Hull blasting: Finally done and back in the water

 We drive up to the Cleanlift fairly early. While we're waiting for the transporter to be free, we sign the paperwork and pay the bill. Then we're ready to watch them pick up Nahani drive her across to the pen and lower her gently back in - we climb aboard as she goes down.

Once she's back in there's a flurry of preparation - turning on seacocks, getting the fenders out of the lazarette, removing the engine cover and then we're ready to start her up, back out of the pen and set off down-river. There's a stiff southerly but it eases a bit as we enter the marina. It's our first entry to the new pen and we don't get it quite right, but John Casey is there working on Grace, so he gives us a hand and we are soon safely berthed. We're just about to shut down the engine and finish sorting out lines when we realise that our new neighbour Black Label is about to come back into her half of the double pen. It's a big stinkboat that hasn't moved all summer, so we thought we could leave dinghy and kayaks tucked behind her. It obviously hadn't hampered her when leaving the pen, but we think we should get them out of the way before she tries to come back in - another flurry of activity to lift one kayak off the dinghy, pull the other out of the water and then move the dinghy across to our side. We give them a hand with their lines as they come in. Only when they are tied up do we realise that our engine is still running. Turn it off, adjust more lines, paddle the dinghy round to the stern and pull it up on the davits, paddle the kayak round and remove the bungs. Finally we're ready for lunch and a return to the Blichfeldts to do our washing and pack up our stuff.