1.5

We were planning on leaving tomorrow. Yesterday we got the welded winch parts back and Kyle and Gage got the outboard impeller changed, so we’re officially ready to go.

We didn’t go, because it looks like we’ll have more favorable weather if we leave on Weds. That’s kind of a cop out because the truth is we aren’t quite ready to go. If we’d had to pack everything onto the boat today, it would have been a dump-wherever-there’s-space kind of job. Instead, we’re going to put things away neatly, Kyle’s going to get the solar working, and we’re leaving on Weds.

1.8

We were planning on leaving tomorrow. The solar panels are working, everything onboard is neat and tidy, we’re ready to go!

We didn’t go, because when we checked the weather it called for strong winds in the Albemarle – in fact, there’s a small craft warning for tomorrow and Thursday. We’re bummed. Super bummed.

So we invited Ken and Kelly over for a farewell-party-turned-get-drunk-fest. The best shenanigan of the night was when Kelly was out in the cockpit and Ken started fiddling with our security bar door.

“Be careful, that locks really easily” I told him. Seconds later…click. “Well, we’re locked in now.”

You don’t need the keys to lock the security bar, you just slide it into the jam and it locks itself. You do need a key to unlock them. Neither of us had any idea where the key was. We knew it was on the boat, and no longer in the garage. Kelly, who was NOT trapped onboard with us, thought it was hilarious.

It took an uncomfortable amount of digging, but eventually the key turned up. Problem solved. Lesson learned!

1.10

We’re planning on leaving tomorrow. We really didn’t have much to do the last two days, so today we even took a jaunt out to the OBX and picked up some fishing and snorkeling gear – it’s the off-season so they only had pink! We’ve been doing nothing but spend money for the last few months, but there are still some big items that we need to pick up.

We also stopped at Food Lion for the third stock-up-before-you-leave buying spree. When we got home and tried to stuff more food into the freezer, the fan started whining. It’s time to defrost again! One last project before we leave. While that was thawing, we grabbed our harddrive and headed over to Jersey Grace to share all our new movies and TV shows with Ken and Kelly, plus solve a problem Ken was having with his raspberry pi. Our third farewell party. After the party we stopped by the shop to settle up our bill, which was well into four figures (a sure sign we’ve been here too long!) then back to the boat to try to sleep.

Tomorrow is a big day!