After a few weeks of hectic activity performing maintenance and upgrades to Pelagic we are almost ready to sail to South Georgia. Our Norwegian guests will be arriving on Saturday after a long flight to the Falklands via Santiago in Chile. We are still waiting for a couple of packages of their equipment; which should, (fingers crossed everyone please), arrive on the same flight.

Monday and Tuesday were busy days as we beached Pelagic to inspect the rudder, propeller, and anodes, and to give the bottom a lick of anti-fouling paint.

The last few days before a trip are always a bit hectic as we fill the fuel tanks (diesel for the main engine and heater, petrol for the outboard motors and gas for cooking), load the vegetables, fruit, cheese, meat etc.. Most of the dry foods, pasta, rice, couscous, cans of tomatoes, biscuits, chocolate, and such like has already been loaded and stowed.

At this stage just before a trip we are starting to watch the weather forecasts along the route closely as we try to develop a routing strategy that will get us to out destination in safest, quickest and most comfortable way. The last couple of weeks in Stanley have been incredibly windy, even by the standards of this place which has a reputation for being somewhat breezy. Last Wednesday the winds topped out at around 60 Knots! Sometime on that day our Windex blew off. The windex is a little windvane that lives on the top of the mast that the helmsman can use as an aid. We'll replace that with a fabric streamer of some sort so it's not a problem.

Julie, Wayne, and myself are really ready for sea after this time in port. It's a strange thing that on a working boat like this the time when you are working the boat is generally less stressful than the time you spend in port working on the boat and preparing for the next trip! :) It's been good for me to spend so much time in my home port of course and to catch up on family and friends that I have not seen since this time last year.

I'm not sure when we'll sail just yet but it'll be as soon as practically possible once the guests arrive.

Chris