8/31/14

Sorry it took so long to post again. We went to see my parents in Minnesota for a few weeks and time slipped away. 

We did the sail to Catalina with the autopilot installed and it was a much more comfortable sail but still hard because it was a lot of sailing in 2 days and Oliver was restless and, lets be honest, so was I. Paul was sitting in the cockpit the whole time so I was still completely on 'Oliver entertaining duty'. I kind of thought the autopilot was going to make it more even since he wouldn't have to sit up there but he did so then I was all mad like, "why did we get an autopilot when you sit up there anyways. You mind as well be steering and we could've saved $500?" I guess you still have to lookout for other boats…who knew ;) I think it will get better once we get used to it and trust it more. I don't know but I am always hopeful that sailing will get easier and more enjoyable.

So…countdown to 10 day sail is 3 days away and I am at work tonight and work Wednesday night…that leaves a lot to do and not a lot of time, if I want to sleep. I am getting our lists made and checking it twice. I will probably do most of the grocery shopping tomorrow and cooking Wednesday. I will try to precook some meals and muffins to try to make this as easy as possible. I really need to get down and mess around with the stove since I have never used it. We don't cook much with a stove anyways, especially in the summer, it is just too hot. 

I feel a lot of pressure for this trip to be good. We have kind of decided that if this doesn't go well we reassess what we are going to do…like possibly sell the boat. If it goes well we might just leave this year. Not that I think we are totally ready but I know a lot of signs point to go (ie our cars are both old and need work if we stay, Paul's job is moving buildings and paring back staff, I would most likely want to get a new job, we would need to move). That kind of stuff. Not that all of that can't be done, it can, but it would be costly and a pain in the rear. I kind of feel more and more that we just need to go. 

If you can't tell we go back and forth a lot. There are also a lot of reasons I would like to stay and wait so I guess we just have to go and see.