Well, Saturday was not the best day working on Akupara. Not a lot was accomplished even though the weather was fantastic and the yard was abuzz with lots of activity.
The day got off to a good start at about 8:30 in the morning when I arrived and I immediately set to work on a few items I needed to take care of.
They are going to be moving Akupara one stall over so that they can get a bigger boat in the spot where we are now and the one in front of it, so I needed to cut the chain that was attaching the dinghy to the jack stand and clean up the chain that was half hanging from the bow and piled in a not so neat pile on the ground.
I began by cutting the lock on the dinghy which of course was one of those high security locks, read harder to cut, and then moved on to the pile of chain on the ground. If you remember the chain in the locker was a partial ball of rust but about half of it was actually in pretty good shape. So I decided that if I cut the rusty section away, I would have a good backup or secondary partial rope partial chain rode.
In order to cut the chain I had to take one handle of the bolt cutters and place it against my hip and use both hands to pull on the other handle. The chain is tough that’s for damn sure. Of course in order to hold the one handle against my inner hip, I had to bend over into a crouched position.
Everything went fine and I made the 6 cuts (2 per link) as planned. I then climbed up the ladder onto Akupara, took one step down the ladder and froze. I stayed there for a little bit trying to decide if it was safer to back up, or to try to go down the rest of the way. I decided it would be easier for the emergency crews to get me off of the deck than it would be if I was also down below.
I managed to get the rest of the chain pulled up on deck and half of the rode into the chain locker before I had to stop completely. In hindsight I should not have continued of course but hey, I never claimed to be smart.
So by the time the Admiral and the crew arrived, I was ready to pretty much call it a day and had no intentions of trying to do anything else. Paige and August did get the anchor into the back of my truck and we spent a bit of time cleaning up the area around Akupara but I guess the biggest accomplishment was Paige started removing the previous owners hailing port from the stern. We are still deciding if we are going to change the font and colour of the name.
It is now Monday evening and I have not left the house since Saturday morning when I got home. I am pretty much confined to the couch and the bed but I am trying to get up and walk around a bit as much as possible. Hopefully I recover fast as I leave for Mexico in 6 days. If nothing else, maybe the Tequila will fix it 😉
FYI – when they say lift with your legs, they also mean pull with your legs. Your arms are a lot stronger than your lower back!
