Today the exodus began with a trip to the U-Haul lot over in Dartmouth to buy a ball for the trailer hitch and to get the trailer itself. We will be using a 5x8 single axle trailer to move the boat stuff back to Virginia which will be enough as I took quite a bit down there already on my trip back in October. The trailer is way cheaper than the way we came up which was to rent a truck. That way cost us almost $2K! This trip will be about $600 including fuel. The only difference is that it is actually a three way trip as I will have to drive the car back to Halifax at the end of March and then head back to Deltaville somehow. I haven’t decided whether I will go by plane, train, or bus, The advantage of the plane is that it will all happen more quickly but at a cost; the train is not quite so expensive if you travel coach and you can get up and move around but it will take two days; bus is the cheapest but you are stuck in the seat for the duration. Once, when I was an active rugby player we made a bus trip from Ottawa to Tulane University Football Stadium for a Mardi Gras Rugby Tournament in New Orleans and that wasn’t too bad, but you were on a bus with a bunch of guys that you knew with beer and a bunch of “rugger-huggers” of the female persuasion so you could keep yourself occupied on the trip. I’m not so sure that I could handle 20 hours of non stop wahh-wahhh from babies or farts and snores from old drunks. The train might be OK but I am really leaning toward spending the money and jumping a jet and get it over with.

Plus, I’m all excited about another thing – some kind soul or souls out there have ordered the electronic downloads of both of the books that we have self published. Like I said, I won’t get rich doing this and I am not looking for the 60’ boat quite yet, but it is still quite a thrill that someone would be interested in buying something that we put together. This is only version one and I still haven’t received the hard copy proof for us to read over. We have both read and re-read the electronic versions to try to get the goofs out, but as several of my friends have told me, you will always find another typo, usually right after you go to print. Hopefully there is nothing out there to detract from the overall content. I am a little nervous that the whole business of self publishing seems a little arrogant or self promoting and those of you who have met me know what a shy and retiring sort of fellow I am. However, it was fun writing them and, although I probably won’t make any more drogues for ourselves, if someone else can make some use out of our plans I will be really pleased. Even more if it helps them at some time in the future. The cookbook will be handy for ourselves to have aboard to be able to refer to when cooking. Some things I can make from memory and instinct but others I need to consult the recipe and all my favourites in one place will be helpful. One of the guys at work has suggested that I maintain a copy on the cabin table as a conversation piece. I’m not sure that I’d have the cheek to do that but it’s food for thought. As it is and as I have blogged earlier, we have several other ideas for some books and now that we have “mastered” the website, we will probably continue with them. If any of the rest of you have any ideas of self publishing I can strongly recommend Lulu. From soup to nuts they will do everything for you, basically free. It’s only when you decided to add on packages that they start to charge you and depending upon what you want to do you most likely won’t need any of that. Besides hard cover and paperback books they will make e-books, CDs, calendars, and photo albums to name just a few and if you like they have some standard formats for covers, themes, backgrounds, etc. so you don’t even need any graphic design assistance. Check it out at www.lulu.com.

Our friend Mike, the other one, not I, spoke by telephone with me this morning and we made plans to facilitate his trip down to meet us in New England to join us for the sail home. I figure that if we aim to get to Long Island Sound by early May or the end of April, we could let him know that we are almost north of Cape Cod and that he has 2-3 weeks lead time to book his airfare. I have always wanted to stop in Woods Hole for an explore and Boston, Marblehead, Salem, Lynn and Gloucester are all nice places for us to hang out for a couple of weeks waiting for him to come down, and as it is we may, all of us, have to wait in Gloucester for a suitable weather window to head back. It will be interesting to see if any of them will have their moorings in by the time we pass through. The last time that Barb and I crossed heading north, the first day was bright sun and the second fog shrouded but throughout there were relatively flat seas (3-5’) and winds of about 10 knots. Crossing the Gulf of Maine you couldn’t hope for better conditions. It was so peaceful that we were really happy to chat with a fisherman at 3 AM who was as bored as we were. It was very nice to chat and we kept it up until the signal faded as we got out of range.

Anyway, to get back to the move……we drove through a bit of a driving snowstorm that was only supposed to be flurries to get to the U-Haul dealer. I was quite impressed with the service – one of their staff installed the towing ball and hooked up the trailer and electrics and even suggested this neat little gizmo that hooks on over the hitch to prevent the criminal element from stealing the trailer. We drove back over the bridge, stopping to pick up some prescriptions at the drug store and check on a carpet cleaner that we will be renting to clean the joint so we can get our damage deposit back. When we returned to the apartment there was someone else moving out so we had to wait to get the trailer into the loading spot but once there the load didn’t take too long and the trailer was only filled because we have a bunch of stuff to take up to daughter Kayt in Saint John. They went in as the very last things less the outboard motor which we will be picking up Friday at noon as we are leaving Halifax. While packing Barb was able to keep the boxes to a small and not Olympian size so running them down to the trailer wasn’t too much effort. Downhill is usually easier than uphill in most things. That is, all but one. Snarl! Plus, even though it was downhill I still had to climb back upstairs for each downhill run, I estimate about 100 times! Double snarl! I was also a little surprised to find that there were others moving out and they were leaving apartment 302 only in the other building. For one mad moment I had thought that perhaps there had been a mistake and that the folks that were helping us with the move tomorrow had showed up a day early and had gone to the wrong building. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? Imagine coming home and finding out that all your stuff had been shifted and taken away and you were faced with an empty apartment. But Barb pointed out that it was a different moving company so it couldn’t be our people.

It is odd to be living in the midst of boxes and to have to weave in and out of them to get from the boudoir to the bathroom and to go look for the kettle only to find that it has been packed and we are boiling water for coffee in a pot this morning, thank you. Oh well. I have done it before and if the creek don’t rise I will be doing it again. Hopefully, not for several more years. I get really snippy when things get tense during the move so better to keep them few and far between.

This has been an eventful ten months on the hard – medical treatments for both of us, I am still fighting the pension delay, we got some sails repaired and purchased or were given some light weather sails, our cat Al and two other good friends have passed away. Hard to believe that so much could happen in such a short period of time, but I guess it can.

Check it out. I’m on my third page in Word for today’s post. You may not see this until later tonight or perhaps even tomorrow since the website seems to be facing some challenges. Regardless, it only happens very rarely so I can’t complain. Rest assured I won’t be able blather on quite so much after tomorrow’s post since I will be blogging by iPhone. Please be patient with me for the duration of our trip back to Nelleke and for how long it takes to get the ship’s computer reinstalled.