A clean bottom

It's nice having a clean bottom, wouldn't you say? For years our bottom has been quite dirty as a result of sitting in the water of Lake Hartwell. I don't know whether it's the PCBs that got dumped there some years ago, or the crap that the Corps of Engineers left on the lake floor (stumps and various other remnants of the landscape prior to flooding of the man-made lake), but our boat bottom has been sporting a darker shade of puke algae green ever since we bought the boat in 2003. But then on a lark while shopping at Wal-Mart I thought I'd buy this bottle of hull cleaner from Star Brite. No scrubbing it said. Suuuuure, as if it was going to be some magical potion and effortlessly clear away years of accumulated grunge. Well, today after trailering the boat we tried a few drops of the stuff, and it is magic! Last year I was under the boat scrubbing away in a snorkeling mask to no avail. This year, a few sprtizes of this stuff then a power wash afterwards and presto! A nice clean bottom! It's been years since the boat has looked this good. Almost like new. And with minimal effort. I am most impressed. I wish we'd discovered this stuff years ago. (PS. Corey looked at the ingredients and noted that it's an acid, so no surprise that it should work so well.)

Thus concludes our power-boating season for 2007. Too short yet again. But we felt we had to get the boat out now since the lake level keeps dropping during our most recent drought. And a good thing we got it out now, too I think. The water was so low that we had a bit of trouble getting the boat on the trailer. The trailer had to go in pretty deep so that the bow of the boat could be brought on to the trailer rollers. With its nose in place, the boat floated what seemed about 6 ft above the trailer sitting on the lake bottom. So Corey had to get behind the truck wheel to inch the truck forward while I stabilized the boat and the trailer came up beneath it. And it worked too, although we had to back up once to center the boat on the trailer.

Meanwhile, the people at the boat ramp next to us weren't so lucky. They had the boat on their trailer, hooked on to the bow eye, but when their truck pulled forward, the type 13 webbing line snapped off the hook and the trailer slid away from beneath the boat, dropping the boat right on the ramp asphalt. Ouch! Then of course they had to slide the boat backwards down the concrete ramp back into the water to start the whole procedure again. Talk about a bruised bottom!