One of the many steps in preparation for leaving on our great adventure this fall is finding suitable people to take care of our home for the year. We just posted this ad on Sabbatical Homes, hoping to find a match. If you know anyone who might be interested, please pass the word on.

Executive town home in the heart of Ottawa, walking distance to everything.
For rent, fully furnished, for one year $2,300 per month

We are the end unit, in a quiet cluster of homes in the heart of the Centretown, walking distance to everything. One kilometre from Parliament Hill and Bank St, which is the main shopping street, two kilometres to the Rideau Canal and the University of Ottawa, three and a half kilometres to Carleton University and the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus, and two blocks to the transitway, which can easily take you anywhere else you want to go. As well, Ottawa is a very cycle-friendly city, with an extensive network of bicycle paths and lanes, and we will leave bicycles for your use. The car is negotiable, at an extra cost, if so desired.

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As Kinship is going to be our new home next season, I have been doing what the Captain affectionately refers to as “nesting”… cleaning out cupboards and planning where things will go. There is a locker in the forepeak that I have been eying as the perfect spot for my sewing machine. Except that it is full to overflowing with cleaning products of every sort, and I have to admit to being rather intimidated by them.  I quickly discovered that it contained specialized cleaning products to clean things I didn’t even know I had, and/or never imagined would have to be cleaned. The previous owner must have kept a mighty clean ship. I finally took it all home and went through the inventory…

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Kinship is on the hard at Loyalist Cove Marina.  We hauled out the weekend after (Canadian) Thanksgiving, we had a good run with the weather and this continued with a pleasant motor from Kingston to Bath.  This was my first time solo on the boat but it was easy as I had help at the docks at both end.  Kathleen had her bluetooth intercom headset and we found we could communicate over at least 200 meters.

After some measuring and thinking we decided to take the mask out which will allow Kinship to be moved inside at Loyalist’s yard which is about 2km from the marina.

The demasting was far less stressful than our experiences with other yards, a man lift was used to place the straps and a mobile truck crane did the lift.  It all went very easily and we never feared for anyone’s safety.

With the mast down Kinship was lifted, the bottom washed and she was placed in the rented cradle.

Loyalist gets it, Dave and the team understand the needs of cruisers and are able to adapt what they do to suit.  Renting a cradle was an economic solution to our problem of what to do with a cradle when we are away for a year or perhaps more.

 

With Kinship safely on the hard, the next couple of weekends were spent removing the towers from the back of the boat that will be replaced with a new radar arch.  Along with this we also remove all the taller parts of the boat,  windvane,  bimini, dodger, granny bars, dorades and the pulpit.  We also winterised all the systems, except the engine which we had done in the water.

Kinship was moved to the yard, but we are not quite sure how, there was talk of a super low trailer and crane at the yard.  Dave was worried that even with all the stuff we removed that it was still too high to safely pass under some of the wires over the road.