Aaaahhhhh..... How sweet it is!

Date: May 13th, 2007
Location: Jackson Creek, Deltaville, VA
Position: 37 32.86N 076 19.78W

We haven't been keeping up with our news very well during the past week, mainly because (like almost the entire time since we left our jobs) it's been work, work, work. So here's a brief synopsis to catch you up:
We finally got Rachel into the water just over a week ago, May 4th. It's about time, eh? Until then, we had focused on all the "below the waterline"
jobs, so now it was time to get Rachel ship-shape above the waterline. We decided to take a slip at the marina for a week while we brought the various systems online, moved more stuff onto the boat, and continued sanding and painting the dinghy. On Friday morning (May 11th) we left the slip, moved about 100 yards to the anchorage in Jackson Creek, and dropped the hook - long trip, huh?
We are still surrounded by stuff that we need to find homes for, but, considering that we made a whirlwind trip down to Blacksburg last week and returned with another full van, we're not doing too badly. We can at least now sit down on the settee and find some of the things we look for. You can hear lots of "Hmm did I put it in this pile? Or is it in that locker behind the settee? Or maybe I put it down in the bilge?". One of our near-future projects is to do an inventory of all the lockers so we can find stuff when we need it.
We still have one coat of paint to put on the inside of the dinghy, hopefully this afternoon if the weather wizards are right. Then we just have to fit it out with various bits of hardware, etc. and we can start actually using it. About time!
It's been raining off and on since last night, so we're having a nice, relaxed morning doing some "inside" stuff that's been on hold while the weather was nice and relaxing a bit. Our hope is to leave Deltaville and actually start sailing in the next few days.
So we're sitting here, swinging on the hook, listening to the wind generator (we call her Wendy), charge our batteries, being quiet and domestic, gently rocking, and thinking "Aaaaahhh... how sweet it is."