It has taken weeks to put "The List" together. Carl and I sat down, each at our own home many miles apart, and began working on the list. What list you might ask? Well, I'm talking about the list of necessary boat parts, replacements and upgrades we will need in order to get our boat ready for the "cast off" in May of 2007.

As most of you know, Carl and I announced our engagement and told the story about how we met over the Internet. Well, we promised we would keep you abreast of our adventures and, well, this is all part of it. So here goes.

The list contains things like.New Sails, a Water Maker, Solar and Wind Generation, Lazy Jacks, etc, etc, etc. The list is very long, very expensive and very necessary. A trip up to Annapolis MD and one of the biggest in-water sailboats shows around, put us in front of hundreds of vendors at one time so that we could compare, ask questions and look at every product you can imagine for your cruising experience.

It was very fruitful, I think, in that we spent a lot of money on something that wasn't even on the list. Portlights. Okay, they should have been on the list. I don't know how we missed them, it's obvious they need to be replaced, so now we have them, or at least they are on order.

Can you guess what Carl and I will be doing on his next trip down to Florida?