Almost ready to see if she floats!

Its been a busy couple of days, but I think we are almost ready to put her in the water.  We have opened every locker, and taken inventory of what we have.  We bought new tools, kitchen appliances, cheap wine, and bad frozen pizza.  We mostly understand what is on board now.  The next big step is to figure out how it all works.  I still have one broken instrument that will require me being hoisted to the top of the mast (63ft tall).  Maggie gets to hoist me up there.  Hope the electric winch is up to the task, otherwise that’s a lot of hand cranking.

Today was bottom painting day (that’s the blue paint you see in the pictures).  The bottom paint is poisonous, so that marine critters don’t grow on the hull.  It is also ablative, so that every 3 to 4 weeks one or both of us can get in the water with a scraper and clean off the stuff that did not die – and some of the paint comes off each time.  It’s a shame that there is not a better way to keep boats from getting fouled than putting poison into the ocean.  Since this paint rubs off, we will have to repaint it again in a year or so.

Tomorrow is major grocery shopping day… our last full day with the rental car!  Sure wish we had a Costco here — its coming, but not soon enough.  Grocery shopping is interesting when you are not familiar with the common brands we have at home…   Overall prices are similar… we lucked out with 3 cheap bottles of wine (about $5 each & they were drinkable).  Bacon is crazy expensive… anyone coming to visit us, we will probably ask you to bring bacon !!  More yogurt varieties than you can imagine !!  About a 50′ grocery aisle.. both sides with yogurts!   And then there is the cheese…  yup, we’re in France and there is a ton of cheese !!

Anyway… it was a long busy day today… time to get some zzzz’s in our nice comfy bed !