit out Irene was almost eerie: Not a single boat in sight in Casco Bay on a sunny and windy Saturday afternoon.
We were finally able to take Namani for a first test sail down to Peaks Island today. Some gusty winds around a passing cold front but everything seems to work fine. Now the big question is what hurricane Irene will be doing as current forecasts have her track right through New England. Originally we thought to hunker down in some safe bay but after the latest forecast we'll probably have Namani hauled out again before Irene's arrival on Sunday.
A poem from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of Portland perfectly captures our experience here over the past three weeks.
"Something Left Undone" 1863
Labor with what zeal we will,
Something still remains undone,
Something uncompleted still
Waits the rising of the sun.
A quick look to Namani's stove reveals that there is still some more boat work on the menu... getting close though - hope to complete Hydrovane installation tomorrow and new Radar on Thursday which then leaves just a few odd jobs - we've said that before though... "nothing ever is easy when working on boats" as they say around the yard. In the meantime we did have the mast stepped and got our sails back today (already had them once last week but stack pack needed some re-work). Stay tuned...
... with some more grinding and glassing...
A friend commented yesterday that the picture on our homepage was very inconsiderate towards "those who stayed behind". So Urs: To make you feel better, we're posting the picture above...
Yes, Namani is back in the water and she still floats! Almost to the day three years after she's been hauled out (see here for a very similar picture...) she's now back at the same dock at which we first arrived here at Yankee Marine in July 2008. Still lots of work to do on the boat but very happy the Namani is afloat again!
A foggy impression from our 6:15 am ferry ride from Peaks Island to Portland. Our daily commute to our new workplace at the boat yard these past 10 days... Fog has been surprisingly absent during the past week's heat wave up here, now it seems back to normal. Hoping to get Namani in the water later this morning...
After thinking we were close to launching Namani on Tuesday (today), a check of the seacocks yesterday (stupidly left to the last minute... revealed a seized one below the waterline - defintely no launch... it ended up having to be cut out with the yard's help, so this afternoon we had a nice big hole Namani's hull... new through-hull and seacock have since been installed, launch scheduled for Wednesday morning. Stay tuned...
A view from where we currently spend our days, hoping that Namani will be in the water again very soon now...