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Last night (December 8th) Carol and I hosted a boat parade party here at Cocoa Village Marina. The smoker was lit about noon with ham, baked beans, and turkey breast (thanks to Scott) going on soon after. Joyce added a pan of Mac and cheese for the last 1 1/2 hours. Everything turned out great. The party had one of if not the largest turnout ever at 40-50. There were many fantastic dishes brought for sharing. The parade boats showed up about 7 pm. Below are a few pictures. This has become a yearly event ...

Besides remembering Pearl Harbor, December 7th is the day the set screws backed out of the PSS dripless shaft on Sweet Dreams. As you may remember the installer only used one set while the instructions call for two sets one installed behind the other. Once again we wish to thank Coast Guard Georgetown for coming to our rescue. Their professionalism shown through. Wow that was fun…not ...

Sweet Dreams is back in slip 51 at Cocoa Village Marina. The launch and trip back went off without any issues. The bottom felt slick as we motored. As I write this the entire crew is aboard; Sassy, Tinker Bell, Boo, Carol, and myself, everyone is tired. After a little rest Carol and I will be going back to the AirB&B to clean and get a few things. All and all this project was a success. The bottom looks good and time will tell how it ages. I believe we did a good job. The dripless gland worked as advertised. I no longer have the worry that our old dripless would fail and sink the boat, it was 30 years old! The new one will last more than 20 years. Oh the other good news Cape Marina 50 ton lift can lift Sweet Dreams without requiring the backstay to be removed. We had three opps happen today. The first was Pat’s can of coke got a hole in it and made a mess. The second was touching mud when we were circling for a SR 3 drawbridge, and lastly the 50 amp to 30 amp cord adapter vanished. Videos below ...

Well it took almost 3 gallons of paint, lots of sand paper and oh the fiberglass, epoxy, and barrier coat (and my friend Ed) but Sweet Dreams bottom is done! It took 3 days of painting. The first day was after a heavy rain that left water around the boat. The water made painting much more difficult as I had to step and kneel on small boards. The wind was even strong enough to flip a roller pan of paint (there went $50.00). Days two and three were easier, just painful back work. Two steps forward one back… the second major haul out task is to replace the dripless seal used on the drive shaft. Our current dripless seal has a flexible/rubberish bellows with a suggested replacement of 10-15 years. We are way past this time so a new Lasdrop seal has been purchased. To install requires removing the shaft coupling between the shaft and the transmission. After 25+ years it does not want to come off. The shaft is bronze the coupler is cast iron. Current I have someone scheduled to cut it off. This issue is risky to both our schedule (December 1 launch date) and the budget ...