11 days to go, preparations going well

Post date: Apr 07, 2015 2:31:50 PM

The boat is now clean, organised, fully equipped and almost ready.

Each visit to the boat is fairly exhausting (last Monday was my 5th so far this year in getting it ready). It requires a 2 hour drive there, scrubbing, clearing out, installing & fixing stuff while I'm there, then a 2 hour drive back again - followed by a game of squash in the evening (normally). Phew!

On Monday, for example, I spliced, measured and marked out 50m of rope onto my anchor chain, scrubbed the decking and cleared out, cleaned and reorganised the rear lockers - they are big enough to climb into yet cramped enough to put my joints and muscles through some novel contortions.

On the fund raising front, I now have "business cards" and laminated notices to hang off the boat so that I can cajole unwitting passers-by to pony up whenever I'm in port. I have no mercy. I have a page detailing this.

What's left to do on the boat? Some further electrical work to plumb in my new inverter (that charges my MacBook) & rewire my Navtext and ancillary power outlets. The boat will be pressure washed next week to clear the hull of gunk so that I can go as fast as possible. This weekend I'll go for a sail to check things out.

And moi? Fine really. Getting prepared mentally (it will be lonely!) and physically. Since I started at the gym 2 months ago I have increased my strength by 20%  and lost 3 or 4 pounds, so less fat more muscle!

I'm now in the process of "designing" my diet. For example, I've just measured out 2.7kg of mixed nuts amounting to 12,700kCal. I'm going to be having 100g of that per day - almost 500kCal.

I realise that all this might sound a bit, um, regimented. But I guess that's how I am - I need routine so that I don't have to decide/think on the obvious stuff so that I can enjoy the real stuff - sailing and discovering our coastline.