Varnishing is fun! Really...

We're on the hard in Limhamn, Ingeborg looks like a 16th century leprosy colony . Been here for a week now. I'm a time optimist, I thought we would have had her anti fouled and back in the water in three or four days. There's still no anti fouling on... The new rig is ordered and will be here tomorrow. The welder who's going to repair the fitting for the dolphin striker and move the bow roller will be done on thursday, so I guess she'll be back in the water thursday afternoon. The new thru hulls are fitted and so's the new log transducer.

We're leaving one thru hull clean and unpainted to use as a counter poise for the SSB. I've been working for a couple of days on repairing the two spreaders for the main mast. One was rotten at the base and the other one had a previous repair that wasn't up to standard. I wanted to make two completely new spreaders but when I got home with the new wood and had a closer look at it I saw that most of it wasn't good enough. At least we managed to extract enough wood to make two repairs. The scarfs are finnished and tomorrow I'll buy some epoxy that hasn't gone past it's "best before" date and glue them together. The spreaders for the mizzen are getting a new coat too. They won't be completely varnished by the time we step the masts again so my little rigg monkey will have to take another trip up the masts.

Lotta spent the past three days sanding and varnishing wood (still a lot left) and changing the tesxt on the home-board from "Berlin" to "Sweden". She put the first coat of varnish on today and it looks really, really good.

My little artist at work










We're about a week behind "schedule". Not that it matters though. I have quit my job now so with a little luck, or the absence of bad luck, a lot of things will be done. The last spare parts for the engine are on order and will be here on the 7th so I guess we'll leave on the 7th or 8th if the weather permits. Still to much to be done to really feel the excitement or have time to think about it.

/Hampus

It was nice to meet you, Båtsman!

Yesterday we had a new visitor on Ingeborg.  A furry one, a cat named Båtsman.

He´d followed his family from S/Y Mary unseen and suddenly he was about to climb in through one of Ingeborg´s portholes. When they leave to go sailing round the world in seven weeks he will not go with them. Båtsman is a metaphore for much in life right know. There´s a lot of goodbye´s and hello´s. You take farwell of friends and family and you say hello to new aquintences you otherwise wouldn´t have met. It was nice to meet you Båtsman! And needless to say that goes for the rest of the crew of S/Y Mary too.



That same day we also took farewell of Kaj, leaving our marina for his trip round the world aboard Amelit. I wish you a great adventure!




/Lotta, "touchy feely" after a lot of goodbye´s and after a last night out with my colleagues.

Don't get mad, get even! But with whom?

Right now things don't really go our way. Four weeks ago our dinghy was stolen from the boat. Someone has actually been aboard Ingeborg and stolen little Ingeborg. Last weekend we had someone break in to the car. We had lots of stuff in there, not visible but that didn't stop them. I know, stupid to keep things in the car, but with the move from the apartment to the boat we needed a place to store things that were in transit. The car was that place. We lost a camera tripod, an old laptop that wasn't worth anything but had lots of stuff on it and was supposed to be used for sailmai, so it needs to be replaced. They also took a very nice electrical guitar. I mean who would do such a thing? Stealing someones guitar is like stealing their girlfriend! With all the stuff lost, the dinghy and the smashed window we lost around $2000.

I was hopping mad when we found our smashed car and spent all that day thinking about what I would have done to the little bastards if I'd caught them. Breaking their knee caps with a baseball bat was the high on the "list of punishments". Then Lotta told me about Karma and that Karma would make sure that they get what they deserve. I'm now confident that Karma will bust their knee caps.

We also redid our calculations and came to the conclusion that we'll leave with $8000 less than we need. Oh joy! We'll need to come up with a way to make $650 a month. I guess starvation is a great motivator. Suggestions are welcome. No one said it would be easy, right?

/Hampus, deciding which kidney to sell first.

This is why it´s so hard.

The flat´s sold and we´re now living onboard Ingeborg. It´s been a horrible few days when I´ve asked myself if I´ve made the right decision to sell the flat, just to remind myself it doesnt matter anymore because the flat´s sold and there´s no going back.

This is why it so hard. Every morning I wake up, I go to the window and I see this. Every afternoon I come home and I see this. The ocean, the sky. For me, to be blessed to live like this, it´s freedom.



















Now I hope I can find a different kind of freedom. The ocean and the sky are still there as long as we´re sailing...

Lotta