Launch Day!

The big day, I cleaned up around the boat. The guys were a couple of hours late, which gave me time to get a few more things done. When they lifted her, a part of the lifter got jammed on the stainless railing. It damaged it but worse was to come. 

As they put her in the water, it was so wide that they scraped her. It was after it had already started happening that the driver said I should put some rope along the sides, thanks for the heads up before buddy! After a few bad chips and some scrapes she was through. 

I started the engines and motored to the fuel dock. I couldn’t figure how to turn the motors off! After fiddling around for 5 minutes I figured that you just press the stop switch nice and soft…not super stressfully hard as I was doing!

I motored across the straights to Tortola, Trellis Bay and felt totally free, unburdened and happy. I have no desire to go back to Virgin Gorda, maybe just to swim and snorkel but not into the yacht harbour. I anchored in Trellis and hopped in the Tender to have a look around. She started up fine and I untied and left. As soon as I tried to turn, disaster! The motor was jammed in straight ahead! I managed a few slight degrees of a turn and after 10 minutes of frustratingly zig zagging, I finally used the wind and motor and reached the back of the boat. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to free it up. Its better but makes a awefull squeal every time I turn it with both hands! next job!

Scccrrrraaaape...poor Brahminy