We have been working like mad-people to get the last jobs done. Of course we realise that we will never get everything done but most of the "big" jobs are ticked off. We discovered a job-list we wrote on our way back home last year and we just laugh at the things we thought we should do - most being totally unrealistic. Having said that, we have been able to do some fairly significant things to improve life aboard. We have reconfigured the plumbing of the water tanks so now all tanks are connected to the pressure system via a "Day Tank". Prior to doing this the largest tank was separated and could only be emptied via a foot pump - we used this for our drinking water and it was plumbed through a Seagull filtration system. Now we have the luxury of just turning the tap to get drinking water, as opposed to pumping away on the foot pump. We also managed to put a water meter in-line to keep track of our usage - something we tried 2 years ago but could never get the damn thing to stop leaking. Thanks to persistence and pipe dope it is now in place and not leaking.

We bit the bullet and bought a new EPIRB (pictured above), our old one having expired it's battery. This new version is the latest technology and has it's own internal GPS plus it is connected to our main GPS unit via an optical interface. If we are in grave and imminent danger we can activate the EPIRB and it will send a distress signal and our position via a satellite system. This alerts a rescue system who will then come and find us. I hope we never have to use it - but it was worth the expense for the peace of mind knowing we have such a sophisticated piece of equipment aboard.

As you can see from the photo below our storage lockers are full - with no room for any more supplies. We are planning on leaving in about 2 weeks as long as the weather is OK. We hope to be able to take a big hop down the coast straight to Cape May or even Norfolk if the weather cooperates. If the weather isn't right we will probably leave anyway and slog down Long Island Sound to New York and jump off from there.