Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Yesterday I passed my New Jersey Safe Boater’s exam. The sorry story is that last weekend I took the Opt Out exam and failed. I thought I had read what I had been told to read but the questions last weekend had a lot of specific facts I could not remember or had never known (like minimum trailer weight requiring independent brakes).

The odd thing was, was that the actual safe boaters test was considerably more in line with my past knowledge than the opt out test and I reckon I could have passed it without sitting through several hours of lecture.

Still, one good thing came out of it all. I now know why my shoe laces have been coming undone for 40 years. I’ve been tying them with a granny knot rather than a square knot. This has dramatically reduced the probability that I’ll fall overboard as a result of a loose shoelace. I’m a safe boater indeed.

Tomorrow it’s back to the bank to pay off the rest of Dignity a second time. Still looks like April 19^th for Ex-Factory.

This morning I have explained what I mean by ‘year 0’ over in the Our Plans section.

That’s it. Were done. At 11:30pm last night we’d packed our last bag, fixed our last problem, cleaned our last mark. Sleep was not instantaneous despite the tiredness. Back up at 4am to go to the airport. Its cold and very wet. Driving conditions were poor. We made it though in good time. Now we have a few moments to rest in the departure lounge. Too tired to do much more than plonk ourselves down. Feeling a bit numb about everything. Time to slow down a little and gather our wits. Travelling is supposed to be stressful but its a breeze compared to gthe last few weeks. More later.