Almost 2 years ago when we picked up our boat we hit in the C&D canal something…. it was the most scary experience we had still as of today on our boat.

Shortly after we arrived in Jersey City in 2018, we had a diver looking at the bottom and he saw that one prop was severe damaged and we exchanged it. However we still had a slide vibration when driving the boat.

We have been investigating different marinas which haul out boats of our size and have a decent reputation.
After our 6 months delay being able to pick up the boat because of bottom repair, we were super nervous to let anybody touch our bottom again.
We also checked with a diving company, if they could come and have another look. The pricing was only a couple of $100 difference between the haul out and the diver. There was also a chance that the bottom would needed repaint and if we would haul out we could do this at the same time.
However where would we stay and this during Covid…. I dreamed to have a vacation away from the boat, but Marcus wanted to be near the boat and inspect everything on a daily basis. Lucky we knew a couple of people which didn’t use their places full time and we could stay with them a few nights, if we couldn’t go right away back into the water. We ended up staying overnight at a little cute studio apartment walking distance to the boat yard owned by a very nice couple who has also a boat in our marina.

… But what about if the marina would find something serious damaged and it would take weeks to fix it…..
The boat is our home, to do a haul it out is very scary…..
On Sept. 14th we drove the boat to Liberty Landing Marina.
Watched in awe how it got hauled out.
First impression – the pain didn’t look too bad and they told us the paint would last for another 6 months or so.
Checked prop and second prop had a bent too which the diver missed – needed replacement – but we have back up props – easy
Checked zincs – all gone and needed to be replaced which is no big deal
Shaft – our biggest worry – was NOT damaged – what a big relieve.
Damaged Starboard Prop Scraped Keel
So it looked like we could go back in the water the same day…. I wanted to start dancing…but lucky I didn’t…..
Don our wonderful neighbor who is super experienced boater for many years agreed to come over to have a look. He agreed with the assessment of the marina, but said if you anyway have the boat out, you might as well do the paint so you don’t have to worry for another 2 to 3 years….

So we decided to get everything done mentioned above including the paint. The Marina told us, if everything goes well we will be back in the water on Thursday Sept. 17th…. all went super well according plan…which is not a given in the boating world and we were the happiest back in the water…
dry office back in the water
We stayed during the day on our boat… funny feeling to sit on your boat on a dry dock and went to our friends place at night.
Luna in the mean time was on vacation at our friends place Yazmin – she loved to follow Yazmin everywhere.

We haven’t received the final bill yet, but so far this has been a hopeful experience. Thanks again to Dragana, Karjtan, Yasmin, Don and the crew from Liberty Landing Marina for their help.