Putting the boat back together

We are so very happy to report that Hello World made it through the winter with no issues at all. We had someone in town keeping an eye on her once a week. He kept a great log, but all we got in Charlotte were boat watching and utilities bills, so we assumed she was still floating (or if she had sunk, someone took our spot and hooked up to our shore power).



We didn’t want to act like helicopter parents, so we kept our wishes for daily updates and pictures to ourselves.

We had left every possible device running to keep the boat dry and mold-free: multiple large fans, a heater and a dehumidifier. When we arrived back, that work had largely paid off as there was very little mold – woohoo! The dehumidifier wasn’t running, so we’re not sure when during the winter it stopped – but either we didn’t need it, or it stopped recently.

We had not tented the boat, so topsides were pretty green, but then again, the sun had done a good majority of the work of stripping our varnish for us too. A day of scrubbing and scraping got her looking great again.

The biggest issue we had was getting the RV antifreeze taste out of our lines – that took about 3 tanks-worth of just running good water through before it got to tasting normal again.

We still have some work to do (like getting to the top of the mast to right our windvane which was apparently used as a hangout by a rather large eagle), but all things that we can do while we’re cruising – so thank you Wrangell, we’ll see you again someday, but now, we’re headed south!