Mary Margaret started doing something today that I never thought I would see. She took a knife and started scrapping the rubberize glue off from beneath the many statutes and keep sakes that we mounted around the salon. They are mementos from the various exotic places we have sailed to. It was a bit surreal to watch. However, we do wish to keep them and take them with us when we move back on to land.

She also spent some time going through the wicker basket we have in the salon that we use as catch-all storage place for the various knick-knacks that we use all the time while sailing. It is nice to have a place where we know we can find a sundry of little things when you need them. These things include, lip balm, sun screen, flashlights, etc. It was overflowing with stuff but now it is holding only the barest of essentials.

While she was doing the above, I took a razor blade with me and worked on removing the safety netting the we had mounted on the lifelines around the boat. The netting has been up since 2009 when we had a fisherman in Cartagena, Columbia make it for us. It was getting a little worn and the last time we were in the US, we had bought 1500 feet of new line to make new netting. We were hoping to find a fisherman in Vigo, Spain who would make us a new one and then install it. The stainless steel lifelines that run around the edge of the deck are typical lifelines that have 15 or so inches between them. We are of the opinion that if green water comes across the desk and knocks you down, you could be washed overboard between them. Now, we are never on the deck in heavy weather without our PDF and harness and we run a deck safety line from the stern cleat to the cleat next to the anchor chain run up between the bows which we hook onto. However, the harness has a 6 foot length to it and there are places where you could still be washed off the deck of the boat while hooked on. You would be dangling over the side of the boat but not in the water. Nevertheless, it would be a dangerous situation with seas washing over the deck. Thus, we added the safety netting. Fortunately, in 10 years of sailing around the world, we have never needed it.

Once the safety netting was removed, Leu Cat just looked different to us.

What we are doing is basically what one does when one is getting ready to move. Everyone has been through this process so I do not need to go into any details about what a pain in the arse it is. It is a lot of work and, in the process of doing it, there are a lot of emotions that one goes through as the memories of each little knick-knack that you handle comes rushing back. We have been so fortunate to have had so many wonderful and unique experiences in such exotic places. It is actually nice to be able to think about each one of them as we start to go through the boat.