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Makena - Nov 6 - First Crew Dinner



Thursday night we had all our crew together for the first time - very enjoyable and it bodes well for the days ahead. As with many boats, there are many passports represented (especially when certain people such as baby Kai carry 3!). Having people who speak Spanish and Portuguese is very helpful - everyone has English and most also speak French. Despite lots of combined experience on many other oceans and seas, no one has actually crossed the Atlantic before so it is very nice to be able to share this experience together. Philip was due to cross with a delivery many years ago but got appendicitis 3 days beforehand, was flown back to America and missed the crossing but not the birth of his 2nd child who arrived 2 weeks early!

I’ll write these notes for friends reading more than for other boaties, I suppose (sorry for that audience of these logs - they will be very basic). We are quite prepared for the crossing but there are still plenty of jobs to keep everyone busy in these final 2 full business days before we set sail. The rally departure is around lunch time on Sunday.

Fruits, veg and meat supplies are the main things for today (Nov 7) with some extra dry and canned goods needed. Since I’m just back aboard after Mom’s funeral the provisioning prep really only started in earnest yesterday but it is under control timing wise. No panics! We took everything out of the cupboards and fridges to clean those and really see what we had. We won’t starve any time soon! I’m always impressed at how good and gracious our friends are at doing menial household chores - thanks all!

We’ve been reading books and I attended an ARC seminar about what fresh foods keep best, what things to store away from others, how to store things like carrots for longevity etc. Luc’s daughter Anais had us well prepped on these subjects also. It will be interesting to learn more all the time. After plenty of 5+ day sailings now with Makena we are more at ease with what is required. I really hope that we don’t get any infestations (all cardboard is being removed before departure). There are tricks galore to be followed though since we have a new boat we are hoping that they will be overkill. What are we forgetting folks? I must hide goodies around the boat and away from the most voracious or indulgent snackers ;)


Our Lagoon 620 has a recurrent problem with the main halyard (hoists the main sail) getting damaged and so that is being replaced today - from experience that could sink 3 or 4 hours. (The electronics onboard) Raymarine had some firmware updates yesterday that made things worse for a few hours but we are back to a working system now for all but the fish finder. That abruptly stopped working in Souda, Crete on a day when there were lots of NATO submarines doing some sonar testing… !!! Also, our Bauer compressor has been put to work for the first time (was fixed just last week) and so now our scuba tanks have been refilled. I wonder where we will use them next. :)










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