Paperwork

Paperwork appears to be a necessary evil when getting ready to go cruising. Steves passport needed renewing, we needed to get an ICC for cruising in the canaries, and we needed to talk to the vat man to ensure that we had the correct vat paperwork in place. Because Chewsy was built in 1983 before vat was introduced we needed proof that she was moored in the UK on a certain date in 1992. Fortunately we had this information. The vat office suggested we also contacted the Spanish embassy in London to confirm our documents were sufficient. Mm I'll leave that for another day.
Steve has contacted the RYA and arranged to have our recognition as a sailing school suspended for 12 months whilst we are away.
Next on my paperwork list is the boat insurance. The renewal is due before we go away so I'll wait until then. We also need to look at personal insurance for whilst we are away. There are several websites but the best ones seem to be in the States. Need more research!

The story so far......

Over 20 years ago Steve and I planned to go sailing round the world and home school our 2 children as we went. Now, in 2012, our daughter Kath is married and our son Paul gets married in July. And... we are finally going sailing in August. Over the next few months we will add to 'Chewsy's' inventory, and prepare her for long distance cruising. We had strengthening work done on the main bulkhead over last winter. We had a new engine installed in 2009, have new rigging and good sails. She is raring to go. However, there are a few bits and pieces that need to be dealt with; a new suitcase generator, windscoops, manual waterpump, cockpit chartplotter, etc, etc,etc