We had a busy but good Easter weekend, Rachael came up from Cardiff to help move furniture into the new rental property, have a sail and generally inspect the new floating family home. It was lovely to see her and both she and Matt worked extremely hard, I can’t remember the last time we worked just the four of us together but it seems we can still pull together as a great team.

Robyn joined us for the family sail, quite an auspicious event, it must be ten years since we have all been on a boat together. Unfortunately the weather didn’t live up to the occasion, the sun struggled and broke through the clouds occasionally but it was decidedly chilly, note the interesting head wear, and there was barely a breath of wind. Luckily we had nowhere particular to be and so could go where the best of the light winds took us.

In contrast, yesterday and today we have had our first days of real warmth so far this spring. It felt good to have the sun on my face, the hatches open airing the boat and shock of shocks, to be wearing a T-shirt instead of a fleece and to swap my sail boots for deck shoes.

Definitely a day to work outside and it was the lazarette, the large locker at the stern of the boat, that had our full attention today. As every nook and cranny of the boat needs to be used to its full potential and with the lazarette being about 8ft long, 3ft wide and 4ft deep it is essential that it is well organised. We took everything out, lines, fenders, brushes, jerry cans and much more, sorted, cleaned and tested as necessary before putting it hopefully more logically back in.

As the afternoon temperature rose and with the warm days ahead in the front of our minds, we left out and cleaned the poles for the Bimini so we could test the new canvas cover. It took a couple of hours to work it all out, amusing those around us as we struggled with poles, ropes and canvas, but we got it up eventually and great it looked too, Dolphin sails have done a fantastic job.  

Only around four weeks until our departure date and sipping a glass of wine as the sun begins to set we have the feeling that everything is coming together, or is that just an illusion cast by the sunshine? Plenty still to do!