3 weeks to the day since I arrived in San Carlos, Brio is finally in the water!
Here’s a little photo essay of her transformation:
A before picture -- multicoloured bottom paint and all!
After Jon had scraped all the old paint off (with a 2" carbide scraper), showing a mix of gelcoat and primer
Post-sanding -- took 4 days to sand the whole damn bottom
But we had fun while we worked ~ except for that drip of barrier coat in Jon's eye...!
Brio with her first coat of barrier epoxy in place -- Exciting! And kind of pretty with a grey bottom, right?
First moments of bottom paint! Are you as excited as me about all this?!?!
Bottom paint finished -- now we can really appreciate how much work 'mi novio' put in to this baby
And showing off her new name too 🙂
Then a ride through town, with me grinding my teeth the whole way, praying we won't be 'the one that got away'...
Until finally, it's launch time (Do you like the size of our flag? Jon says I can't keep it... apparently 3'x5' is an overwhelmingly large size of flag for our boat. I think he just doesn't want anything to obscure the pretty windvane panel that he painted - with white stripes, to the right of the flag!)
She floats!
Now we are sitting on a mooring in San Carlos bay, where we’ll stay while we provision, do massive loads of disgusting work-yard laundry, and watch for a weather window to cross to the Baja side of Mexico. Needless to say, I’m pretty psyched to be a floating boat again!!!