Toulouse

S/V Goldcrest
David & Lindsay Inwood
Mon 15 Apr 2013 15:00

Just to let our regulars know that we won’t be posting to the blog for a while as we are now off the boat and in a studio flat in Toulouse to be near our wonderful granddaughter Olivia:

We finally put our other baby (Goldcrest) to bed after a week of frantic activity cleaning everything and literally clearing the decks for several months out of the water exposed to rain, wind and very high temperatures.

Getting her out of the water proved a bit more complicated than it should as Goldcrest is a bit too long for the travel lift and had to have the forestay removed.  To cap an already fraught experience we then discovered that the “Coppercoat” anti-foul was coming off in patches.  We spent a fortune on this last summer as it is supposed to need no significant maintenance for 10-15 years, so to discover that parts need to be stripped off and re-applied after less than a year is very frustrating.  At least the yard that did it has accepted responsibility.

 

This is our first experience of leaving a boat since selling up to live aboard so we weren’t exactly sure what needed doing or what to expect.  We left her with very mixed feelings; worries about our preparations tempered with excitement about seeing our first grandchild.  Now we are far away from the boat and reviewing what we do next, decisions are still proving difficult.  Whilst we’d love to continue on into the Pacific next year, we are increasingly thinking that our first responsibility should be to family and that rather draws us north and east up the coast of the USA and back towards Europe.  Decisions, decisions!