Maryanne’s first visit to the boat now it is officially “ours”. We arrived at the boat and I was excited to show it to Maryanne. Unfortunately the inside was torn apart and covered with drop cloths as the various projects were underway. It looked in much worse condition then when last seen (all pristine). We spent the day measuring, and visiting the store to buy odds and ends.

Maryanne insisted that we could purchase a special boat launch bottle, which I thought was crazy – why would they make such a thing.. Those are special stage bottles – you would have to have one made especially and then filled – what a pain. You can imagine my embarrassment when at the boat store she walked up to and pointed at just such a bottle – pre made for the purpose. It was pre-scored to break easily and was enclosed in a net to contain any glass shards. We were paranoid about setting this bottle down, or knocking it on anything, in case it might break.

The river was finally free of ice, and the forecast was for a warm week, we agreed to ask PCI if they would be able to commission the boat that week and hand it over to us? We sent them an email that night (but the reply was the weather was still unstable, and they would let us know when they were ready to commission the boat, the indication was not soon!).

Of course for now, the boat was still on the hard. We checked part numbers, and spares we would need for our first engine servicing, but the boat was so ‘busy’ with partially completed projects we did not spend too much time there. We did install a fire extinguisher, and added locking catches to some of the outside lockers. We enjoyed lunch at the Mexican café, and set off home, full of smiles and stories.