More paperwork

Wednesdays are my trip planning days. This week I rang Bishop Skinner to ask about boat insurance whilst we are away. The very helpful man on the end of the phone asked me to email the itinerary and crew list and they will let me know. Still waiting ..... I have no idea what the cost will be.
I also enquired about personal world wide travel insurance for us both. I thought long and hard about the money involved; about £550 each. However, we can't really afford not to take out insurance going to the Caribbean. The underwriters are Towergate insurance. I rang and confirmed that we would be covered for long term cruising. Yes, we would be came the answer.
I made an appointment to see our solicitor to make new wills !! Not that I'm planning not coming back, but you have to be prepared. We are also giving our daughter Kath power of attorney to deal with any legal issues that crop up whilst we are away. After all we may actually get a buyer for Crystal Rapide.
These are all things I prefer to get sorted out sooner rather than later.

Parcels and parcels

This week has been like Christmas, without the wrapping paper. We have had deliveries each day. First was the generator, then the parts from Raymarine to rebuild the autopilot, then the holding tank arrived and finally the transformer to provide us with shore power electricity whilst we are in the Carribean. Steve is away all week so I have kept them all in the packaging so he can open them all himself.

Ground tackle

Yesterday we took a trip down to Alloway to have a look at a couple of anchors which were advertised on the notice board in Largs Yacht Haven. We have a 35lb CQR on Chewsy at the moment attached to 60 metres of 10mm chain. In the past we have had a couple of incidents of dragging and once snapped an anchor during a F8 whilst at Sanda. We are looking for something with a bit more oomph to keep us safe whilst we are away. Enter a 60lb CQR and a brand new fortress. A sale was agreed and we are now the proud owners of the above anchors. When Steve is back from his weeks own boat training, we will try the CQR anchor and see if it fits on the bow roller. Gut feeling is that the shank may be too long to sit safely in the roller. If that happens its time for a rethink. The fortress however is an excellent choice as a secondary anchor in the carribean. It is very light and will stow well.

The anchor fits well in the bow roller and after lowering it in the marina, it was winched up using the windless. Success. We have a new anchor.

Money, money, money

This week has been very expensive. This is the week when we stop researching and start buying. Its also the week when we have some maintenance work done on our house because the weather has been so good. This weeks purchases have included a lowrance plotter for in the cockpit complete with 2 new electronic charts. Our problems started when we tried to load our 'free'charts on to the laptop. Now we are not techno nerds, but we are not stupid either and the instructions on the navionics website and pc app had us climbing the walls in frustration. however, that's for another day.

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