Done -

and good morning to you, Mr. Lizard!












Did a few more little things today. Put up the anchor shade. Wow! Did it ever shrink! That edge used to go to the mast! What the hell? How does that happen? Cleaned up a little. Put tools in zip lock with corrosion block sprayed inside! So there!

Reserved the paint that the yard will need to paint the bottom before we arrive.





This is the space where the linear drive will go to steer the boat. That old nasty air conditioner took about 30 seconds to rip out. I still have some copper piping to rip out. I probably could have paid for all the upgrades on copper I've ripped out of this boat! Sue and I agree. . . trying to keep a box at, say, 50 degrees when all around you is 85 degrees. . .well, expect problems! We're not going to try.






I met with Lesley one more time. She'll open up the boat once a week to keep the mold down. She's also chasing down the lady that is going go to make new seat cushions for us. I'm very excited to not be peeling myself off the vinyl any longer. The sample she sent over looks very nice. Lesley will send pics and estimate before proceeding.

Bought a 45 lb CQR anchor off a catamaran sailor. . .only $200!! Now we have two CQRs (this one looks to be a little bigger than our other one) and another smaller anchor. One more ought to do it for staying up north in Hurricane season. That and plenty of heavy line. I'll buy 50' of chain and maybe 200 feet of rope for this anchor when we return.

Sue and I return on June 6 and I've scheduled our launch for June 9. That gives us two full days to mess about on the hard before we splash. I've made arrangements for us to stay here at Cool Running as that also was a great find.

All in all a productive (if expensive!) couple of weeks. I'm so glad that things look like they will work as before. . .being a sailboat the systems are pretty simple and it's important to keep it that way. Fancy auto pilot is a big deal for us but completely necessary for long passages and especially for any solo sailing I do when Sue is in Chicago. Can't wait to feel the boat move under my feet again.

So any potential or current cruisers out there who have not been to Grenada it is an excellent place to outfit your boat. Lots of help and expertise here.

Looking forward to getting back to Chicago as well. Dying to see my family and for that good old Chicago pizza. Tomorrow night!