Geez! What happened to the waterline?

After being back at the old home place for almost a week longer than planned, we're finally back at the boat for good.  Came over with a carload of stuff. The good news is that it all fit on the boat.  The bad news is that it's crammed into places like the engine room where it can't stay.  Most of the stuff will have to be jettisoned.  The hard part is deciding on which individual items to toss.  Each item was packed for a good reason but the fact is, we don't actually need any of it.  It would be easier, in a way, to just toss out a box at a time.  But what if that box has the French knife in it?  Or that book on learning celestial navigation?  Or the sextant?  Or the Brion Toss rigging book?  Or the vitamins?  Or the wifi antenna?  Or....?  And yet, every one of those things has to have a place to live along with all the stuff that was already on the boat.  OY!  Well, we'll get through it and in the process we'll donate a lot of stuff to the Freecycle box up at the marina laundromat.  Hopefully we'll remove enough to be able to see the waterline on the boat again.

We're not going to make it out of here by the end of August as hoped.  Now we're shooting for next weekend.  Before that we have to bend the sails on, rig the roller furlers, bolt down the new stern pulpit (railing), install the new hatch, install the ventilation components for the composting toilet, rig the lines to the windvane, bolt down the liferaft holder, install some padeyes to tie everything on deck down, and, now, install a new engine control lever.  Seems I lost my footing and stepped right down on the old one and broke it yesterday.  Fine!

Gave our car away to Lucas yesterday so we are now on foot (or public transportation) if we want to go anywhere.  First on the agenda today is a 6 mile round trip walk to Englund Marine to purchase the aforementioned engine controller.  Fortunately, we like to walk and it's good for us.  Then we'll move the dinghy to the starboard side deck to see if we can eliminate that ugly list to port.  Then we'll start bending the sails on.  Throw in stowing or tossing the stuff in a couple of boxes and today will be about shot.

We're really enjoying knowing that this is really our home now and that we should be underway within a week.

On a more somber note, if you've a mind to please read this link from our friends Greg & Jill, and if you feel it's appropriate, send in an e-mail for them:   http://www.svguenevere.com/aaron/casesummary.html