The light at the end of the tunnel

Geoff in the aft cabin working on the fuel filter

The Grand Marina

I can finally admit to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.....six and a bit weeks since arriving in California, things are coming together. Over the last two days little and big things have started to be crossed off the list. And for once the list is decreasing in size and new items are not being added! Yay!!

After the fabulous day on Sunday it was a little difficult getting motivated Monday morning to start on the mundane boat chores. I admit to having to push Geoff a little (yes this IS unusual) as he seemed to be caught in a whirlpool of little chores - not sure of which one to start on first. So when we finally did get started he worked on the engine, I hauled him up the mast again and he went through the list of charts we needed. Then took a long walk to go suss out about ordering the charts. He also checked on the EPIRB to see how the reprogramming for Australia was going (apparently stressful, if the look on the peoples faces are anything to go by) so it's not quite ready yet. He also checked in on the guys manufacturing the stainless steel frame that our new HUGE solar panel will go on.

All of yesterday's ground work resulted in a fairly productive day today. We moved the boat around to Grand Marina where the workshop is, about 2 kms up the estuary from Marina Village. The boat and us, will have to spend a couple of days here, so they can get the final measurements and then install it all. While here, we are nice and close to the Chandlery where we ordered and paid for our new 100' of anchor chain. And close also to the Chart shop securing the final order of charts to take us right into Brisbane and buying the French and Tongan flags too. Then after that we took a leisurely walk up to Nob Hill, breaking the journey for a coffee at 'The Little House Cafe' before hitting the Nob Hill Supermarket for fresh Sushi lunch. It was one of those relaxed yet positive days, I bought four real life yachting novels from the second hand Nautical shop here at Grand Marina, you can never have enough reading material on a 30 day passage. Geoff secured our new stereo on the bench so that it doesn't go flying in rough seas. I did the washing and Geoff spent more time cleaning up the rusty keel-bolts and putting a coat of lacquer on them. So as you can tell we really are getting down to the final chores.

Hopefully next week will see the new super-duper Autohelm installed. And with the chain, EPIRB and solar panel all on board, we can do another shakedown sail to see how all the new installations hold up. Plus we need to purchase that long awaited Satellite Phone prepaid card, whereas we will then notify family with our Iridium phone number. Iridium has it's own country code!! I have been doing some homework and you will be able to send free text messages to our phone or free short emails that we can receive on our phone. Of course if you ring us then you may need to sell you house, so it would be advised that you check with your phone service provider as to how much it is to phone Iridium Satellite numbers??? Our prepaid card will be a 500 minute card that is valid for a year, the calls will cost us about $1.60 a minute and a text will be about .45 cents and two minutes. Not too bad I suppose?

Then of course we have to have one more final visit to San Fran to spend a day enjoying this lovely city. hmmm so much to see and only one more day. You know, San Francisco peninsular is only 11 kms wide! And we have to visit Customs about clearing the USA and getting the exit paperwork required for French Polynesia. Oh....we still have to find somewhere to buy fishing gear....well you can buy tackle if you want to fly fish, but to find somewhere that sells heavy duty tackle to troll off the back of the boat....with decent lures, well NOT so easy. We may have to add that to our final car hire day, where we go and collect the all the last heavy items ie: pickup cases of beer, etc. We would never have thought that finding fishing gear in a place surrounded by water would be so difficult! Go figure?

And maybe, just maybe after all of that, we can start looking closely at the weather patterns for a fair weather window to leave in. Countdown? Not quite ready to tempt fate yet and start a countdown....but we're certainly in the warm up period.