Last minute "to do's"

It's been a while since I posted as we've been extremely busy getting ready to go.  We now have less than a week before we leave.  I feel like we're running a hundred miles an hour in slow motion.  We're busy doing lots of things but it doesn't always feel like we're making progress.

Last week was spring break here so there were lots of kiddie activities in the RV park.  I took Jake over a few days.  The highlight was definitely the bike races.  I have myself a little cheater.  Somehow, he always seemed to cut the trip to the cone just short enough to make a good show in the race (notice I didn't say "to win the race").  He did meet a few little friends and one family of four (yes, four) boys were extremely interested in learning more about living on a boat so we invited them over for a little play date.  All I have to say is wow, those are some brave parents.  The kids were extremely well behaved, but when you put that many boys under the age of 7 in a confined space, chaos is surely to take over.

We took the boat out yesterday with my parents.  Surprisingly, this is the first time the stars have aligned and they've been able to go sailing with us.  Despite local weather forecasts, it turned out to be a beautiful day.  We just toodled around the bay and had lunch on Coronado Island at a great pizza place right on the water.  It was also nice to get the boat out and force ourselves to stow everything away.  To be honest, I had doubts I could actually find a place for everything.

Andy has been doing lots of work on the boat.  He  refinished the countertops in the galley, head and navigation station.  They turned out great.  I'll post a before and after later, but basically we bought a product at home depot (around $250) that you paint/sprinkle on and it turns out to look like coriander.  It made a world of difference in the look and feel of the boat.

I've been buying stuff here and there for our trip but today was the first day I really got serious about provisioning.  For those of you that don't know us, we live to eat, not the other way around, so this could possibly be one of the most important parts of our preparation (second only to those really important "gotta have to get you across the ocean" things).  I went to Trader Joe's and bought all of the wine and some of the more gourmet things we think we can't live without.  Next stop was Costco for all things big and bulky.  Final stop was Ralph's (local grocery store) for everything else.  We should only have to make one or two more runs right before we leave to get our fruits/veggies and any fresh meat we want to take with us.

This part has been kind of an overwhelming experience.  How much peanut butter does a family of three really need?  I was told it was hard to find, so better to be safe than sorry.  Have you ever told a four year old there's no more peanut butter and jelly?  How far will three tubes of wasabi take us?  Can we catch that much fresh fish (with the amount of fishing gear we have on board, we'd better)?  And let's not forget the real reason we're going, to eat local foods right?  Is that why I have three pounds of pasta and four packages of Nori on board?  I don't think we're going anywhere near Italy or Japan for some time.  At the end of the day though, I found a place for everything (even if that does include lifting a floor board to get to it) and have no doubt that we'll be happy to have too much than not enough.  I'm sure as I get the hang of this, I'll learn what we seriously can't live without and what we'll find along the way.

Tomorrow we're taking the boat over to Shelter Island to get it hauled out and have the bottom painted (nothing like waiting until the last minute, huh?).  We'll take lots of pictures and share that experience later in the week.  I'm hoping it's extremely uneventful.