Manana Has Now Become Today - not the Future

At 1732 (5:32 p.m. local time) Manana become a boat in the water again. Manana in Spanish means some time in the near future I was told and now I know how long that can be. She was hauled out of the water last in the middle of October of 2006. This is now July 9th, 2012 and that amounts to, lets see, take 6 away from 12 and that leaves 6, so I must assume that 6 years in Spanish can still be considered, some time in the near future.



To say all the work is done however, starts a whole new time period for the meaning of Manana.  There will be a whole days work ahead in performing what they call a punch list, to finish up little odds and ends to make her ready for sea. Then there will be the stepping on the mast and secure the rigging,  sea trails, engine tests and then if all goes according to plan, she will be ready to sail off that evening or early in the morning for her maiden voyage to Mackinaw Island.  Toss in a rest stop. in the middle of Lake Michigan, on Beaver Island and chances are it should be a fun and interesting trip. By car, it is about 150 miles, but the way we have to go is more like 200, since land and boats don’t seems to meld very well. We need to go about due east to get where we want to go, but due to land points and reefs we will be starting out south, then east, then north, and then again east. All of that should work well for a sailboat since the normal winds are from the north-west. We do have to return however after our weekend on the Big Mac Island and that could have us going all over the place on the compass dial to get back to Escanaba, Michigan.



Did all the planned work get done in the six year total overhaul of this 47 year old boat? Well, it has to be explained in a different way to be fair to the shipyard and the workers. There was a lot more work done than was the original idea and done in a manner much superior than was expected. But as the project moved along, there seem to be new ideas that kept being added to the project to even make it better than it was already being. Not so much changes from the basic plan, but more like, we have gone this far and while we are at it, why not add a few more bonus items. Not many of these last minute items made the final deadline for this years cruising, but many items are now sitting at the boatyard and will be ready to be installed after we haul out for next winter.



Among these last brainstorms are, a custom mounting set up for the solar panel to charge the battery bank and keep all the new LED lights burning, radar & ham radio antennas, and davits to hoist our dingy out of the water. As what usually happens, when we get sailing this summer, we will no doubt come up with another list of things, some really needed, others just on a wish list.



The plan at this moment, is to get a very early start, from the Vinette Boatworks dock on Wednesday July 11th, and see what mother nature has in store for us at that time. We know where we want to end up and when we need to get there, but how we actual go can not be locked in at this time. We wanted to leave a day earlier with planned stops along the way, but the loss of a full day changes everything.



Even getting a start on this trip Wednesday morning will require not only my approval that we are ready, but we will also wait to hear that statement from Dan the Boat Man, who runs the Vinette Boatworks. When I left the boatyard about 7 pm, the boat was resting neat and trim in the water and I walked away feeling that was a very good sign. But just in case I asked about the bilge pump and was assured that it was in full working order and was set in the automatic mode. All the Coast Guard required safety equipment is near by on a pallet, ready to be loaded aboard and in the morning I will do some shopping to stock up the cooler and store everything aboard.



We will be taking a video camera and when we can find an internet connect we will be passing along a progress report on the web edition www.upmag.net and here when we can