Errand Days

Not much changes; setting up a new home involves running errands. Only different here is that with the heat and humidity they're done in a sheen of sweat and planning of the next air conditioned stop.

We got our first pass of heavy groceries done with the rental car and then decided we really didn't need to keep it any longer and would do the rest on foot or using local transit. Are we gluttons for punishment or just trying to assimilate as live-aboards?

Our new home, Mowzer, is parked at the dock right behind a brand new Lipari (41') that CYOA is bringing into their fleet. Two very pretty boats! The upside of this is that we have shore power and easy access to the dock.

We seem to have set the standard for getting a working SIM card: at least three visits to the store and one long walk, but the result is that we have a card in the iPad and can at least check email and post the odd blog (although I'll try to do that on free wifi if I can.)

There is a brand new ACE hardware about a 15 minute walk from the boat which is going to prove very useful as we get into boat setup. The chandlery is a bit further away but hopefully (for the wallet) we won't have to make too many visits.

Our first shipment from state-side has arrived so now begins the fun of clearing through excise tax and customs - strange since the shipments are from the U.S. to a U.S. territory. We have to navigate the various agencies tomorrow and hopefully can get the shipment released but if we run into any problems John has offered a contact to his broker. The part I am super jazzed about is my Sailrite order of fabric to make a sunshade for the front of the boat, but I won't be able to make it until my machine gets here sometime next week. Henry is probably more excited about other items such as an inverter and generator. Our pallet from Canada and the remaining items of our U.S. order are on their way through Miami and we expect them on the Sunday boat.

Charlotte Amalie is a noisy, bustling city with way too much traffic and little accommodation for pedestrians so we will either keep busy on the dock or look to get away by the weekend for a little break.

Day 0

Enroute Ottawa to St. Thomas

It's totally surreal but the day is finally here. After all this planning and frantic activity we are now flying south to begin the grand adventure on Mowzer.

Backing up a bit... The last ten days since I left Genband has been full of crazy activity to say the least.

• After the big house contents sale we still had quite a lot to dispose of. A truck from the Diabetes Association came and picked up boxes of household items and clothing. We did a big drop off for Nelson House and Gerry helped us out with his truck and trailer to do a number of runs to the dump.
• We obtained a small storage unit where we've placed a few chosen heirloom bits of furniture and paintings, photo albums, a few household items, and some winter clothing. Probably kept more than we should but we'll make that assessment when we look back. Last but not least I put the shoes I was wearing yesterday in there, but I had forgotten to take an extra pair with me to get home, so I arrived back at Peter's place yesterday barefoot ... in Ottawa ... in October.
• We packed up our shipment for Mowzer. Once we were done we had 19 items ranging from a number of boxes, the inflatable paddle board and it's paddle, and my heavy-duty sewing maching. All told they weighed in at 800 pounds and we carefully arranged and shrink wrapped them on two pallets all ready for pickup by Speedy Courier to transport to Toronto. Well, we waited and waited with assurances that they were coming but on Wednesday afternoon we discovered that they were not willing to ship household goods and we were going to have to figure an alternative plan - thanks a lot "Speedy"!! Henry quickly rented a van from the airport, we unpacked our beautiful pallets and off he went to Toronto. After a few hours of sleep on Caitlin's sofa that night he delivered the load into the hands of CaribTrans who is now in the process of getting it to Miami and then on to St. Thomas. Who knew that the first 400 km would be the most difficult??
• All cars sold (one transferred to Caitlin) with the last one going on Thursday night - so kind of the buyer to allow us to keep it up to the last day. We helped the new owner of Blue-By-You do the winter haul out - fair winds and happy sailing Jim!
• The sale of the house closed on Wednesday and with final clean out and such a cordial handover with Myrna & Bernie we handed over the keys and made Peter & Beth's spare room home for the last few days.
• Last but not least we have said farewell to so many good friends and family. Thanksgiving weekend Caitlin, Jim and Jamie all came up to Ottawa and thanks to Peter & Beth for hosting a wonderful family gathering. And the turkey was pretty amazing too! Teary farewells but we know we'll see Jim at Christmas and hopefully soon for Caitlin & Jamie. Dinner on Tuesday with Linda & Gerry at our new favourite spot, Kungfu Bistro in Stittsville. Daryl and the crew at 3 Brewers joined us for a beer and dinner on Wednesday before Henry headed off to Toronto (light on the beer there Henry). I had a chance for a final chat with Petrena, Tina and MaryBeth at Genband - sorry I didn't make it in once last time! On Thursday evening we were treated to a gathering of wonderful friends at the Richmond Curling Club. Kudos and hat's off to Ron & Evelyn, Diane & Dave, and Robin & Greg for organizing such a great send-off. We sure are going to miss you guys both on the ice and the links! Finally, on Friday with Peter as our chauffeur we finished off some last errands and took Mom out to lunch at the Ashton Pub. Such a nice spot.

Phew!

Now the boat prep ensues but that's a topic for another posting...

I'm finishing of this missive as we have just flown out of Washington. In a few hours we'll be on Mowzer in the sunshine and tropical showers, and the stress of the last few weeks/months will hopefully melt away.

A very special thanks to Peter who offered (and amply provided) so much help - couldn't have done it without you bro'!

Sale for Sailing ... and now that Work is Done

First things first - as of Tuesday I will officially be retired.  Retired - as in I don't plan to work or be employed any longer.  Retired - such a strange word for me to relate to myself.  Retired - a glorious word!

Two weeks from now will be our first night on Mowzer as live-aboard cruisers.  Really?  It's come so quickly now.  Here's what we've been up to:

• Over a period of three weeks, I spent almost two weeks in Dallas for work.  During one of those weeks we had a fabulous time with the team and as a highlight got to go indoor skydiving - what a hoot!  Another night we did a 'Chopped' event at a restaurant and had a great dinner (didn't have to eat our own cooking.)

• Said many good-byes to long-time colleagues - shed a tear or two.  I can't believe how generous everyone has been and we are truly blessed to have such great friends.
• Henry has sold two cars and transferred the third to Caitlin.
• Who needs a snowblower in October?  Canadians do!!  Our snowblower is sold and awaiting the first white event of the season (hopefully it holds off until after we are gone but we did have a really heavy frost on September 18.)
• Spent a weekend with Jim in Waterloo to celebrate his birthday - the fall leaves were amazing and the weather perfect.  Caitlin & Jamie made it down to share in a fun dinner and it was great to see them all together!

• Like human pin-cushions we have been pricked and pumped full of vaccinations: hepatitis A & B, tetanus booster, rabies, typhoid and we have prepped our medicine chest full of various antibiotics and a couple of doses of emergency treatment for malaria.
• Planned, prepped and commenced the final garage/estate sale this weekend.  Again, blessed with great friends who helped pull it off.  We have greatly reduced the amount of stuff in the house and are planning on donating whatever is left to various charities.

This week brings the final clean out of the house and shipment of our personal effects to Mowzer.  Henry is putting in the final orders for items like the water maker, the generator, the new anchor.  The solar panels have already been ordered and are with the forwarder in Miami where the others will catch up before all are put on the boat bound for St. Thomas.  Now that I'm done work, I can chip in as well and help him with pulling together the final logistics.  The house has to be clean and empty by the 15th and then we fly on the 18th!

As I said to friends today, I feel like I'm just cresting over the top of the huge roller-coaster and now comes the scary near-vertical drop.  I just have to settle in and enjoy the ride!

Another Month Closer

Posts are currently sporadic so I suppose this is mostly just for me as a reminder later of what life was like with less than seven weeks of work left (yes! 7) and yesterday was the 2-month mark until we fly south to our new home.

I think that's the part I find the most unrealistic and maybe I'm struggling a bit, but the concept of flying off to my new home with just a couple of suitcases is phasing me.  I'm really daunted with the daily task (ok, I'll admit I don't do it daily although Henry would be happy if I did) of going through boxes and stuff to decide if its "keep - for the boat", "sell - garage sale", "donate" or "throw out".  I'd like to add "storage" to the list, but where and at what cost, and will I really care.  Not much has changed in a month, has it?  I'm still struggling with the storage question.  And yes, I realize that not everything is going in a suitcase as you'll see below.

So, here's where we're at today.  Henry has made a lot of progress on our list:

• Arrange shipping of personal items to Mowzer:  we've decided to send two shipments.  One will go from Toronto and will be made up of personal stuff that we have here in Canada.  We'll drive down, package up our allocated crate which will then be trucked to Miami and then put on a boat for St. Thomas.  The other shipment will be made up of stuff that we're ordering from vendors in the States such as the anchor, the water maker and the solar panels.  These will be shipped to a freight forwarder in Florida who will package them up on a crate and then put them on a boat for St. Thomas.  Both shipments will hopefully be scheduled to arrive around the same time that we do - mid-October.  The big advantage of splitting the shipments is that there is no point having stuff shipped into Canada where we'd have to pay duty and at least 13% tax, just to ship it back into a duty-free U.S. territory, and for the U.S. orders we will save a bundle on shipping if we consolidate them all into one boat shipment.
• Purchase of water maker, small generator, EPIRB and solar panels and arrange shipping to Mowzer:  shipping figured out as above and Henry is primed to place the orders.  Solar panels are elusive and appear to be in hot demand at the moment so they may end up being our nemesis.
• Health insurance - purchase coverage - arrange required doctor visits:  doctor, dentist & optometrist visits are completed or booked for September, insurance is still TBD.
• Boat insurance - purchase coverage: still to be done
• Sell the rest of our stuff, timing it so we have something to sit on, sleep on and eat off almost up until we leave or at least until I finish work:  more things have sold with good timing.  For example our bedroom set is sold but the buyers don't want it until October which is perfect for us.  Final estate sale is planned for October 4th and maybe a garage sale in September dependent on weather.
• Sell the cars:  still to do - anyone looking for a used Elantra or Rio?
• Get the house completely emptied and cleaned out ready for handover to the new owners:  final task still to be done.

Sometimes it's just easier to focus on the future and avoid peering back at the past and all the memories but the past keeps intruding with all the items that need to be decided upon.  I'm constantly confronted with my parent's and grand-parent's past and it takes me back to happy places.  But, like a boat anchor, unless I can lift those memories from where they have sat for so many years, I can't move forward, and move forward I must; and the memories can come with me.

So, with resolve, I look to little items that I can figure out pretty quickly and that gives me some momentum so I can deal with the bigger issues.

With Jim's help, we've figured out what we're doing with respect to computers and I've even sourced a little monitor that we can use with our Mac Mini that is powered solely through a USB cable.  It's just 16" on the diagonal so a little bit bigger than a laptop screen and can be used in portrait or landscape mode.  It weighs in at 1.2kg and when the stand folds against the body is only 3.6cm thick, so very easy to mount at the nav-station where we have just a little bit of space.  (There's that crazy Canadian bilingualism on measurements!)  This is an AOC e1659Fwu.

Also on the computer front, we've decided to replace our current printer with a wireless model that's a bit smaller and lighter but still incorporates a flat-bed scanner.  You might wonder what place a printer / scanner has on a boat but just being able to make copies of boat papers will be helpful.  I'm currently fixated on the Epson XP-310 again because of it's size (8"x18"x15") and weight (9lbs) and the fact that we've been very happy with our current Epson printer.

I've been doing some reading on TheBoatGalley.com about food storage containers and really need to wait on this until we're on the boat so I can measure up our spaces properly, but just having some ideas about what works in the rocky-rolly world of the live-aboard cruiser is a help.

And finally, I've been planning how we are going to pack our personal stuff for the truck/boat journey so that they remain dry, pest-free, and reasonably fresh for when they arrive.  I'm thinking of using quite a few of the zip-loc vacuum bags.  You know, the ones that you pack full of stuff and then hook up to the vacuum and suck all the air out so they're nice and compact.  Henry tells me I have a cubic meter to pack in and I only get half of it!

In a world that is obsessed with the 'super-size', it is proving quite difficult to not just down-size all our personal stuff, but also down-size the actual size of the items we want around us.  It's easy to find the next biggest TV/monitor but sale-folks look at you like you've got two heads when you tell them you're looking for something just a tad smaller than what they've got on display.

Getting Serious

Last November I posted that we had sold our house as Step #1 on our journey to live-aboard.  I suppose the story really started when we took up sailing in 2007.  Or, did it start when we bought Mowzer in 2009?  There are so many places this story could start, but I do know one thing for sure, now that the counter is under 100 we are definitely in the final days of life ashore.

It's been a whirlwind season of downsizing, selling and organizing.  While I've continued on at work at GENBAND, Henry's job has been to get us ready for our deadline which is now October 18.  Yes, we have plane tickets to fly from Ottawa to St. Thomas on that date so if it hasn't been sold, given away or otherwise disposed of by then, it must be fitting into a suitcase and making the trip with us.

Just for the record, here's what we've done so far and what we have left to do ... and I'm sure I'll remember something else as soon as this post goes up.

Done:

• First contents sale and sold our house - last November.
• Moved into Mom's house as renters.
• Sold many antiques and books to individual dealers.
• Held a number of garage sales to dispose of furniture and personal items.
• Henry has lined up a buyer for Mom's house with a closing date just as we wanted, in October.
• With the sale of the house, we have purchased our tickets to St. Thomas and a ticket for Jim to join us in St. Maarten at Christmas for a visit.
• Working with CYOA on the installation of a number of cruiser-required/friendly items on Mowzer:  radar, AIS, ... They will also be doing the updates needed to pull Mowzer out of charter with sails, canvas, engines, etc. in good functional order.
• Arranged purchase of new dinghy and engine in St. Maarten - to be held until we get there in December.
• Replaced toasted handheld GPS unit.  We got this shipped to me on a work visit to Dallas and brought it back at great savings over the price in Canada, and it fit under my personal exemption for duty payment.
• Pretty much furnished Caitlin's new apartment in Toronto - weekend trip to move her in.
• Sold Blew By You, our boat in Ottawa - this one was a huge worry to me since it's rather difficult to sell a boat just before winter in Canada.

To Do:

• Arrange shipping of personal items to Mowzer - good thing we'll be going through a change of seasons so it will be easy to ship summer stuff as we head into fall up here, and then ditch the fall/winter clothing as we leave.
• Purchase of water maker, small generator, EPIRB and solar panels and arrange shipping to Mowzer.
• Health insurance - purchase coverage - arrange required doctor visits.
• Boat insurance - purchase coverage.
• Sell the rest of our stuff, timing it so we have something to sit on, sleep on and eat off almost up until we leave or at least until I finish work.
• Sell the cars.
• There are a couple of items that I just can't find it in my heart to dispose of - will I really consider storage for them???  Not sure about this since it is frightfully expensive.  What to do with those really treasured items that just can't go to the boat and will I really care about them in the years to come?
• Get the house completely emptied and cleaned out ready for handover to the new owners.
• Finish up work in early October (targeting Oct. 3rd as final date).

This list is way too short and some of these will make up postings just on their own - I'm sure that Henry will have more to add so we'll grow it as the date comes marching upon us.