She's gone

Donnie started the morning by taking off the eight bolts that hold Bessie in her rightful spot.  It's a good thing we waited to disconnect her this morning, as it was a bouncy night here at Banana Bay.  We had sustained NW winds at 30mph, with gusts even higher.  The extra lines and fenders worked- no damage this morning.

Willis wanted no part of the commotion of last night or this morning.  He bolted as soon as he saw a chance.

Prepping the boom to use...don't want to damage the new mainsail :)

Mike brought down his electric winch, and they attached it to the piling.  There's a pulley Donnie hung from the boom, that he then ran the cable through.  Seemed like a reasonable idea to Paps and I!

Getting Bessie hooked up, to lift her up high enough to clear the oil pan.  Breaking her free from the nest!

All clear- she's coming up...

and out!

And it worked like a charm, Bessie is on the dock- whew!  High fives all around.

Take a good look, this is Bessie BEFORE the rebuild.  She'll look brand new when we get her back :)

I drove over to Yanmar Diesel, and told him we were all ready.  He sent his guys right over to pick her up.

Good bye Bessie, until we meet again :)

It was just now lunchtime, so Donnie and I decided to celebrate with some German fish sandwich platters from Fish Tales- the best on the island.  It was delicious.  We then went to the Dollar Store to arm ourselves with some much needed cleaning supplies.  Marquesa's engine room, cockpit and down below were all getting a much needed scrubbing.

We also stopped to see Paps, the barber, for a much needed haircut for Cap'n :)

And the rest of our day was spent cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.  We visited with some other boaters here at Banana Bay which was nice.  We started making plans for the Superbowl Party.  Betty the bookie has agreed to take care of our serious bets again this year.

If you were looking for our wildlife picture of the day, can you find him in the mangroves?

Actually, can you identify what this is?  It got blown in to Banana Bay after last night's storm.  I'll tell you this, you don't EVER want to tangle with one...it will hurt you bad.

As for tomorrow, hopefully it will be a bit warmer.  The back end of yesterday's front that blew through left us with only a high of about 68 today.  As for our plans, right now we plan to head down to Big Pine Key as they are having a nautical flea market....we always need a nautical something or another :)  G'nite y'all!