Ok, so I thought we were slowing down but we’ve since sped up a bit.
On Sunday morning we were visited by nephew Owen, his wife Cynthia and daughter Tabatha. They live in the area and it was good to be able to spend some time with them. We’ve not seen Owen for many years, the last time being in the UK back in the 90s. During their visit we managed to sell off another boat item and later in the day sold yet another.
On Sunday evening Pam on Passages cooked us dinner and we stayed chatting with her and John for some time. John offered to keep an eye on Dignity this week as a lot of the repairs are going to happen. This will be a great help as John is very knowledgable and it can only be positive if the trades folk know someone is overseeing them.
Monday started off with a nice long Skype chat with older son John and granddaughter Bau. It was John’s birthday so it was a good excuse. The day was incredibly busy. Helen more or less completed all the packing while I did the paperwork. Helen even did all the package moving to the office as I don’t yet have the strength for all this. In the afternoon we were visited by more prospective buyers for the boat. It seems we’re getting a lot of interest now. As Helen pointed out a couple of months ago, the demasting is turning out to be a good thing. With the hull unaffected the upshot is Dignity will have brand new and locally warranted rig and sails coupled with almost nearly new motors which are also still under warranty. This sets her apart from the competition.
Monday evening we were picked up by Trish and Rob from Bristol Rose and we all went out for a curry dinner. As ever it was really nice to see and spend some time with them. Afterwards it was time to Skype solicitors (lawyers) in the UK to follow up on things. We settled down to watch a show on the laptop but both of us fell asleep almost straight away.
It is now Tuesday morning. Our 10 boxes and 1 case will soon be picked up and begin their long journey to the UK. Whatever else we find will have to go in our luggage. Then we call the shipwrights who will come over and we’ll move the boat over to the Royal Queensland maintenance dock where the repaired s/s will be refitted, the mast compression pole rewelded and the few gelcoat spots of damage repaired. On Thursday the new mast will be stepped. I’m assuming that Dignity will be moved back to her current berth on Friday.
Unfortunately we won’t get to see the mast fitting as we have to return to Melbourne tomorrow evening for the start of my radiotherapy on Thursday. I have 20 sessions planned, each of which will include whole brain radiotherapy and radiotherapy on my spine. Hopefully my bone marrow won’t be too badly affected. If it is, my stem cells are standing by. The radiotherapy will take 4 weeks so we can’t have any long trips back to the boat at least until late October.
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