T-Minus 6 Weeks and Counting!

The last 4 months have been a blur.

We temporarily moved back into our home to prepare it for sale in January and have been working feverishly to clear out the clutter and accumulation a family of five creates.  We started with a 2 1/2 car garage completely full (about 4 to 5' deep) with all our stuff in January, and have pared that down to about 15 totes with the few precious items.  The remainder has now been sold, donated, garage sale'd, or given away.

It was a difficult process, but freeing in its own right.  We unfortunately tend to build our lives around the accumulation of stuff in this day and age.  To pull away from that and free ourselves has been a good exercise for us all.  There was lots of items it hurt to get rid of - but in the end you can't take it with you, right?  It has been interesting to watch the children in all this - parting with stuffed animals, toys, bikes, clothes...  We have really enjoyed watching them giving some of their favorite stuffed animals to good friends.  Growth is good..  Just not easy...

Now we've refocused our efforts on Kyrie in preparations for moving back aboard.  We have a rare opportunity to truly deep clean and sort through everything on board without having to make the boat livable at the end of each day.

For this effort, we have been rewarded with what looks to be the craziest pigsty we have ever seen on board.  It is hard to believe that under all the mess lies our beloved Kyrie, and it will be so much better for the effort.  We've been discovering spare parts that were lost, parts we didn't know we had (thank you spare starter!!) and parts we don't know why we ever wanted.

So far, we have sent about 5 large garbage bags of stuff out of the boat, and given a lot of spare hardware away (who really needs 6 dozen hose clamps, really!).  We are roughly halfway done, and hope to begin moving back aboard next weekend.

6 weeks to go..  So much to do!



P.S. For those interested in our planned itinerary south, here is the rough plan:

Depart Juneau OOA June 5.
Cruise Southeast Alaska for a month, departing for Canada approximately July 1.
Arrive in Sidney, BC around the 4th week of July.
Lay over in Sidney, BC for rigging work for 2-3 weeks.
Plan on departing Sidney Mid-Late August.
Arrive Newport, Oregon the first or second week of September, and lay over for a couple weeks to visit family.
Depart Newport the third or fourth week of September, bound for San Francisco.
Harbor hop the CA coast from San Francisco to San Diego, Arriving roughly the second or third week of October.
Depart San Diego early November with the Baja HaHa bound for Cabo!