Hoisting the Alaska flag

Voyage prep includes hoisting homeport flag!

Katherine Going up the Mast to take a Measurement (for a part we were later unable to get)

I asked Katherine if she was nervous being up the mast, or if heights scared her, and she said no, she was just worried about Craig and Adrian dropping her (they were belaying).  Craig said, speaking from experience, that it's not the fall that hurts, but the sudden stop at the end.  Sorry the video is sideways, I have no way to rotate it.

She was measuring for the main halyard sheave, so we could replace the halyard with the proper dimension line. We later found out it had to be custom made, and not available before we need to leave Des Moines, so that is an item that will have to wait to be replaced.

Playing Minecraft in the quarterberth

After cleaning out the quarterberth, Adrian took over the berth to play Minecraft.

Dogmatix, the dinghy

Among other toys, we bought a new dinghy for the boat.  Here's the old dinghy:

And here's Dogmatix, the new dinghy:

Dogmatix is Obelix's little dog in the Asterix comic books.

Up the mast

Needed to check the mast, so we sent the lightest crewmember up. 

Katherine checked everything out, so far so good, just a bunch of cobwebs.  She also measured the masthead sheaves.  I'm thinking of swapping out the current wire/rope halyard for an all-rope one.

Squid

Last night there were several dozen squid feeding on jellyfish around the dock, so Adrian and I had a chance to play with the GoPro under water.

There's more footage that we'll post later, including some of the jellyfish and a couple crabs on the pilings.

Playing with the GoPro

We got a GoPro camera for the trip, so of course I needed to try it out.  Here's a short video of all of us hanging out in the cockpit with pizza and beer.

Forward Party

Katherine & I have been down in Seattle since Thursday.  I can't remember why we decided to come down before Adrian & Craig.  I think the original purpose was to get the boat ready to go, but mostly we have been visiting Mike Kirk, sightseeing and eating, and a lot of book shopping.

However, the first thing we did Thursday when we arrived was take an airport shuttle down to Tacoma to pick up our new car.  It's a Prius C.  Last year, Toyota came out with several new Prius models, including the Prius C, which is the smallest Prius.  It isn't as small as a Honda Fit, but it is pretty small.  The color is called "Ocean [something or other]."  I picked it out without much input from the rest of the family, and now they are deciding that it is a "girly" color.  Oops.  Guess it's my car!  So, Katherine and I drove around Thursday afternoon and evening, got back to the Des Moines Municipal Marina about 7 hours after picking up the car, and noticed that it had a chip in the windshield!  Fuck!  We didn't notice getting hit by a piece of gravel or anything, but we must have.  

Friday after we visited Mike, we went over to Seattle.  View of Seattle from west Seattle.  The two black things in the water are scuba divers.  There was a nicely dressed couple on the beach, who had a photographer taking pictures of them.  Katherine and I thought maybe they were having engagement photos taken, and that they didn't see the scuba divers in the background.  We thought it would be funny if the photographer went back to his studio before he realized all the nice engagement photos had been photo-bombed by scuba divers.  

After we got to downtown, we walked through Pike Place, then sat in the sun in the park next to Pike Place.    The photo above is looking toward where we took the first photo, with the scuba divers in it.  The park was fairly crowded.  The people to our left (just out of the frame of the photo above) were smoking something that was not tobacco. A short while later, a woman came along and tried to sell them some marijuana.  

Someone painted over the "not" in the "Do not feed the birds" sign, so it said, "Do feed the birds."  The woman and girl in the foreground spent a lot of time playing chase while we were there.  It was a park where the sun, tourists, marijuana smoking, sun-bathing, painted out "not", playing children, and general overall atmosphere was pretty relaxed.

I don't buy books, Katherine does.  She buys enough books, that I figure I can just read hers.  Here she is, reading me a funny part from one of the ten books she bought Friday.  It's Dorothy Sayers, "Strong Poison."

Our schedule for today (Saturday) - we are off to visit Mike this morning.  His shaver battery is dying, so he asked us to buy him a new shaver yesterday, which we did, and I'm sure he's waiting for us to bring him the new one.  Then we will come back to the boat and tidy up a bit.  Craig and Adrian arrive late afternoon - 4:30-ish.  I am thinking we should eat at The Scotch and Vine tonight, since we haven't been there yet.  They have pretty good food, and it's fairly close to the marina. http://www.scotchandvine.com/ 

Boat Graphics

Another detail - new boat name and graphics.  I won't bore you with the long story of all the suggested and rejected names for the boat.  Suffice it to say that we spent more time coming up with a name for the boat than we did naming the kids.
Anyway, the boat has a new name, and I've ordered graphics for the hull:

Boat Prep

BOAT: an acronym, meaning "Bring Out Another Thousand".

Asterix is a 35 year old boat, and it shows in some places.  She has also spent her entire life so far in Puget Sound, mostly daysailing and short cruises.  So there was some work to be done to get her ready for the trip.

Upholstery

Asterix still had her original upholstery:

That got replaced.

Ditto for the boat canvas.

She also gained a dodger in the process.

And hauling for strut work, bottom paint, new through hulls, engine rehab, etc.

Oh, and installation of a throne...

What more could anyone want?