On board but not away

Check out our new Maxi feathering Prop!!

Well, believe it or not we are aboard for our first night on Sea Otter!! The new prop came in today at the yard and they installed it this afternoon. Which means instead of staying on board at the yukky Yard docks, we were able to motor around to the Village Marina. K18 is our home berth until we throw the lines for sailing South.

The other good news is that we have Internet reception at the Marina!! Yay, so now we can keep in touch.

I started buying large plastic containers today for storing away food in lockers. Tomorrow I hope to start the big buy up of groceries. Not that there is a rush, as we will likely be here for another 3 weeks, but.... As an old pro at cramming as much food as possible into the smallest spaces on a small yacht, the technique is to buy in stages. Buy one big first load, pack it away, rearrange it a few times, see what space you have left...then go out and buy some more, repeat process. Do that until nothing rattles around in the lockers. The big trick is to pack it so you don't have to unpack everything to get to something at the bottom. So regularly used items need to be in a smaller or easier locker, or on the top of the stacks. It's a challenge....and it's sort of fun to be doing it again!

All of our (which is not much) clothes are now packed away and we shall be sleeping in the aft double tonight. As the mainsail is still in the V berth. Don't know how cold it will be tomorrow morning on the boat, but we are prepared for about 6 degrees. Currently at 7.15pm it's 12 degrees outside and 17 degrees inside.

The rigging may be done by Friday so we can reinstall the mast before the weekend. It's not such an issue now we have this lovely Marina to stay in. It is about a 5 minute walk to Lucky Supermarket, Longs Drug Store and about 12 fast food outlets for everything from Mexican, Chinese, Subway, Hawaiian Fast Food, Sushi, Pizza, Quizno's Flat Breads, Burrito's, Smoothies and of course the ever popular on every corner, in every supermarket, Starbucks! For some strange reason Honey is VERY expensive over here? But we love the self service checkouts, were you swipe your own barcodes and put your money into a slot and it spits out your change. It's very novel and very fast.