This past week’s evening weather has been nothing shy of fantastic, so part of the time I have been washing, scrubbing, and waxing the boat as she deserves. Sat morning we hoisted the heavy RIB dinghy and engine off the beam with the boom holding her outboard while the main and spinnaker halyards did the work. Putting another 80 lbs. of water in the dink and having me hang over the gunwale got us a heel angle of 5 degrees, which buys us an extra 2.5 inches of clearance, if we need it to get under the famous low bridge along our route. It is perhaps an hour’s work to do that and then get things back in order, so the lazy part of me hopes it isn’t necessary.

Two-thirds of the hurricane shutters are in place, so we will have much less work to do on the last weekend before departure. Despite the fact that we are buying a fair amount of provisions for the cruise, our monthly expenses have not been high since we are simultaneously using up pretty much everything in our pantry, refrigerator and freezer. It has been a challenge to make meals with what we have, but adding a few supplements here and there and it has been good. We usually keep, dare I say, junky pots and pans on the boat, along with knives that are barely useful, mainly because we don’t cruise regularly enough to warrant stowing good stuff aboard for occasional use. For this cruise, however, Diva Di will be our home for a long while (6 months or so), and it pays to have a few good cooking items along. Good food on a cruise is one way to help make it enjoyable.