Thanksgiving preparations are very different this year...
14 November 2016
Carly
Given that vacation time is hard to acquire and vacation weeks even moreso, 'hacking the calendar' is always the best option when price isn't a concern. I have this upcoming Friday off, and next Thursday and Friday off. Meaning by only taking 3 days of vacation I get a whopping 9 days of straight vacation. What a deal!
Obviously this is the best time to go on a longer voyage. Currently we have the Bahamas planned out. We have to print out the immigration cards, but we're all set with a quarantine and courtesy flag (and a dive flag, but just the North American one and not the international Alpha flag). The reverse is fixed (a VERY simple fix - a bent pin that is now a very straight and sturdy bolt), my dive gear is onboard (in its glorious pink...someday I'll get purple/cyan equipment, but I can't look a gift horse in the mouth), the dogs are with his parents (don't want to deal with that extra hassle the first time around), all firearms onboard are able to be locked and secured in a case. My only concern is that the lockbox itself could be moved easily and I want confirmation that as long as it's locked somewhere it's okay, even if that container is portable.
My other concern is the jib and Screecher (it's a reacher, but we have named it Screecher to remain consistent) are still not up yet. So sometime this week I'm going up in the bosun's chair! We were hoping to coerce a salty sailor to help us with that this weekend, given I don't want to fall 40 feet and die, but all of the salts decided to go out for the weekend. Hopefully this week we get some help.
Happy to know that our little Gemini is just under 35'! It's technically 33' according to stats but really more like 34'. Still, that's an extra $150 we don't have to spend.
It looks like heading to West Palm Beach Friday we make it just in time for an early morning crossing on Saturday with...not unfavorable winds. Winds in the gulf stream go directly south Friday and Sunday, but Saturday has westerly winds. We're going east so that's not the best, but better than yuge waves. I'm going to keep an eye on wind conditions.
The AirBnB went nicely. More on that later.