I back with more daily drama! I think I posted that Hubby and I have been searching for a houseboat. Well, we finally found one north of Chicago. We traveled a thousand miles there and another thousand back. The trip was worth it because we found our boat.

Our boat made the trip down safely and arrived last Saturday morning.  We even had our little parade! It was a little nerve-wracking to watch them unload the boat and place it in the bayou.

As you can see, we had loads of help! The owners of the dry dock and friends who had spread the word that our boat was arriving. The bayou has its own form of communication – much like the old string can – and word travels fast. We had calls from friends that we didn’t know knew we were getting a boat letting us know the boat had passed their house! Everyone was excited for us.

This is the video of the actual launching. It was so exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time – watching the boat come off the trailer and then swinging in mid-air.

The boat ended up spending the night at the dry dock and Hubby was able to bring it home on Sunday morning. (These pictures were taken from our wharf.)

Down here in Bayouland, we have to time trips up and down the bayou according to curfews at the locks and bridges. We tied up the boat at our wharf and the weather got really bad due to the remnants from the Mexico hurricane. The water in the bayou rose almost three feet. Our wharf no longer existed for a while, which made boarding the boat hazardous for a few days.

When we were finally able to get on the boat, we began clearing out everything that had been stored for shipping – the Bimini tops, rails, etc. I guess I should back up. What we found when we boarded was the mess the marina left us. (Check out the first picture.) They prepared the boat for shipping by packing all of the trinkets left behind by the previous owners so nothing would get broken or cause damage.

They also “packaged” lights to the walls as well as the electronics. They literally used so much tape, the items looked like they were packaged. As we began to remove the tape from items that did not need securing in the first place, the tape also delaminated the walls. That’s right! The idiots used clear packing tape; the same that is used to tape boxes for mailing! The inside of the boat is a mess and we are very upset.

Nothing is ever easy, right? We’ve been on the phone with the marina and they tried to deny the mess they made. I’m exploring our options at this point because the perfectly good walls of the boat that we purchased are not ruined and the only way to rectify the situation is to replace the walls. And, that is just not something we want or planned to do at this point. We do feel that they should offer something to cover the cost of the repairs.

We took out rails and the Bimini tops and those were like a jig-saw puzzle, but we put those together and the outside of the boat is finally looking complete. We have plans to clean it up and re-stripe it with blue stripes. Hubby found a few photos of the boat while digging through the mess and we are hoping to match the stripes. It is fun seeing it come together now that it is ours.

I spent most of Friday afternoon removing about a million screws, but that job is done. We noticed where the previous owners had varnished some of the cabinets and the wall. We may take that idea and try to varnish the all the walls in the boat. We are thinking that it might help camouflage the missing laminate, as least until we can re-panel the boat.

I took measurements to replace all of the cushions. I think they are as old as the boat and really yucky.

One step at a time. I really wanted to go for a ride today as I haven’t yet ridden in the boat, but we have had high winds due to more inclement weather coming in so maybe tomorrow afternoon – fingers crossed.

We had some friends who did take their houseboat for a ride on the bayou today and they stopped by and we chatted for a while. Later on, we saw them anchored out and swinging in the hammock. We came to one conclusion! We need a hammock too!