I suppose you can tell a lot about people by the contents of the holds, nooks and lockers on their boat...or by what they load on first. For us it was 5 cases of wine all out of their boxes, wrapped carefully and individually in bubble wrap and placed in enviro shopping bags before sliding carefully into the bottom of the wet locker. And that is just the white wine! The red and the beer and the whisky are still to come.
Mr G, in a surprise moment of packing enthusiasm, got stuck into wrapping the bottles while I prepared dinner on Saturday....all the while saying that we will struggle to find places to put them. He was adamant that this 58 was IT! and we'd just have to do with this lot. A Scot by birth and a procrastinator by habit, Mr G looks at bulk items of anything and just sees money and hassle. It's not immediately clear to him that a week or so sheltering behind an island with a strong wind blowing and enjoying the company of other yachties will rapidly deplete the alcohol stores. Also, its not as clear to him - as to me - that when his wine runs out he's not going to swill mine! It takes me 2-3 days to finish a bottle of white and for him a bottle of red is gone in a sitting. So more alcohol is most assuredly coming!
We moved Southern Belle into a berth at the RPAYC on Sunday to start the loading process. There's so much to do to be ready to leave on the 5th or 6th of May. Somewhere I read that..."if you wake up with nothing else to do on or to your boat then you're dead so it doesn't matter anyway". Well, we certainly aren't dead at this point!
Also this past weekend we attended two more seminars at the yacht club for the Coral Coast 2013 (CC13) cruise. Sunday's seminar was all about Hunting and Gathering while in the tropics. It covered things like gathering coconuts. Did you know that over 200 people a year are killed by falling coconuts!
The seminar also covered fishing. I've never been a fan of fishing - from the boat or anywhere else. Its too much like a blood sport to me and it hurts me to see something struggle and be killed right in front of my eyes. Sounds silly, I know, but its just how I feel. I don't like all the blood either. Well the seminar was full of pictures of blood and gore. Mostly the gore came from pictures of people with fish hooks stuck in various parts of the body. Yuck. Mr G always tries to fish off the back of the boat but he gets bored quickly, reels the line in and says, "they're not biting". So we never had to put up with the gory thrill of a kill on board. Unfortunately I know the time will come. I could see the blood lust in Mr G's eyes in the seminar as slides were shown of prize catches.
More packing and buying and forms etc etc etc today. All this planning is good. It keeps my mind off worrying about the journey at sea with just the two of us....and leaving Molly. Just typing that makes little bits of my heart break off.
Poor Miss Molly, if she would just use a piddle pad!
ReplyDeleteMy Grandpa and Grandpappy both taught me to fish, and fishing involved offing the heads and gutting them and I suppose that since I was watching from the time I was two-ish it never bothered me. I have never landed anything bigger than 5 or 6 pounds so it was never a big deal or particularly gory. If I killed it I ate it, and it was pretty damn tasty :) I was probably about ten when they decided I could use a knife on my catch without hurting myself.
That is not enough wine... How much rum are ye layin in, matey? Arrrrggh! Rum & some coconuts, that's the ticket! 58 bottles of rum on the wall, that's a good start!