And we have a Spinnaker!!

A hanging locker turned into my provisions Pantry (one of them)

Heading in to Walmart to spend more money!

Geoff went off this morning and rented another wreck for the day, a little 4 door Honda. But they only had manuals....so poor Geoff is now trying to cope with being on the wrong side of the road and having the gear shift in his right hand! Actually he did pretty well.

So we took off for a run around of today's chores. And here they are:

1. Take back the marine stereo, we decided we didn't want to go cutting holes in the timber panels to put the speakers in.
2. Buy new Spinnaker attachment end to replace the buggered one on the Spinnaker pole.
3. Buy wire cutters and a wire swage.
4. Buy sticky back Velcro to put the clock/barometer on the wall.
5. Go to Pineapple Sails and look at the second hand Spinnaker they have listed that is a bit small for us but should still work. It's an old clunker of a Kite, but still in pretty good nick for $440, so bought it!
6. Off onto the Freeway 880 south heading for Walmart.
7. Bought a new Philips Micro stereo with MP3 adaptor for only $77.
8. Bought a tarp (for those really hot South Pacific days were we want more shade cover between the Dodger and the Bimini.
9. Got a few other minor cheap items at Walmart, grabbed lunch at the mini Macca's inside Walmart ($1.50 wraps)
10. Headed back towards Oakland past the Oakland Colosseum, home for Baseball and NBA to our favourite Diesel expert Barbara at Golden State Diesel Marine. Collected a Fuel filter.
11. Got lost trying to come back to Alameda via the Possey tunnel under the estuary.
12. By good luck found our way back to the tunnel and home.
13. Geoff dropped off all our new gear on the boat and headed off with the Mainsail and the second Genoa to Pineapple for Greg to check them over.
14. I unpacked and got the stereo working, yay, music at last!!! I also attempted to disassemble the charger that broke this morning to find out what was wrong.
15. Geoff returned with the news that the Main was in great shape, the second Genoa was stuffed and so he binned it!

Not a bad day pretty productive and yes I am feeling much better, not 100%, but when have I ever been 100% ?! ;)) Now Geoff is busy trying to fix the charger, he found a broken connection wire. Ah typical it only gets worse, the part is falling to pieces inside the unit....but it's ok, Geoff decided to hard wire it back together. He got me to turn it on after this, funny how he took four steps backwards after he said to turn it on??? hmmm. But it worked and now we have a charger again!!

As I said to someone today: boats - one step forward, two steps back!! hmmm better total up our spendings and see how that Budget is going?

Still on the list to do and buy (and sadly they are mostly Geoff's)

1. Do an Oil change
2. Wire the money to Germany for our Insurance
3. Set up the Sea Anchor (drogue)
4. Buy 100' of new galvanised chain, the existing has a combination rope/chain and for the Pacific anchorages we would prefer all chain. Better in coral anchorages.
5. Check the wind direction connections - it's reading 180 degrees out
6. Service the outboard
7. Fix the spinnaker pole end
8. Buy Fishing gear
9. Disengage the Hot water system (apparently common fault on Jeanneau's is that the Hot Water system relief valve constantly drips water from your tanks into your bilge-we can't afford to loose water on the passage
10. Wire up the Solar Panel when it installed on the frame, next week
11. Check our charts and buy necessary new ones
12. Get antibiotic's and medical items from a Doctor for our First Aid Kit
13. Put together and emergency Abandon Ship bag (a quick grab bag that will hold vital items like; your passports, ships papers, fishing kit, torch, flares, extra water, seasick tabs, etc,etc. In case of having to abandon the yacht into the Liferaft)
14. Collect the 4 man Liferaft
15. Collect the 406 EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicator Radio Beacon) and register our boat and personal details into the system in Australia. This is the latest system and it records your details and has an internal GPS, so that if you switch it on it will send not only your details but your GPS position!
16. Get a Dinghy

Phew! And we hope to leave Alameda in 2 weeks to sail south to San Diego!