48 Hours – Countdown Begins

Departure time is just about here. After I finish writing this post, it will be non-stop preparations. That’s both because it’s necessary and my nerves won’t allow anything else. There was a lot of preparation for the boat. Systems have been checked and re-checked. A couple of days ago we thought there might be a problem with the electrical systems. Until the generator technician arrived we needed to come up with an alternative plan if he brought bad news. We might just have to ship the boat to Florida and drive the car down. When Tim suggested that, there was a sense of relief. While I am very much looking forward to this adventure, my nerves are not. Luckily (I guess), the only problem was the breaker had been tripped when checking the oil for the generator. The lever was tucked in under the deck which made it very difficult to see unless you were practically standing on your head in the well where the engine lives.

While we had the technician I got in a few more questions about how things work on the boat. When we had picked up the boat initially, Peter at the boatyard had just discovered the dipstick for the generator had the end broken off. Because of that, we weren’t able to properly check the oil. When the new dipstick arrived I managed to get it in, again, the generator is in an awkward spot, and it doesn’t go straight in, it goes around a few bends. It seemed to need oil so we added some but we still weren’t sure if it was properly filled. Again, with the difficult positioning, I had attached tubing to a funnel with masking tape to be able to add it. With the technician at our disposal, it seemed like a good time to ask if the oil was at a proper fill line. That’s when the technician realized how the breaker was tripped. You almost couldn’t add oil without accidentally tripping it. It was both that sensitive and that well hidden. There was a proper amount of oil and the mysteries had been solved. We were indeed “good to go”.

Now what? The technician headed out, the gray day was getting sunny and we were on the boat sitting at the dock. I wanted to play with the GPS some and Tim was thinking about practicing docking. A task we hadn’t gotten to between the bad weather and work being done at the boatyard. Also, with the clean bill of health on Little Prince, the notion of shipping it didn’t really seem like an option. At that point, our neighbor came by with a bottle of wine wishing us a Bon Voyage (thanks Bob!). Now, we couldn’t bail on our big journey. A couple of hours was spent practicing docking. I was also able to put some things in their proper places.

Tomorrow afternoon the plumber will come and winterize the house, meaning drain the pipes. The electricity gets shut off Tuesday. We’ll spend Monday night on the boat in the anchorage and shove off Tuesday morning.