What now?

So now we have our first cruising sailboat, what now? Well we have been making lists, adding items to lists, checking completed items off and adding more. We got boat and towing insurance. The bottom has been painted, the topsides buffed and her new name Honey Ryder added. We shipped 9 boxes of boat gear this weekend. Tom - "Do we really need all this shit?" Me - "Yes." **And if you haven't seen or used the flat rate boxes at the post office, you are missing out. I loaded all of Tom' s boat tools into two of the $14.50 boxes. The postmaster said normally based on weight alone it would cost $35 to $40 to ship instead of the $14.50 we paid. Woo Hoo! Good deal considering that we are hemorrhaging $$ at this point. We knew this would happen and planned for it but it doesn't make it any easier when we have been saving for so long. It's tough to let go of the $$.

Our boating friends have been very generous. Paul brought over a truckload (ok, actually it was a Prius full but still a lot) of cruising guides and charts for us to study. He is also loaning us a spare laptop with chart software so we can see if we like the software. Thanks Paul!!!!
Tim and Kim have loaned us their portable GPS/chartplotter. Kim and I were even able to find and evening last week to have an Evil Sailing Sisters GPS learning sessions. Way better than reading the dumb ole manual and the wine and cheese was an added bonus to the learning. Too bad I didn't have that in high school to motivate me. Oh wait....I did but it was doughnuts and beer during homeroom. That explains a lot doesn't it.
Patrick and Nancy sent a very kewl cruising sailboat book. It has tons of good info on setting up a cruising sailboat. We love it Patrick and Nancy.
Tim and Kim gave us a present we hope to never use - a bright red ditch bag. Inside were useful ditch bag items. These included several standard ditch bag items and a few non-traditional items such as Hot Pockets and some corn dog things. We think these are to induce vomiting as no sane person would ever eat Hot Pockets. Many, many inside jokes here and just like a Visa commercial, they are priceless. Finally there was a stuffed cat wearing foul weather gear made for a cat. There is no way to even explain this as it goes beyond inside jokes. But it was awesome. The whole thing. Thanks Tim and Kim. You two are funny freaks!

I have also completed my first boat project. I made lee cloths for Paul's boat. I plan to make some for Honey Ryder but I wanted to start with the ones for s/v Gratitude so I could prefect the pattern and in case I made any mistakes. What are friends for. Anyway, they turned out great. I made them from mesh fabric, the same used to make deck/patio chairs. I added a special feature that is now my signature feature - a snap on eyeglass case. I figured most crew wears glasses so why not give them a secure handy place to keep them so that when they get called up on deck, they can easily grab their eyeglasses and go.