One of the main projects we needed to complete before we take off was to rename our boat. When we bought her from Jeremy and Christine, the previous owners, she was named La Paloma, Spanish for The Dove. Since she was ours now we wanted to pick a name that was appropriate to us. Cindy and I had kicked around a few names when she came up with…Just One Dance. The phrase has a special meaning to us since we met at a Zydeco dance in Huntsville in 2002 and had, well, one dance. Ever since then I made a habit of asking Cindy at some point during any new adventure that we undertook, “did you ever think that just one dance would lead to this?”
When we filled out the paperwork to document our vessel with the US Coast Guard, we put Just One Dance as the name and changed our hailing port to Huntsville, AL (your hailing port of call doesn’t have to be where the boat is kept or even have any water close by). That meant that before we can legally sail our boat anywhere, we would have to change the graphics to the new name and hailing port.
As always, Cindy found us a great deal on our boat graphics. Removing the old name required blasting the old decals with hot air from a hair dryer to loosen them and then scraping the graphics off. We found that a half of a wooden clothespin worked wonderfully and wouldn’t scratch the boat’s gel coat. Cindy then buffed the area out with rubbing compound and an electric buffer. We then wiped the area clean with rubbing alcohol and laid down the new graphics.
And with that, La Paloma was no more and Just One Dance was born. We’ll have a renaming ceremony here at the marina soon, a sailor’s tradition when the name of a boat is changed (though it’s primarily an excuse to drink). Then let’s see what just one dance will lead to next…
