Party Time

Saturday we had our "Andy Retired and we're sailing away party."  Very fun.  I wasn't as excited about it as I should have been.   Over the years, I've always imagined Andy's retirement and our going away party on the east coast.  That's where all of our oldest friends are and all of my family.   I shouldn't have worried.  I underestimated the good friends we've made here in CA and how much they care.  We've made tons of new friends here at the dock and most of them were able to join us.  A few folks from Andy's command were able to come but the best part was having my parents as well as our best friend Eric and his wife there.  They mean the world to us and to be lucky enough to have them close by is more than we could ask for.  As an added bonus, our friend Chris from Virginia just happened to be in town for work and was able to come hang out with us as well.

One of our dock friends, Dave gave us a cocktail burgee, and he was kind enough to explain the rules to it.  For those of you that don't know, a cocktail burgee is a little flag with a picture of a martini glass on it that you raise up your lines when you want to invite folks over for cocktails.  Of course we'll need one of those.  Evidently, if you raise it right side up, you're announcing that you're providing the cocktails.  If you raise it upside down, your telling everyone to bring their own.  Thank goodness he told us this!  It would never occur to me to raise it upside down and I can just hear our conversation now...

"Well, that was fun.  A lot of people showed up"
"Yeah, and they drank everything we had"
"No kidding.  What a bunch of moochers."

And that would be the end of our cocktail hours.

So with less than three weeks to go, we're getting close to being ready to leave.  The list of projects is getting smaller (well, priorities are moving around).
- Finish getting shots (this is the worst for Jake)
- Store everything on the boat (this is my biggest worry)
- Get new mattress.  It's in, but hanging out at Andy's command until we pick it up.
- Get cards with our name and website on it.  These are kind of like social cards.  Evidently it's a popular way to keep in touch with the folks you meet along the way.  They should be here today.
- Finish countertop in galley
- Buy new batteries and build battery box for them.  We have 4 already but Andy wants two more.  Our solar panels are making oodles of energy and we've become electrically fat, so we need more ways to run our computers (and blender).
- Finish installing all of the navigational software on the computers and get the SSB hooked up to our practor modem (this is for weather information as well as email when we're not near an internet hook up).
- Make sure water maker works.  More than likely, we can't do this until we leave.  The water here in the bay is less than desirable for our first run.
- Call banks and change addresses as well as let them know we'll be out of the country for a while.  I don't want my credit card cut off in the middle of nowhere.

Time's a tickin'!