Hard to believe it is already the 11th. The wind has really been crazy here in the harbor. Up to 40kts in the harbor here at Elliot Basin. It will be quite difficult to get out of here on Wed. if it continues to blow like this. Last night the boat next to us lost the furl in its staysail. It was really flapping like a drum. The crew of OJ and CH helped saved the day and assisted the captain in taking it down. It took every trick in the book to get that thing down after about 1 hour. The boats really creak and groan in all this wind. We even had a worker on the boat yesterday who got sick working on our boat because of the movement. He had to leave several times before he was able to finish the work.
Today will be the trip to get our passports back from the Brazilian consulate. Then we will all have to run down to the customs place to check out. We are still on the timeline to leave tomorrow. Charles will come today to start up the engine for the first time since he worked on it. Hopefully that will work and all will be fine. This sailing around the world has its starts and stops and issues to sort out before one ever gets to sail. It can be frustrating and certainly takes determination to take on the challenges that pop up. I guess resourceful would be a good quality to have too in all of this.
We got our new hand washer yesterday so we will try that out first thing too. It supposedly has pressure and only takes 2 minutes to do a load. Matt and I are a little bit skeptical. It is quite the contraption. It looks like the clothes may very well take off like a rocket upon release of the pressure valve. Someone might take our panties as a UFO as we are out at sea.
Matt and I completed the food, beverage, and liquor provisioning as of yesterday. I am sure we will find things we forgot but we can't fit too much more in the way of supplies on the boat. We should be eating quite well at sea.
My next blog should be at sea tomorrow so hopefully I will be writing from there not at this dock. We will see if our patience holds out if that is not the story. Oh, yes that is another good quality for sailing around the world. Don't think that is such an easy quality for most of us.
Rosemary, Bill and Matt