We delayed departure from Arlington Friday morning April 11 so that Donna could go to the county library book sale and hunt for her usual bargains. She was happy to find an interesting book on the complete history of the Panama Canal for $1.00 which she promptly gifted to Dave.

When we arrived at Georgetown we went to nearby marina Skipjack Cove to see if they had the bottom paint Donna had earlier requested . They had given away the gallons we needed so we went ahead and ordered the black paint we needed from this cheaper source, then returned to Georgetown where Dave bought 2 cans of blue bottom paint and some painting overalls so that we could put the first coat on this weekend.  

Dave washed all the sanding residue off the hulls. Saturday was rainy but in the morning we got one hull painted. Dave primed the prop blades on starboard side. He also primed the sail drives on both sides-two coats on port, 3 coats on starboard before running out of primer. Beyond all the painting, Dave also installed vacuum guages on the Racor fuel filters. He cleaned up the bilge, hand-pumped waste oil and discarded that and the waste fuel we had on hand from changing fuel filters the prior season at Georgetown's waste oil collection facility. He discovered the starboard engine room bilge pump isn't working-will have to troubleshoot.  Dave re-installed the bimini and windshield.

On Sunday, we painted the 2nd hull with the blue paint .  We're alternating colors (a coat of blue under a coat of black) to be able to monitor the wear of the paint. The hull paint is designed to wear away as it exposes fresh surface to prevent marine growth (slime, barnacles and such). Donna was busy cleaning the exterior hulls, shop vac'ing the tree residue fallen all over the deck and the water that had gotten into cockpit lockers. We waited for Paul to arrive in late evening to help us install the new trampoline. Gin and tonics for all when Paul finally arrived Sunday evening-along with strawberry shortcake.  

Monday morning Paul and Dave meandered around the boatyard surveying trampoline installations on other catamarans. As much as we wanted to install a new trampoline, we had heard "horror stories" from other catamaran owners about the enormous difficulty they had in stretching a new trampoline to its full size from the "shrunken" size it is delivered as. Paul and Dave started the trampoline project after devising how to proceed with blocks and lines running to winches in the cockpit to provide the "muscle" needed to stretch it to the final corner locations . This was critical in making the side lacing much easier. A tool Dave had read about called the "Maui Hookup" (used by windsurfers to tension their sails), along with the use of a vise grip to hold the lacing line once tensioned, eliminated the need to tie intermediary knots to maintain stretch. We held a stretch at the midpoint of each side length with a temporary cord. With Paul's help, we got both forward and aft edges installed before he had to leave at 6 pm.

Early Tuesday morning we completed lacing one side of the trampoline. We picked up a mega-bolt cutter from marina staff to remove the seized-up padlock from the dinghy's outboard motor. That morning we got a phone message from Debbie at Skipjack that the black paint we ordered for the second coat had arrived. We picked up paint at mid-day and were able to paint both hulls--it took all afternoon. As if that wasn't enough work, while we still had daylight we laced the final edge of the trampoline. We brought the old trampoline home so that Donna could dream up another use for its material. Exhausted, we left at 7 pm for Arlington.