"Getting ready and saying Goodbye to friends"

The last six months of preparations were kind of hectic.

Our original departure date was set for December 31, 2004. Well, things have a tendency to change when you’re cruising.

Alex and Sue gave both their employers several months notice that their last days of work would be the end of December. Sue’s replacement, Lois, was hired right away. It was more difficult finding a replacement for Alex as this person would have to be fluent in English as well as German. They found Dietmar. Alex agreed to train him through the end of February.

We got married November 26, 2004 in Vegas at “The little Chapel of the West”. Greg (best man) and Penny from Long Tall Sally as well as David and JL (standing up for Sue) went along for the festivities. This would allow Sue enough time to process the paperwork on various documents showing her married name as well as give her one more shot at the Vegas tables before embarking on her perpetual honeymoon. The paperwork at that time for the passport name change alone was 6 weeks. Credit cards and Social Security data had to be changed also. We also made several trips to Carson City, Nevada, our new “home” to get new driver licenses.

As the Holiday Season approaches, the packing of the apartment and the moving onto the boat went slow with all the festivities.

While Alex was working, Sue would make piles in the apartment for storage, boat or garage sale. She was amazed at the amounts of wine and other beverages stashed away in different locations, all acquired during past business trips in and out of the country as well as trips to Napa Valley. Combining three bars (Alex’s house bar, Sue’s bar and the existing boat bar created also another accumulation of alcohol, some of which could be combined. Each day a load was taken down to the boat, organized and put away. The rains came mid January leaving the Boat pile in the apartment to grow.

The antiques and photos are all in a storage vault in California. All of the kitchen stuff as well as stereo, TV’s and desktop computers, fax machines, etc was sold. No sense hanging on to equipment which would be outdated in a short time. All of the regular furniture was also scheduled for sale. The movers came in and loaded two storage containers in record time. The containers are inventoried and weighed. Should we ever decide to settle down somewhere, we just call the company and our crates will be delivered to us.

A Garage Sale was held in the apartment for a weekend. People were in and out all day. The mailman received a lot of nice goodies. A fond memory will always be held of the young girl who was about to get married. It would be her and her fiancé’s first home. Among the dishes, TV’s, stereos, plants etc., she asked about our stainless steel trash cans. No problem, but we need to use them until the 28th. She was so happy.

After several extensions on our lease, we needed to be out of the apartment the end of February. Keep in mind February only has 28 days. On the 27th, panic swept over us. We raced to Home Depot and bought storage containers and filled them. We hired our maid and her son to help us move onto the boat. Maitairoa looked like a container ship that evening.

The next few weeks were spent trying to put things away in our slip we were subletting from Barrie. The new tenants would be moving into this slip the end of March, so we moved across the fairway onto PMYC’s guest dock. For those of you who have not visited PMYC, the clubhouse is on the 2nd floor with a glass wall overlooking the 100’ guest dock. This is where life in the fishbowl began.

We hung up our full size awning which includes side panels, blocking viewing from the club, to establish some sort of privacy. As soon as the shades were up, a phone call was placed from the bar complaining about the side panels of the awning since they couldn’t see what we are working on now.

So our final preparations began. The old 15 gallon water heater was replaced with a smaller 5 gallon unit in order to fit the new genset in. The spectators were in for a treat that day as the side panels were removed. The boom was used to lower the genset in through the port lazerrette. The club members had score cards made up for the event. We received low marks at first, because THEY didn’t know what we were doing. A perfect 10 was the final result. In case we wouldn’t look up at them as they knocked on the glass, they would call our cell phones and ask us to look up.

The guest dock was also a great measuring device while marking our new barrel of 400’ 3/8 BBB anchor chain. Every 50’ was painted red, white or blue accordingly. A yellow nylon rope was interwoven each 50’ for when the paint would wear off.

Installing the new custom made Garhauer anchor bow roller to hold our 66 lb Bruce anchor and Lofrans windlass was another adventure for the Club Members. Again the members filled the bar stools and rated our performance. With the help of Greg on “Long Tall Sally”, everything went smoothly and another perfect “10” was scored.

The Members were also all interested in our departure date. On January 1st, PMYC’s afternoon cocktail hour gang created a “Secret Pool.” For .25 a square, you could bet on which day during the year Maitairoa would cut the dock lines. Because it was a “secret”, it was actually which day we would arrive in Mexico. To instigate a bit we bought several squares ourselves on various dates which really created a lot of confusion.

We finally cut the dock lines June 10, 2005 and arrived in Ensenada July 22, 2005 with “Uncle” Bob Buttee being the Grand Prize winner.
Rumor is there is still another pool about when one of us or both will return. Some things never change