Mary Margaret and I have spent the last two days tearing Leu Cat apart. We have opened every cabinet, every drawer, every door, every floor board, pulled off the various mattresses and pulled up the boards they lie over, and opened up the two forward hold hatched and climbed into what I call "The Dungeons". We have done this will a pad of paper and a pencil in hand. The reason for doing all of this is to identify, inspect and then list every item on Leu Cat, creating an inventory of all of the spare parts and other goodies we have. Mary Margaret has gone a step further and has started filling boxes and bins of stuff we will be shipping back to the US or donating locally. We took three large bins of books to the office where they will be greatly expanding their free book exchange.

We also donating a couple large bags of clothes to the dock boys who work here. I also gave one about 100 cigars. Cigars can last forever and these cigars I brought on the boat when we first moved aboard. Since, then I have gotten spoiled and now only smoke Cuban which I buy duty free from a distributor in Hong Kong for a very reasonable price. The old cigars were not Cuban and I have been using them to give to local fishermen who come up to our boat, asking for beer, booze or smokes. I will not pass out beer or booze because you never know where that may lead to but I always give out a handful of cigars. That has worked very well and we get some fish or coconuts or whatever they may have in exchange.

We once were in the middle of the Indian Ocean, not too far south from Somalia, renowned for its pirate waters when a large fishing boat saw us a few miles away. They immediately turned and headed straight toward us. I did not know what to think. As it turned out, they had been out fishing for the last few weeks and were heading back to their village with their fish. They just wanted to trade. After a large bag of old cigars was passed over to them, they threw a number of water coconuts over to us and with lots of smiles and waves, we both went on our respective merry ways.

With every possible storage area inspected, we plan on spending the next few days packing things up and getting ready to ship them back to the US. Once that is done, we can then turn to cleaning and polishing Leu Cat and I can make a few very minor and cosmetic fixes. Leu Cat is in overall excellent condition as we had been expecting to be sailing across the North Atlantic this summer. Safety first is our motto and had just finished a major retrofit to get her in tip-top condition, before we gave up our hopes of cross the ocean and, instead, decided to sell her. Thus, only a few minor things need to be addressed.

Since we are so busy packing I have hired a local fellow to wash and polish Leu Cat. I have hired another fellow to come and scrape the hulls clean. Thus, as you can imagine, the next few days are all work, work, work. With that in mind, we hope most of you will be enjoying a relaxing and fun filled July 4th holiday celebration! Ahhh... the life of a cruiser!!!!!! 😉