I always knew that fitting the holding tank would not be easy and it certainly wasn't. At least we are mostly there and the hard part has been done. Matthew did a sterling job of cutting up the interior and drilling lots of holes but the end of it is that we will have a permanently fitted holding tank and the means of emptying it!
This photos shows the messiest stage. The only bit so far is that I have done the impressive bit of painting the locker where it goes with bilge paint!
We also fitted the liferaft at last with more scary holes to drill in the coachroof. We look even more like a pukka blue water cruiser now.
We also got used Matthew's mast monkey skills to run the lazy jacks up to the spreaders, remove the left over support for the radar and have a look around the masthead to make sure things were healthy up there. We couldn't finish the lazyjacks as the boom fittings hadn't arrived from Atlantic Spars. I have them now and we will swiftly finish them off this coming weekend.
I still have to order a bunch of charts but that really is it. We will leave, probably on Monday but possibly Tuesday. Weather and progress on work will dictate that.
It was a nice weekend though the weather was windier and wetter than planned. Saturday night, in particular brought some dramatic skies:
We also felt rather skinny moored next to a catamaran!
Finally, we are really getting close to going and the excitement rather than apprehension is starting to take over. It will be nice to get going though, as ever.
What will it be like when I walk out of the door for two months and get on the train to Plymouth on Saturday morning? What will it be like when we finally cast off, sail past Plymouth Breakwater? If all goes to plan, we won't come back past the Breakwater for three years. This really is the great adventure - in a small way anyway.
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