Sequitur

Well, I guess we'll have to go sailing; my house sold a couple of weeks ago, I gave-up possession yesterday and we have now officially moved aboard Sequitur.

Edi and I flew back to Vancouver earlier this week from the RCNA convention, where I handed-over my President's gavel and relinquished the last of my official responsibilities. We then spent the week sorting, selling on Craigslist, trashing, packing and moving the keepers to the boat and to the storage locker.

Edi has gone over to her house on the Island to go through the sorting, selling, trashing, packing and moving routine, while I continue to sort, organize, juggle and stow onboard. Her house has not yet sold (a couple of weeks ago she turned-down an offer of 90% of ask) but it is priced well and should go soon. Next week we'll haul her keepers to storage here in Vancouver, leaving her house vacant. Then we'll busy ourselves with the final bits of preparation for sailing off over the horizon.

Complicating our departure arrangements is the completion of our pied-a-terre here in Vancouver. A year-and-a-half ago, we bought a new loft in a century-old building in South East False Creek, which was scheduled for occupancy in May 2009. A city hall strike delayed permits and the commencement of construction, delaying completion until August. No problem, August fit nicely with everything else; however, the huge demand for construction on the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics projects caused August to migrate to October, forcing us to move our stuff to storage for a couple of months. It is a real juggling act moving over four decades of stuff from two houses totalling 5,000 square feet, into an 800 square foot loft and a boat. Having to do it through storage certainly adds to the complexity.

There are still a few things to tweak on Sequitur. The watermaker is awaiting a new salinity probe, we still have to fine-tune the SSB antenna set-up, we still have a problem getting the Raymarine Class B AIS to talk to the Raymarine E Series and we are awaiting the modifications to the cockpit canvas necessitated by the addition of the solar array arch. Then there's the final bit of spares and stores to add and stow.

We could have delayed our sail-away until after moving into the loft, but not wanting to be caught by further delays and having to transit the Washington , Oregon , northern California coast after mid-October, we are sticking to our original mid-September departure date. We'll fly back to Vancouver from California to take possession of the loft and move our stuff from storage. By then, the hurricane season should be nearly over, and we can fly back to Sequitur and continue south.

So, three weeks today, on the 13th of September we sail out.