yuillsailing: Boat survey and furnishing

I had made plans to have Arctic Tern surveyed in Deganwy, close to where we were staying in Llandudno. I chose there because they were the only marina in the area with a crane large enough to lift Arctic Tern out of the water (or so I was told). Les and Ali brought the boat over from Caernarfon, and we met there with the surveyor first thing Monday morning, July 18th. The hoist operator took one look at the boat, and declared that there was no way she was coming out of the water. We did manage to perform most of the survey that day, but we still needed a way to see her undersides.

After considering a couple of option, we decided that the simplest (and cheaper for me) was to return the boat back to Caernarfon, and simply let her dry out with the falling tide, tied to the harbour wall. I was completely unfamiliar with this procedure, but apparently Les has done it a number of times, to work on the bottom, and the surveyor seemed happy enough with it. We agreed to meet back up the next afternoon at Caernarfon.

When we arrived, they had the boat well tied off against the wall, and resting with her keel on the gravel. The tide still had a couple of feet to drop, but it was perceptibly going down. Mark, the surveyor arrived shortly thereafter, and he got started with a quick dinghy trip around her. Once the water was down to only a few inches on the gravel, we all joined him, and the survey was able to be completed.

I was glad to have the experience of letting the boat dry out this way. It might come in handy at some point down the road. The survey results were mostly positive, with only a few items identified that need work (such as having the fire extinguishers serviced). I declared the boat accepted, and after a couple of days moving money around, I met up with Les and Ali Friday afternoon, to sign the final paperwork, and get the keys. She was ours!

Then the shopping frenzy started. Les and Ali had cleared pretty much all their personal possessions off the board, so we had a huge list of things to buy. The next few days were spent plowing our way through Ikea, Costco, and a number of other stores, buying all the necessities of life. Sheets, pillows, blankets, pots, dishes, cutlery, cooking utensils, tools, storage boxes, cleaning supplies, etc etc etc. We were staying near Chester England for the few days between the survey and possession, which had good access to all the retail we could stand. Once I had the keys, we moved onto the boat, and started the process of moving in, and getting her set up the way we wanted. There were a few improvements we made the first week, including replacing the carpet in the few rooms that have it, and attending to most of the technical issues the surveyor found.

During the 10 or so days we spent living on the boat in the Caernarfon marina, we got her feeling pretty much like our new part time home. We also entertained our first guests. Susan and John came over one evening after seeing our Canadian flag flying from the transom. They have a son living in Whistler, and they wanted to hear our story. We invited them back for a glass of wine later, which allowed us the opportunity to pick their brains about the various sailing areas in these parts. They nicely reciprocated the next night, and took us to the Royal Welsh Yacht Club, which claims to be the oldest in the world (or in the oldest building - within the walls of Caernarfon Castle).