We're a week from departing home. There's a great story behind this, though.

In February of this year, Conni and I ordered a replacement for our one remaining Raymarine system: the autopilot. If you've followed us, you are aware of this.

There were a lot of parts to the new system: a "Core Pack" that contains the "brain" of the system, a rudder indicator that informs the brain about the rudder angle, and a new steering compass. That last was painful since we had just installed a digital compass for the chart plotter, and now we had to buy another. Drat. We had to purchase the actual device that turns the rudder, the drive itself, of course. Finally, we had to buy a device that we can use as a standalone autopilot controller: a Triton2 controller.

The drive arrived first and we've had it for months. The rest, although there has a been a barrage of emails to B&G, has been difficult to acquire. Finally, after some particularly strident emails, the final shipments arrived this week. Well, we're LEAVING in a week, so it's good that they are here! The Core Pack arrived on Tuesday and the Triton2 Controller is scheduled to arrive today. FedEx says that the package is out for delivery.

I had concluded that we'd not receive the missing gear and had moved on to other tasks, so I'm scrambling now to buy all of the parts that I'll need to install the stuff. If there's a piece of gear, a screw, a wire that I'll need, I must have it with me. Drat. The autopilot drive needs a refitting of the bracket that supports one end and I've had to buy a piece of mild steel plate for fabrication. Now that we are installing a new system, I was able to simply use my angle grinder to remove the mount on the old unit to act as a template for drilling in the plate. Destroying that old autopilot was done with a few qualms, but neither Conni nor I could think of a reason to keep the unit, so I employed the grinder.

So, we're out of here in a week. I've got a mountain of work to do there. Our boat guest has decided that it wasn't the better time to spend travel money, so we'll be on our own. Conni's arranged for 3 weeks in the bungalow, so we should have plenty of time, or so we hope. As it always is, we'll shed this life and take up the cruising life.

Here at home, meanwhile, I'm building a replacement landing and stairs for our back door. I built this house, but it's been a long time and I'm SO SLOW! I'm just not smooth at things and have to check and re-check measurements, and have detailed plans that I constantly refresh. At least I'm not ruining resources (mis-cutting wood, for example) but it does take time. Building supplies prices have skyrocketed, so keeping price down is worthwhile.

I had a multimeter fail last season and I just got around to buying a replacement. The first purchase was an Amazon meter but only an empty box arrived. Crazy! I found and bought another, and then it occurred to me to request a repair of the meter. Today, FLIR agreed to simply replace my meter! It was a generous offer, to be sure. The new meter, not the replacement, arrived yesterday.

More later. Wish us luck.