April 18, 2023, Tuesday - Stuart, Florida

April 17, 2023 - Monday

Kip and I went to Stuart Beach this morning - our last walk on the beach before we leave.  It was cloudy and rainy today, so we stayed close to the boat after that.  

April 18, 2023 - Tuesday

Kip got up early and drove to LaBelle to pick up our boat trailer.  It will take him about 4 hours round trip.  When he got back, we trailered the boat and begin the process of removing (scraping) the barnacles from the bottom of the boat and the dinghy.  

I worked on scrapping the dinghy until Kip was done getting the boat ready to put on the trailer.

We trailered the boat a bit crooked so we could put it back into the water, rinse it, and put it back on straight and finish the scrapping.  It was completely disgusting!  They were caked everywhere and hard as rocks.  The bow thrusters were so caked they wouldn't even spin anymore.  We scrapped for over an hour, cutting our hands up from the sharp edges and barnacles, and they still didn't come off.  Kip did underneath the boat and I worked on the back and sides.  Kip's clothes were black, and his arms were red from all of his cuts.  The smell was terrible.  We did the best we could and will have to address it again once we get home.  Kip said there is some chemical that will get it off.  

Once we got our fill of scraping, we put the boat back into the water to wash it off.  Then we put it back on the trailer and took it to a car wash to power wash it.  We pulled the truck through and got the boat in as far as we could without the top hitting.  The man at the car wash was yelling "you're going to hit".  I had to walk over and explain to him that we are aware of that, and that we are going to wash the front and then back the boat into the car wash to wash the other half of the boat.  He was then satisfied that there would be no crisis.

Doug told us that many people park overnight near his house, so we met him in the parking lot of the strip mall, parked the boat, and went into the bar to meet up with his friends.  We then went to Doug and Gwen's house where we swam, showered, had a wonderful Italian dinner, strawberry daiquiris, salad, and coconut cake.  We tucked in around 9:00 p.m. and had the luxury of sleeping in the King size bed in their guest room!