To Do List Frenzy

Annapolis, MD

September has been and gone and finally we are ready to head south.   We have been working hard and Matsu now shines and gleams like new and the to do list has gone from 120 to 20 things to do – the truth being the 20 are the sort of things that never ever get done!

We have spent the 6 weeks tied to the dock at our friends Larry & Bev from Chandelle who we first met in the Bahamas in 2007.  They have been so kind allowing us to use the dock and share their superb location in Annapolis, we will be sad to leave!  The dock has an endless supply of blue crab too and we have had some great crab dinners to sustain us.

Linda’s big achievement is to have made a superb dodger, our old one was impossible to see through and leaked like a sieve and the time had come to replace it.  3 years ago we bought a Sailrite machine and Linda has honed her skills on many projects but a dodger is about as hard as it gets.

With Larry & Bev’s dock as a work area and her faithful assistant Charlie, Linda has produced a superb dodger - tight, wrinkle free and waterproof; the difference it has made to the boat is incredible.  We will actually be able to look out for boats on night watch from within the dodger rather than having to stand up and stick our heads out – an important improvement in the autumn weather.

We also took delivery of our new mainsail, it looks and sets beautifully, now we have the new one we realise how bad the old one had become.

I meanwhile have been fixing, replacing, troubleshooting etc etc a  multitude of systems and with today’s rebedding of the front hatch we are set for the off.  There is an excellent weather window opening up mid next week for rounding Hatteras and heading south, like all windows it can disappear but we plan to head south down Chesapeake Bay tomorrow and who knows where the next post will be from.