Blog Number Two: The Preparation Propagation
20 October 2021 | Peninsula Yacht Marina
Alison Gabel | Weather Today: Really nice!
We're six weeks from our proposed departure date, and deep in the throes of getting it all ready. The British 80's band The Fixx nailed it in their song "One Thing Leads to Another" ... and another, and another, until the one thing you thought you were trying to get done has propagated into at least 3 other tangent issues, and by the way, you're never trying to get just one thing done, so 6 things lead to 18 other things and pretty soon you're wondering if you'll ever leave town.
But, we've done this once before, and we did leave town, so I'm sure we will this time, too. But it is a bit like swimming in sludge. All that said, we're still happy knowing WHY we're swimming in sludge - and when we have time to stop and realize it, we're pretty excited.
Of late, our issues have included discovering (as SO many other sailors have recently discovered) that our insurance isn't going to cover us for the adventure we plan to have. The marine insurance industry these days is totally insane. Lost its' mind. Gone bonkers, and now, we're making calls. Lots of them, to people who are either trained to frustrate the crap out of you, or simply don't return your call. We're also busy with funner things like finalizing the last details of settling my mom's trust, continuing our tug-of-war with Merrill (Lynch must have retired) for some money of my mom's they don't want us to have, selling our 50hp Honda outboard and getting my little turquoise runabout ready to go into deep storage for a few years, finishing the new sail installation, ordering and installing safety equipment, and most importantly, trying to stuff all the myriad things we think we need into small holes on the boat. And that's just a mini-list.
We did manage to sneak off for 5 days to attend the Annapolis Boat Show last weekend, wow, that was a great idea! We had a wonderful time and besides getting to see some dear friends and buying lots of little needies for the boat, we discovered this important fact: this Seawind 1160 is pretty cool! She's lacking in storage space, I must say, but we can overcome that. What she does boast is a beautiful main salon (living room) with a huge settee (couch) and a unique swiveling dinette (table) all of which opens to a spacious cockpit (back deck) with wonderful views. Her galley (kitchen) is larger than most of the galleys on boats 10-15' larger, and her cabins (bedrooms) are equally comparable. In exchange for the limitation of storage space, we gain maneuverability, single-hand capabilities (one or the other of us can sail this cutie all by ourselves if need be) and an overall lower profile out there in the wilds. So we're happy. We do have boat envy when we clamber around on the 50' yachts, but we have to remember: those show boats, with the 3 perfect throw pillows and the single flower arrangement on the table are lacking real life: no backpacks, computers, note pads, pencils, headsets, or dishes litter the space, no clothes crammed in the 2' of closet space, no shoes ... (oh, the shoes!) strewn about, and no hanging mesh baskets of produce swinging from that weird spot in the galley. So when you factor all that stuff back in, the big boats win on the closet space, the shoe storage, and maybe a much bigger forward deck (a blank white canvas for birds to poop on) but we're pretty comfy on this boat.
Today I'm going to send our old mainsail to a company called Sail Bags that will turn it into just that: bags made from sails. I like it when things don't get wasted. I'm also going to start the process of figuring out how to secure our folding bikes when underway, and Allan and I are going to cut a big hole in the installed-but-not-used gray water tank under the galley floor, so we can gain a lot more sneaky storage space.
We're ordering stuff like mad and shipping it to our mail handlers, Allan's brother Mark and his wife Pam, who, according to a recent text from Mark, are only charging us a 35% handling fee for the service. (That was a joke, I think, I'll straighten that out with Mark this afternoon when I see him ...) (I'm pretty sure I can buy him off with some candy corn.)
Okay, so that's just a tiny bite of the meal we've ordered, but it's all good. We're retired! There really is no rush. We don't HAVE to leave on December 1st. At the latest, we can leave on the 3rd, so phew, no worries.