The Return of the Travel Lift
We made it to Port Townsend for our haul-out with a whopping 20 minutes to spare. For those of you who made good choices in your life and don't spend an inordinate amount of time in and around boats, a "haul-out" means your boat is lifted out of the water and placed precariously on land so that you or (if you're rich) someone else can do repairs on the boat that are impossible in the water. This isn't the first time we've hauled a boat out, and it probably won't be the last. Our previous two boats lived in freshwater, which freezes in the winter, so a seasonal haul-out was a requirement. Here in saltwater Puget Sound, however, you can go years without a haul-out. But eventually, the travel lift comes for us all. The travel lift is an enormous remote-controlled cube that lifts boats out of the water and drives them and deposits them on land. It's fascinating to watch, unless of course you're three or four years old. If you're three, it's ...