Independence had a great season,lots of new faces and old friends, some really good sailing and it was fun to have daughter Hillary aboard as crew. My other mate was Kathleen Nelson, she and I have sailed together for years and she has finally decided to start day sailing herself on their boat "High Pockets", check them out at www.sailhighpockets.com. I'll miss sailing with Kathleen but wish her all the best.
We stopped day chartering on June 1st and headed to the boatyard to start getting ready for the next adventure! The boat is a disaster, masts out, hatches up and a million projects underway. We leave in 3 weeks, yikes! The good news is . . . we are getting there!! The mizzen mast goes in tomorrow with the radar dome, the bottom is prepped and gets painted tomorrow, the deck is mostly painted, non-skid and stripes to come and so it goes. We will be ready, I think! Pieter has retired, the boatyard threw an amazing surprise party for him, and he is working more and more on the boat and less and less at the boatyard (the main reason I think we WILL be ready).
I will start the fun job of provisioning next week, grocery shopping for all the necessities for the next few months, everything from paper towels and Cheerios to aspirin and band-aids. The good thing is that if I forget something we can probably find it at the next island. Our itinerary is extremely loose and depends largely on the weather. The plan is to head south out of the hurricane belt as quickly as possible. We are leaving late so will probably do a 4 or 5 day passage straight to Carriacou or Grenada. When we get there and get settled in, I will update the log again with some sea stories and let you know how all the new toys, radar, SSB, auto-pilot and the old crew are doing!
Fair winds - Pat and Pieter
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