Cruising Southeast Alaska On The M/V SHAD: On the Grid!

Today was our big day on the grid. We made it down to the boat a little before 4:30 am. For those of you that know us well, you know that generally we do not go anywhere at 4:30 in the morning. Most days when we head out for a boat trip we usually get out of the house between 10 & noon. This morning was different though, we had to be in precisely the right place at precisely the right time in order to settle on the grid properly.

Dave backed us out of our slip and ran us over to the grid as though he'd done it hundreds of times. We tied off to the pilings and waited for the tide to go out.

On the Grid... waiting

Several years of slime and grime on one of the buoys.

A couple of hours later and we are high and dry!

The SHAD and NINE LIVES on the grid.

This was my first look at what was underneath the water line. The Mussels were so thick I thought for sure we'd never get them off of there. Thankfully I was wrong; they were really easy to just scrape right off. The ones we couldn't reach with the scraper were blown off with the pressure washer.

Under the bow area

Under the stern; shaft/prop area.

We pressure washed and scraped for several hours.

Dave pressure washing the stern.

Port side.

Misty scraping under the bow.

Brenda topside and Misty scraping under the bow.

Jim and Dave trying to clean the muck off of the buoy.

Dave on the stern again.

Brenda pressure washing.

Starboard prop after cleaning.

Port prop after cleaning.

Looking down the starboard side.

We definitely expected to find rust under there but all in all we were very happy with the hull. We'll probably have to take care of the rust under the bow by welding on new steel plates and we're not sure how we are going to tackle the rust issue around the lower "rail" (not sure what else to call it).