All in a days work!

Hey Guys!

Here are some pictures of us at work. Ben put together a new boom jack (it holds tension on the boom) and painted the bottom, and installed the turbo this week. He's been very busy! You can see our messes in the picture below.

Ben had his engine parts all over the place & the stairs all torn out to access the engine.

I was trying to provision the boat. In order to do that you have to think up everything you think you will eat or use in the next several months. Then, you go to the store & buy it all & bring it back of the boat to take it all out of it's packaging & label it & package it again how you want it. Then you stow it in various places around the boat & hope you don't run out or forget something....or forget where you put it. Luckily we are going to be in the US for a while, so if I do forget stuff it's ok. It's my first time provisioning so, we'll see how I did. The picture doesn't even show half of it.

As you can see we are having some lovely weather here. It has felt like Seattle here lately. Actually today was really nice, although it was freezing. It actually snowed a few flakes!!

Here is a cushion for the boat ( I don't have any other pictures of finished ones right now, so this will have to do) Below is a picture of my "shop" Skippy & I have taken over the pavilion here (you can see him next to the plastic chairs. he's my guard dog) and were there from about 9 until dark every day lately. I'm finally done though!! Yay!!

We are really really excited, because we should get in the water tomorrow!! We were held up a little because of weather, but we are almost ready now, so after lunch tomorrow we won't be landlocked any more!! We will still be at the dock here until Thursday though. We need to do a few more things & get some parts we ordered in so we can work on the way.

They say that the definition of cruising or living aboard is "working on your boat in tropical locations" I believe it. It seems like the work is never done, but it's good work. We have really enjoyed most of it so far. I can't think of anything I really didn't enjoy doing. ..although I wasn't the one who got stuck re plumbing the boat....

Anyway, when we do get out of here we will update you all on our intended course. We haven't really had time to figure out where exactly we are headed after our shake down cruise yet. Thank you all by the way for your inquiries on where to send up things. We are looking forward to getting mail!! We can't give you an address yet however, but will as soon as we can!!! We have to figure out where we are going before we can get mail there! :)

Everyone here is impressed with the progress we have made in such a short amount of time. We have earned the nickname "the workaholics" We aren't sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing....

I'm going to take it as a compliment, because we get to leave soon & finally live out this crazy dream. I'd rather work like a maniac now & get to the Caribbean faster & work there than hang around for a year & go when it's all finished. We are way too impatient for that!

Well, there's the update for now! We will put pictures up of our boat in the water when we get it there tomorrow!

Thanks again for keeping up & we hope to hear from you all soon!!

xoxxo Kristen, Ben, & Skippy