Archive for January, 2006

Lists & puddles

Friday, January 27th, 2006

Not for the first time recently, I awoke in the night in a cold sweat. It’s nearly the end of January and we are slipping behind.

On the one hand we have it easy. At this stage, most prospective cruisers are busy preparing their boats for their big adventure. Indeed, one of the reasons we chose to buy aboard was to avoid the work of preparing the boat. I’ve done that twice before and it’s an absorbing business.

What we do have is a house to prepare for letting. These recent years of boat ownership have left the house rather neglected and there is some major catching up to do.

Sue and I sat down today with the list of jobs. Its not completely out of hand but we need to get a move on. We need to start marketing the house in a few weeks time. Like true bureaucrats we have arranged a weekly management meeting!

Tabitha is currently ashore in Virginia. I had someone go aboard yesterday to check on her. They found a dripping fuel pipe and puddle of diesel in the bilge. Nothing to panic about but it does need seeing to. We topped the tanks up before we left with 120 gallons of fuel! That will make quite a deep puddle by April if we don’t plug the leak!

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The waiting game

Friday, January 27th, 2006
Friday 18 November

Now seems as good a time as any to start my log of the trip. We are sitting in the waiting room at the American Embassy in London waiting for the interview that will hopefully secure our visas for the American parts of our trip. It is a good example of the diverse experiences we would never have if we stayed at home and never went in for this adventuring lark.

It must be nearly 20 yrs since I was last here only last time I was on the outside demonstrating against the presence of US nuclear weapons on UK soil. I hope they don’t remember me.

As things so often are with travel. It’s a long wait. (Later and £240 the poorer we are successful!)

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