We arrived back in Grenada in the evening of Saturday 18th January.  The flight was an hour late, not a big deal.  There was a minor glitch on arrival at the boatyard because the girl in the office had forgotten to leave the room keys with the security guard, but it just meant we had to take our bags to the restaurant with us while we had dinner and waited for the keys to arrive.

 

I had scheduled the launch for the Monday, forgetting that everywhere would be closed for the weekend, which meant we would not get our new cushion covers through customs until Monday, or have access to water/electricity to clean Anastasia and recharge the batteries etc.  On Monday morning I moved the launch time to Wednesday afternoon, so we had more time to prepare, including buying food and doing laundry.

 

Wednesday went reasonably smoothly.  The main issue, which was surprisingly not a problem with Anastasia, was that someone parked their car in the shade underneath her and we had to wait an hour with the lift sitting there.  The guys considered dragging the car out with a tractor (no obvious attachment point) or breaking into the car (noone had the right “tools”).  Eventually the woman came back, but was too embarrassed to come over and sent a friend over with the key to move the car.

 

The guys lifted Anastasia and we re-inserted the rudders, which I had removed to pull out the prop shafts and redo the seals and bearings.  Once in the water, both engines started and we managed to pull back out of the lift pontoons fast enough that the brisk breeze on our beam did not mash our fenders on the downwind side.

 

Motoring over to the anchorage the port engine bilge alarm went off.  There is some problem with the raw water supply hose.  Not a real problem because it is not leaking when the engine is off, but something I need to fix before we can leave the anchorage.

 

Getting ready to lift, but there is a car parked underneath Anastasia

 

Blair came over to help insert the rudders and Andrea made sure they got it right

 

Anastasia is only 23 tonnes, but I guess this manhole cover was not rated for that load.  Lucky it was just a bit of crumbling at the edge and not a large sinkhole.

 

Over the water

 

Lowering into the water

 

Floating at last