Prepping for Splashdown

The week before Thanksgiving was a whirlwind of activity for me. After driving in pouring rain for 16 hours I arrived in St Augustine with a truck packed full on Fri. the 20th with plans to splash Makana on Wed. the 25th. If I didn’t have the boat ready to be in the water by the morning of the 25th it would be over a week wait to launch. This gave me 4 days to finish up all the projects on the boat before launching. So off I went, prioritizing the projects with the engines being top (1 catamaran = 2 engines plus 1 for generator). I changed the oil in the engines last May however not the oil in the lower drive units and I also planned to replace the oil seals for the prop shafts. A ½ day to drain the oil, pull the props, pull the prop shafts, clean and replace the seals, put prop shafts back, replace the zincs, put the props back on and refill the oil.
The engines had been sitting quietly since May so I wanted to make sure they would start before going in the water. Engines on a boat require seawater for cooling, with Makana sitting 10 feet above sea level I had to improvise by using a 5 gal bucket with length of hose hooked up to the engine while another hose hooked up to fresh water to keep the bucket full while the engine was running. Although they were a little groggy at first both engines were happy to be reawakened, OK now the boat could move without the sails next up was to clean and wax the hulls. This took 2 full days working from sunrise to sunset and me exhausted as most of the work was completed 4 feet up a stepladder; up, down, up, down, up……..
With one day left to splashdown I decided to provision the boat as I could park the truck next to Makana which would not be the situation after launching. Provisioning for 6 months requires some ingenuity, in addition to all the food things such as how many rolls of toilet paper and tubes of tooth paste need to be considered. Do you know how many rolls of toilet paper you use in 6 months? It’s not that we won’t be able to find toilet paper in the Bahamas it would just cost 2-3X the price in the states.

The recipe for the Baby-back ribs is very simple, after removing the smooth membrane from the ribs I cut 2/3 down each rib then steam them in a covered pot for 10-12 min. (this accomplishes two things; cooking off fat which will prevent flare-up on the grill and reduces the time spent on the grill resulting in juicier meat). Remove from pot and coat the ribs with olive oil then with finely chop fresh thyme, oregano and basil, add salt and pepper grill to perfection. Gotta have veggies so I also grilled some onions and yellow zucchini.