FINALLY, IT'S TIME TO GO

We have wintered the cold. We have seen the incredible blizzards of snow and ice in the U.S. mid-west on our baby TV, while huddled beneath our blankets in the front cabin. We have seen the equally incredible firestorms in Australia with temperatures at over 130 degrees on the same little TV and we have walked the paths around the boatyard only to discover this totally incongruous sign embedded in the pavement..........as shown in the photo alongside the firestorms.
Jane, my son's wife has sent these terrible fire pictures from Australia. The devasting fires have taken 200 lives at this point. Life is so fragile and so precious and so very short.

YES, IT IS TIME TO GO SAILING.

Corina, my niece just got on a plane in Brisbane and will arrive in 26 hours to take delivery of the yacht SVEA together with her partner, Joel Manton, who has been very hard at work these last few weeks getting all things in place.



Double click on some of the photos for better detail

Hope I can still go up a mast when I'm 80 plus. Hope Guiness Records are still around too. Hope the other Guiness is still around. Hope we are all around then and still smiling at each other.



The beauty of SVEA deserves an entry of its own. The interior teak is glowing and all the details that go into making a yacht sea-worthy have been done. There is now pressurised water on board. The two-burner gas stove with oven has electronic cut-off valves installed and the interior lights and an electronic anchor winch should make the former hardy owners want to turn in their graves. Both yachts have been moved alongside each other in the marina to facilitate in the completion of various projects, including additional navigation lights on the mast, life rings on the stays and sealing of all fittings on the deck. The happy faces you see are SVEA's new Captain, Joel Manton and the guys who have helped, Marek Rerucha and Jacint Jagicza.



Just had to add this photo of our wireless internet antennas and to thank the many nameless people who have so kindly provided us with their un-secured wireless networks that have allowed us to put this blog out there on the internet. This is how it all works...... Point the WIFI antenna it some direction. It picks up all the people who have a router working in their house, sometimes more than a mile away. We then log on to the internet and do our emailing, banking, skyping and phonecalls. Incredible really. This does not in any way compromise their security. The antennas, both directional (the horizontal one) and omni-directional (the vertical one) pack away when we go sailing, which hopefully is .......... ONLY A WEEK AWAY.