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The final journey home covered the miles somewhat faster than the trip out to the Azores.

The two plane tripes were uneventful. The train ride from Boston to Newark left on time but arrived 3 hours late due to a combination of diesel engine failure and trees on the line. I slept through much of it albeit awkwardly. Helen picked me up at Newark – it was great to see her after last seeing her 3 weeks ago in Bermuda.

Since then it’s been down to getting busy – both clearing out home and making decisions on gear for the boat. We’ve agreed on a July 25 sale date. We have realized that we need to acquire all the gear that we intend to ship or take down to the islands well before this date.

We have already ordered our washing machine – a Bosch. We had to get a smaller sized unit to fit the available space. Bosch are a little more expensive than others but their reliability is very good. This is important when you’re off the beaten track. A minor item I’ve also bought is a wifi detector. Lugging a laptop around to find a decent signal turned out to be a pain. So I bought a canary.

I’ve been deciding between Brownie or Airline for a Hookah. Although there are aspects of the Airline I prefer, the Brownie appears to be a larger company and has a longer track record. If I was land based I wouldn’t mind but again, being stuck in odd places, I prefer the backing of a more established company.

Today I’ll be ordering the Hookah as well as chartplotter / radar. I am pretty much set on the Garmin touch screen – the 12″ version. I will only get one for the helm and leave the decision for one inside until a later date. This keeps the initial setup fairly simple.

Other projects on the list are the solar panels / wind generator, getting some folding bikes and researching the best way to sell our two cars.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time looking at internet based backup / synchronizing solutions. The episode of water in the laptop (the one at home) while we were in Bermuda only served to remind us how important backups are. Aboard a boat, backing up to CD/DVD has it’s drawbacks so I am attracted to solutions that automatically save files elsewhere via the internet on the occasions one is connected. Right now I am using syncplicity, a beta product. It not only synchronizes to the files on the internet, it also allows those files to be synced back another computer elsewhere. It also integrates photo sharing with facebook and also integrates with googles document service. These appeal to the geek in me and I look forward to exploring these options. As this is in beta, I get a chance to interact with the developers which is good.