Many of you know Max, our dog ... And how sad we were that we couldn't take him with us on our adventure. Too many complications. He gets car sick let alone sea sick, he has long claws and would slip all over the place and of course he wouldn't know how to use the loo for number one's and number two's. So my brother, Alan, agreed to adopt our dear Max. The good news, is that Alan lives on a farm with horses, dogs, cats, ducks and geese. Turns out that our Max has become 'Big Mac' and as you can see from the picture they are both very happy.

Yahoo, Shiree arrived safely on Thursday so we're back togther. She's been in Thailand getting our little 2 bedroom place ready for us to spend winters in. I know we're a sailing blog, but here's a picture of our new place.
Yes, we're still up the hard stand but making good progress on jobs. The new Raymarine equipment arrives Monday and all day Tuesday we should finally get to solve all our Raymarine problems, including the installation of new chart plotter and Crew Tags (AIS based man overboard devices that instantly send an alert when more than 30 feet from the base station). We also get back in the water at 11.45am on Monday. So next post will be a good one.

Shiree and I both flew out together on Saturday after a wonderful night saying goodbye to friends in Lagos. In Dubai, Shiree turned right and is presently in handover mode with our pool villa in Phuket. I've turned left and here I am in Malta to get the boat ready for cruising. Doesn't she look great? We get launched tomorrow morning at 9am. There's a sweepstake at work about how long I'll last before I come back to work ... It averages out at October this year! Little do they know that everything still feels so surreal at the moment. It's like I'm on the start of a three week holiday - they had better watch out ... Maybe it will be July! Nah, just kidding :)

The time is flying and the countdown to my early retirement (on May 31st) is so close now it's not funny. When people ask me why I'm leaving so early I have to remind them of my genetic enhanced younger looks and that I'm already 58. If that doesn't work I point out that I've worked nearly 30 years for the company and 40 years working in total since leaving school halfway through my A levels.
Finally I like to say with some relish "I'm moving from work-life balance to WIFE-life balance!"
Of course,the real reason I'm leaving is so I can go sailing ... Any time anywhere!

Great news. We've been accepted as members of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia - the hosts of the Rolex Sydney to Hobart yacht race. That completes one of our dreams - to be proud to show off our boat name with the Aussie flag and the name of a great club on the hull. SO we're formal ...
"Wild & Woolly" CYCA, Sydney.

So, one of us has 35,000 nautical miles of sailing experience and an RYA Yachtmaster Offshore Certificate (shore based) and the other has 500 KnM or so and a newly acquired Day Skipper Certificate (practical) ... So, guess which one get's to be our authorized ICC (International Captain)? Yup! Shiree ... So now it's formal ... Cap'n Grub rules and the 'owner' goes by the name of DDD - Dastardly Decksrubbing Dub!