Ft Lauderdale

Hakuna Matata had an appointment with a bloomin’ great lift at 8:30 the next morning. The reason it was being lifted was to effect repairs to the stern glands and to realign the shaft on the port engine.

We got into the space for the lift second time around – had to fight a bit of current – and disembarked. A diver (brave given the colour of that river water) fixed two enormous straps under Haku and the lift started. Very slowly our little boat emerged from the water and seemed to grow enormously in size. But as it moved off at a snail’s pace, controlled by a bloke with a remote control unit very like a toy car remote, it got smaller again against the giant wheels.

The boat finally came to rest amongst a bunch of others, was supported on blocks and our new way to embark was via a set of blocks, then up the vertical diving ladder and then up the transom steps. The weirdest feeling is being on a boat 20 feet up in the air and when you look through the window, nothing moves.

We spent the next few days in a hotel in the area while Chris worked on the boat. It was incredibly hot in the yard and the work was incredibly hard. We explored the beach and swam in the pool – we did do school.

Pic 1: The diver is the small dot in the middle of the picture under the boat.
Pic 2: The boat is the small thing next to the huge wheels.
Pic 3: The boys and discussing the technicalities of the job.