We've solidified our departure date - knock on wood - and the date is 28 May. We've had our hands full with final repairs and upgrades. I have pages of yellow pad paper covered with "To Dos" - and MOST of them are scratched out. Only a handful of things still pending.

A lot of the challenges of late are electrical. We're installing all new LED lighting, all navigation and deck lighting. The existing wiring is sketchy, and it's had us scratching our heads at times. Another challenge is we don't have any wiring to the spreaders to the steaming light and fore deck light. Threading a new wire through my mast is difficult, and probably would be best accomplished next time the mast is unstepped. So we'll go with a temporary mount for the steaming light, and I'm mounting one deck light near the top of the radar mast. Once we rewire, I'll install a second deck light from the spreader.

We have had the chance to get Wilparina out on the river a few more times. It's nice to get more and more acquainted with her now that she's actually in good form. And we are loving sailing with the cutter rig. It's so much easier than the Genoa, and performance seems good.

Crack mechanic, Adam, spent several hours aloft wiring up the new anchor light. (That's him in the picture.) And we also installed a spare halyard, and replaced the old wind instrument with new Simrad gear. This will tie in with my new Simrad NSS7 GPS/plotter, as will the ICOM VHF/AIS (it's a Fixed Mount VHF and AIS Receiver Combo with NMEA 2000 Connectivity). Unfortunately, the ICOM product has been delayed pending FCC approval, and it's on order. Not sure of the wait time.

One cool feature of the new instrumentation is that I can see the displays via shipboard-WIFI and my iPad. So I can be in the cock pit, or anywhere on the boat, and see what's going on with our position, speed, course, depth, wind, etc.

Another highlight, I spent many hours repairing the lazarette hatch covers. The wood layer under the teak was rotten. Most of the effort was spent on chiseling out the old wood and glue. After a few days, I got the hatches re-installed, and they came out OK. (I'd been putting this task off for a couple of years, but once I got into it, it wasn't that bad; just tedious.)

There are many more accomplishments in the past several weeks, and I won't bore you with a list. But it feels good to make so much progress, and be on the edge of this new adventure.