Chapter 124: Back in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

We just returned from a wonderful week in the US with family celebrating my niece’s wedding 💗!!!

It was our first trip back to the US in six months and definitely was a bit of a culture shock! Most recently, we have been based in Grenada where you drive on the left in a car with the steering wheel on the right. The roads are two lanes for the most part with lots of steep hills, rain gutters along the side that can swallow your tires along with frequent potholes. The rental cars are typically small models like the Toyota Passo or the Suzuki Swift. In Colorado, our rental was a Subaru SUV – quite an adjustment!  Visiting the grocery store was also an adjustment.  In the Caribbean we have had a range of options from super small, mom and pop stores to some moderately larger chain stores like Ram’s.  But even Ram’s does not come close to the selection and size of the King Soopers in Denver!  I thought Bob was going to kneel on the floor in the cereal aisle – boxes and boxes of mini wheats for less than $14 a box!! Plus pretzels, lots of pretzels!! Honestly, we probably should have brought more suitcases but we already were going back with one extra filled with items we had shipped to the kids so maybe on our next trip back!  But of course the best thing about the trip was spending time with our family.  Nick and Kat, my sisters, brother in law, and nieces and nephews were all there for an amazing DelGreco/Stephens/Olivari reunion at the most magical wedding of Jenny and Seth. Truly a beautiful celebration of a beautiful couple.  We also got to visit with Bob’s mom and had a great time with her as well!  The time went by too fast and to be honest, we did enjoy the conveniences of land life quite a bit after 6 months of full time on the boat.  We were a little sad to be heading back for sure.  

The trip back to Grenada was a bit exhausting.  We took a redeye out of Denver that left at 12:55am and arrived in Miami around 6 in the morning. The flight from Miami to Grenada was scheduled to leave at 10:10am.  We boarded on time but then nothing seemed to be happening.  Finally the pilot came on and announced that we were delayed because the ground crew in Miami had forgotten to service the lavatories even though the plane had been on the ground all night long! So we sat for 90 minutes at the gate while they very SLOWLY got them serviced.  We then waited another 30 minutes for a crew to push the plane back from the gate.  Let’s just say our pilot was less than pleased and shared it with the passengers! We finally arrived back in Grenada around 3:30pm.  We cleared customs surprisingly fast and had a colorful taxi ride back to Meraviglia. We were finally home and on board after being awake for 37 hours – kind of like a passage on Meraviglia!!

Back at the marina, we spent Wednesday recovering from our trip and  prepping for our haul out on Thursday.  We also got our repaired windlass installed – yay!! We are staying in an apartment (really a hotel room set up) at the marina while the boat is hauled as we will not have power or water on board. So on Thursday morning we had to pack up all of our refrigerator and freezer items before we moved the boat to the haul out slip.  We got that accomplished and headed to the haul out slip around 10am where the team at Clarke’s Court Boatyard and Marina (CCBM) took over from there. Jose and team were phenomenal.  They did such a thorough and professional job lifting our baby up and out.  Once she was out, then the fun began.  They lower her from the travel lift (which is totally controlled by a person with a remote on the dock- what?!?) to a hydraulic travel trailer.  They then needed to back her into a VERY narrow spot between two other boats.  It truly was crazy to watch but the team clearly has it down pat and it only took two attempts to back her in.  Once she was in, we realize d we needed to have them adjust the placement of the jack stands so that we could make the necessary repairs to the bottom paint. So back came the truck to lift her and make the adjustments with no problems.  Truly we could not be more grateful for the team at CCBM!

So now, the work begins.  So far we have removed the old propeller and are working on finding a necessary tool to install the new propeller.  Bob has faired and sanded the areas on the bottom that need to have Copper Coat reapplied.  And we solved a new leak that appeared over our bed.  Always something to keep us guessing! More later from the boatyard!