Rollin' on the river again! - Vallejo to Napa

  It has been a long time since we have been on the rivers of central California on a boat of ours. Not since the Shine Shack (our house boat we lived on in Tower Park)have I had such a desire to sing some Credence Clearwater while under way. I wanted to squeeze in a post from the last trip down before we head down again this weekend for things that Bunkmate touched on and will be put in a following post.

 After some haggling with Lee about where we wanted to dry dock the boat we got our way and made plans to put her up in Napa Valley Marina. They have a non-work yard and and a work yard with about a $200 a month price difference so we are putting her in the non work yard until she is paid off next year. We can still do some work inside and remove things that will come home with us to get worked on here but no sanding, varnishing, painting, or anything that resembles work from the outside but we can do quite a bit down below as long as we do it discretely. This meant that anything that needed to be done topside that involved these things needed to be done this weekend so we had to work quickly. All of the teak on the topside and a little caulking needed to be done to get it protected from the sun and rain so that it didn't get any worse before we could get into the major refit that will involve unstepping the mast and completely stripping the topside and a fresh coat of paint and nonskid which will come after moving her to the work yard next year.
  She was to be hauled out on Monday and it is a pretty good trip from Alameda to Napa so Lee moved her to Vallejo on Thursday with his friend Gordon and we would meet up with the boat there about midnight to 1:00 AM because we couldn't leave until Heather got off around 7:00 PM. We would then take the boat the rest of the leg with him Friday morning. It took them about 7 hours to get to Vallejo and we needed the key to get into the harbor when we rolled in after hours. In a quite comical message from Lee who was pretty exhausted, we got the message that he would leave the key on a big yellow crane, behind the control box of the big yellow crane, to just look for the big yellow crane ... I think big yellow crane was said about 4 more times in the message. After arriving at 1:30 AM we did indeed find the big yellow crane and had a nightcap and crashed.

  Friday morning we drove to Napa and met Lee there to shuttle him back to Vallejo so that we had a vehicle at the other end when we got there. We wandered the yard waiting for Lee and were happy with our decision to move her here. A very nice yard outside the bay area to get her ready to go cruising. We headed back to the boat and got ready to get under way when we realized that Lee had been looking at a date in 1996 for the tidal information and we were in fact at the peak of a mean low tide with a -1 low. It was now already noon and we weren't going anywhere right now. So we got some paper out and started sanding the teak to make use of the time. At around 2:30 after talking to a nice bloke from OZ(New Zealand) that has made this trip

several times before and gave us some navigation tips we were confident in departing. A nice uneventful trip up the river brought back memories of the Delta days. We arrived safely and grabbed a piece of guest dock and immediately went back to work sanding with supervisor Lee watching to make sure I knew how to put on a coat of varnish. If you know anything about men you know we all have a little different way of doing things than the other and of course our way is just a little bit better. Sooo with tongue in cheek we sanded and varnished until we appeased him. Heather made a nice plate of fruit we snacked on while we finalized signing the contract and we sent him on his way after he gave me a ride back to the car on his Spyder(a three wheeled BMW motorcycle). It now felt really good to be on our new boat and at her new home but after only a few hours sleep we were spent and my pink eye was the proof. A couple of sundowners and some supper and to the aft cabin we went. It is pretty roomy but with too many weenies in the bed (the dogs silly) it does get smaller, at least for me. Never the less Saturday we went to work and while very busy, we got everything accomplished and had fun doing it. We wrapped up Sunday and got out around 4:00 for an eta of 10:30 at the barn. The adventure has officially begun!