Preparing the boat for our absence - on the "hard" (Demopolis)

Haul out at Demopolis Yacht Basin

We are now back at home, looking at the snow falling. It's mind boggling to think that we were in Alabama just a few days ago, staying on our boat in the boat yard...  (It seems a bit early in the season for so much snow - even for Canada!!!)

View from our front window

We had a lot of work to do before we were ready to catch our flights back home to Canada. Demopolis, Alabama is down south, but it still has cold days and nights in the winter, so we wanted/needed to winterize it so we don't come back to any nasty surprises.  In the past, we got our marina to do the work when they hauled us out, but we wanted to see if Papi could do it. And, yes! he did all the work himself. This trip has been a huge learning opportunity for him, and he has done an outstanding job on everything he has tackled. (I have an awesome husband).

We stayed at the Kingfisher Marina (affiliated with the Demopolis Yacht Basin) while we took the time to coordinate the haul out, rental car, flights home, and the million other last minute things we didn't want to forget. Quite a few "Loopers" leave there boat here, in the water, while they go home for the Holidays. (We even met a few other Canadian Loopers here - we had to get this far before we caught up with them.)

Covered slip

Pool was closed

Something funny with the bark on these trees

Leaving the slip to get hauled out

They play with the water levels here quite a bit!

We gave ourselves a week to do all the work. We foolishly though we would have time to spare. Papi was out there every day in the pouring rain and cold doing what was needed. (We are so glad we have all the manuals and books for our systems, Papi has been referencing them a lot, well, those and "Google & YouTube".) Everything was done!

Working in the cockpit - not in the rain...

All clean, the fenders needed a bit of attention!

Total chaos in the cabin!

We rented a car while we where going to be "on the hard". It was a good thing we did.  It rained everyday as we were working on the boat. The car was our personal shuttle to the washrooms at the other end of the boat yard and we were very happy to have it to run into town to find what we needed or were missing to get the job done.

We flew out of Birmingham Alabama and had two connecting flights before we finally made it home to New Brunswick.

We took the "plane train" to go from one terminal to the other... No driver!

We will be back to the boat in January 2019. Until then, we plan to rest, relax, and catch up with friends and family (especially the newest member of the family!), while continuing to plan and prepare for our "Part 2" of the Loop.

Tired, but happy to be on the way home.

Tina & Papi

"In life, it's not where you go, it's who you travel with" 

– Charles Schultz