Our last post was in February of this year (2017) and it shared our plans to return to our adventures at sea. However, we have not been idle, so this post will share what we have been up to!
I completed my last couple months of full time employment at the end of April – at least for the short term! I loved my job and my co-workers so this was a hard decision and my last week was certainly bitter-sweet. Here are a couple shots of going away gifts and team dinners!
I headed up the Product Marketing team for a terrific, international software company called Meltwater and I already miss the work but I am ready and excited for the next chapter in our lives.
My oldest son just graduated from UC Berkeley and will be working in San Francisco and my youngest will graduate from high school in early June. The nest is officially ’empty’ – though we all know a nest fills as easily as it empties!
Tom and I have both taken on boat projects as we prepare to depart before the end of May. I have made the following items:
- A mosquito screen door that covers the opening of our new dodger so we can poke our heads up out of our companionway without being eaten!
- A rain cover for our front cabin hatches so we can enjoy a fresh breeze even during a moderate rain shower. I love sleeping with the hatches open and now the frequent evening sprinkles will no longer have us cooped up!
- Cloth bags for wine bottle storage. I enjoy good wine but I don’t enjoy listening to bottles clanking against one another with each rock of the boat … and I really don’t like broken wine bottles!
- Table cloths for our cockpit table – complete with ties to keep it from blowing overboard!
Tom has accomplished a lot more with the additional time he has had. A couple of the key efforts were:
- Reconfiguring and updating all of our electronics
- Replacing all of the strips of mahogany on the cockpit seats and floor
- Working with Shoals Canvas to build a dodger for our boat! Shoals is terrific – if you need any canvas work done, be sure to connect with this wife/husband pair! We also used them to replace our bimini cover and all of our cabin cushions.
Thalia will be launched this week, then we will begin testing all of our new and modified equipment and configurations. We hope to be underway by May 27th but boats always have their own plans so stay tuned here for updates on our departure.