Saying Goodbye to Holland

Well, we were beginning to think it would never happen, but it has. We flew back to Holland over the weekend and spent four days working hard on the boat to unpack, replace all of the things that had been stored for the winter, provision, and, of course, clean. We spent a lot of time cleaning, but after several days, we began to see results. We will really miss Holland in one sense. It's a beautiful little town. It's safe, clean, friendly and interesting. The natural setting is beautiful with the inlet from Lake Michigan called Lake Macatawa, which is about 10 miles long and lined with really nice homes and parks. However, Katie B has spent eight months here and that's enough.

We showed up on Thursday with a break in the weather and the wind to watch the Eldeane boat crew move our trawler from indoor storage, across a concrete apron and plunker down in the water once again. It was a cool sensation to be on board once she was back in the water because she felt like a boat again.

We had mixed feelings about the boat yard. They certainly did a lot of work for us over the winter and the quality of the work was quite good. The new shaft seals didn't leak, at least not so far. The new radio antennas were great. Don't get me started about the electric toilets! And the other minor jobs around the boat seem to have been done well. Some of the mechanics were quite conscientious and went far out of their way to accomplish difficult projects. The problem was and this seems simple, but they didn't remove their shoes when they entered our boat and walked through it, leaving behind a trail of and boat dirt. This was ground into the carpets in the interior teak flooring, as well as the nonstick decks outside. Some of the carpets were so badly soiled that we had to dispose of them. Others took a washing and presentable. Before we left, I had some detailers come on board to try to work out the outside decks. I'm afraid that the grease and dirt ground into the walkways is probably permanent. It's really painful to have such a bad aftertaste when so much good work was done.