Tell Nigel, maybe he'll want to grab it from Germany and hang it in Wales in his pub!
I hear the south coast of Iceland has a pretty effective natural sandblasting system available for Explorers! 
: hey shawn: actually the boat itself didn't make it home. the folks who hauled
: it on board the sailboat were heading to the Azores and then to Germany.
: shipping the boat from anywhere over there would have been cost
: prohibitive and i had already gotten a new boat (another Explorer
: naturally). too, the pictures they sent me showed that the boat was fully
: covered in barnacles and it would have taken a sandblaster to remove them,
: followed by re-gel coating the entire boat. again, cost prohibitive. what
: i did get back was my drivers license and credit cards which i had already
: cancelled and replaced. they used the $50 they found on board to buy beer
: and celebrate that i was alive. fair enough. all in all though, it was in
: fact "an epic journey" and one which i hope never to be the
: focus of again. happy paddling.
