PREPARATIONS TO LEAVE

What does a boater do before one leaves it for awhile?

Salt water is our enemy down south so we:

Flush port and starboard engines with fresh water (I have to help and start the engines while Paul is flushing them with the hose)

Flush the generator same thing (yes, I am starting the generator, lots of buttons!)

Flush the outboard engine with the fresh water and drain the fuel.

We pickle the watermaker. (This does not mean edible pickles... hahhaha)

Fill the freshwater tanks with water to the top so no air are in the tanks.

Change the engine oil on the generator AND the port and starboard engine.

Hose down all the lines (ropes) and stuff in forward hatches with fresh water. When we travel salt water enters those compartments sometimes. Let all this dry big time in the sun then put away again. Anything with salt on it does not dry, period!! We have boated in fresh water all these years so we are on a learning curve.

I washed all the insides and outsides of the canvas windows in the flybridge, looks good up there.

Remove all the electronics from the flybridge and put away.

Make sure the bilges are all bone dry (running the air conditioner with the engine rooms open).

Toilets use salt water to flush, we will be flushing a few times with fresh water before we leave.

Tie up the boat with numerous lines as if a hurricane is coming so we can sleep at night in Canada.

Usually get pumped out but the P.O.O.P boat (Pump Out Operation Program) comes on Thursdays, so no go. We will get pumped out as as soon as we come back. We fly home on Wednesday because we want to spend time with our middle son before he leaves on military employment for rest of summer. He leaves April 15^th.

We give frozen food and some fridge food away. There is a bachelor living on this boat right in front of us. We gave him some food last year too. We won't be back until about May 7, power could go out and food could go bad!... smelly!

We go out for lunch, JCP, dinner, drink up some more wine, sunbathe, buy 2 pairs of jeans for Paul, drink some more wine, shop at Kohls, another lunch, walk the docks, read a book, shop at Sam's Club (as there is no club in Ottawa), book flights, book rental car to get to airport, store our car in a storage unit for our return, another lunch out. Do a Wal-Mart trip (yes, I can't believe it either) and then wear clothes conducive to Ottawa weather on the way home... running shoes, pants and yes a JACKET. James picks us up and hug him asap!

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." --Lin Yutang