The sunrise on Sunday, April 12, 2026 was mostly blocked, but a sliver of sun managed to peep out from behind the clouds.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday were quiet days. We spent all three days doing chores around the boat in preparation for the haul out. We did lots of odds and ends, such as cooking up everything in the refrigerator that wouldn’t last for a couple of weeks and removing the storm plates from the windows. Last week, Eric had turned off the generator through-hull and opened up the generator so that the raw water pump could be changed. He got confirmation that it would be changed in the yard, so he put the generator back together and turned the through hull back to open on the off chance that it may need to be run. Someone came to pump out the blackwater tank. Eric and Keith also cleaned up rust stains that we’d noticed around the boat.

On Monday afternoon, we checked into a motel near the marina. It certainly wasn’t fancy, but it was the best deal in the area in terms of value for the money. Last year, this motel had been booked and Eric had been forced to stay farther away. He was happy about being closer this year.

Even though Kosmos wasn’t going to be pulled out of the water until Tuesday morning, Eric was worried about logistics. Once we knew we weren’t going to need to use the bathrooms again, we frantically shuffled stuff that normally lives in the engine room and lazarette into the bathrooms in order to ensure the boat workers had unencumbered access to everything in those two areas.

In the evening, we went to dinner with Johnny and Joanne at a nearby restaurant called Kabuki, which we’ve eaten at before with them. Kabuki also had great happy hour specials.

After dinner, we tried a new frozen dessert place called Jeremiah’s, locating in a shopping center close to the marina. Jeremiah’s claim to fame was they mixed various flavors of Italian ices and ice creams together into sundaes. Keith got strawberry cheesecake flavor with cheesecake Italian ice, strawberry Italian ice, vanilla ice cream and graham crackers. The sundaes were very rich. 

On Tuesday, we went over to Kosmos first thing in the morning. We had breakfast and lunch onboard and ate up enough food that we could turn off one of the refrigerator units. Christi and Keith did school while Eric went to the boat yard. He scoped out the spot where he needed to drive Kosmos to and talked about the work that was scheduled.

Once Eric returned, we started working on the last minute things that needed to be done. One of them was flushing out the sink to ensure that there was no food/gunk caught in the pipes that would start stinking after a few days. Another big clog came out.

Eric had asked Yacht Tech whether the rudders needed to be repacked. The legendary James Knight, who we’d never met before, came by to personally inspect them. He said they looked like they were in good shape and advised against repacking them, which was a relief. We had a nice chat with him.

James Knight helped us untie, then we took the channel from the marina to the ICW. On the way, we stowed the fenders and lines. We had to wait on two draw bridges. The first time, we waited for 15-minutes for bridge to open. Station keeping here was easy because there wasn’t much wind or current. We were the only boat going through right then, so we didn’t have to worry about traffic. The next bridge we waited for less than 5-minutes.

Seminole Boatyard was right after that bridge. The slings were in the water waiting for Kosmos. We were supposed to wait for the operators to give us the okay to go in, but the current was pulling us and Eric knew he needed to get in ASAP. This spot was extra scary because we didn’t have fenders out and we were between pylons and a concrete wall. He floored it. He did a great job of lining up and didn’t bump anything.

They pulled Kosmos up part way out of the water. They put out a ladder on the bow and we used the ladder to climb off the boat onto the dock. Then they pulled her out the rest of the way. The process went smoothly.

The first thing they did was power wash the bottom. We were pleased to see that it wasn’t bad, though there was some kind of weird growth in a few spots that must have come from Florda as we’d never seen it in the Bahamas.

Then they moved Kosmos to her new home and the crew went to work. After they put protective coverings on boat, they:

• Took the propellor off and sent it to a machine shop to balance it because one of the blades was slightly bent.

• Took apart the steering ram so they could put new seals on it.

• Started working on replacing the hatch seals on the portholes and chain locker that hadn’t been done last year.

• Started taking apart the three through hulls that were being replaced: the salt water wash down, the water maker and salon AC. These were the last remaining original through hulls on the boat. All the others had been previously replaced.

When they stopped for lunch, we also went to lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant called The Sicilian Oven. They had a great weekday lunch special for pizza and salad, which we all ordered.

The motel had a refrigerator and microwave. In evening, we went to the grocery store and got a few items that we could eat in the room, such as frozen burritos, bread and yogurt.