Friday, April 29, 2011

It's All Fun and Games Until You Have to Put It Away

Here's the first load of five months worth of gear. Not bad, right? We should be able to put this all away. But stop and think for a moment. How do you pack for five months away? Sure, you'll have access to grocery stores. Do you have medications? Special products you prefer? Do you know you'd be able to find whatever brand of widget you count on when you leave your familiar foraging grounds? What about the rest of your family? You already know my pain regarding the catfood. We worked it out. I found a way to make Hatshepsut's raw in manageable batches (a theory we've successfully tested) and I've packed in fifteen cases of Wellness for the other cats. All well and good. Because of my allergies to silly things like perfumes, I have to pack five months worth of soap that won't give me hives. Let me explain how you don't want to find out the hard way that you can't count of 'unscented' to actually mean 'no perfumes'. Allow me to also point out that there are just someplaces no one should ever have hives. Read the label of your unscented soap. Odds are high there's a 'masking scent' unless you shop the same place I do --- did. Naturally, the soap thing is only a tiny example of the things you take for granted simply because you can. Okay. Here's the picture of the LAST load:
Yeah. It was unbelievable, but we got it stowed and the cat tents built. (Kids and their fortresses, I swear.) The load is even mostly balanced. One of the challenges of a catamaran is weight distribution. You want the hulls reasonably on level. It's also a good idea to not overload the boat. While we doubt we're over the safe weight limit for this boat, we do know we won't be going anywhere fast initially. Our plan to cast of Wednesday failed when we realized how many things we'd forgotten in our haste to pack. That and the weather really, really sucked. That's the politest way I can possibly describe that. We fetched our remaining crap, finished last minute errands and had dinner at Moshi Moshi in Ballard. Thursday, I drove the car over to drop at my parents'. We didn't want the car sitting unattended for five months in the marina parking lot. Keith went to see a movie. The weather wasn't much better. KING 5 reported a funnel cloud in Skagit Valley. It was stupidly cold. Hello? Ma Nature? April? At any rate, I'd been told somewhere that sailors couldn't begin a journey on a Friday. Here are the reasons why - with all the bad luck available to sailors, maybe I *should* double that life insurance...The story about the British Navy trying to dispel the superstition by building a ship named HMS Friday? Urban legend, but a fun one.  So here we are. Saturday. I swear. We cast off Saturday. First port: Poulsbo for the release of Enemy Games!

3 comments:

  1. Bon voyage! May it truly be a voyage of only the good kind of adventure and discovery. : )

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  2. May fair weather find you! We're all ready to live this open-seas life vicariously through you and the cats.

    We promise to take good care of Enemy Games.

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  3. tanie damskie gucci, łącząc elegancki styl i najnowocześniejszą technologię, różnorodność stylów tanie gucci szal, wskaźnik przechodzi między Twoim ekskluzywnym stylem smaku.

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