On Thursday, after Justine had finished her early morning run, with Paul still in the hotel, the rest of us enjoyed our “rock painting” outing, although Paul was included via video. When we returned to Paw Paw, Paul was waiting on the dock to drop off all his electronic devices that needed charging, all of which was sanitised before coming onboard.
By then it was time for the liferaft demonstration, which Justine and Paul participated in, while Elaine and Roy lounged at the pool and watched the proceedings.
Justine was the second group to jump in the water, learn about the “crocodile” manoeuvre to get everyone to the liferaft safely and then climb into it. Paul repeated the exercise as part of the third group. It was close to lunchtime by the time the fun in the water was over, with prayers said that we never have to get into Paw Paw’s liferaft or anyone else’s, for that matter!
With that, given that we weren’t sure if Paul was still contagious or not, each couple enjoyed lunch separately.
By the time we’d returned to Paw Paw, Paul had returned to his hotel, so the girls gathered the laundry and set off to get that chore out of the way, while Roy completed the first round of the fresh produce provisioning. Being one crew member short, we decided the best strategy was to divide and conquer. We’d barely hung out the washing to dry when Roy returned. Then, leaving Elaine to sanitise, chop the vegetables and bag the ingredients needed for each meal, by week, Roy and Justine returned for a second load of fresh produce. In between this mayhem, Roy also managed to squeeze in the SSB/HF Radio Debrief and get our Yellowbrick Tracker sorted out, at last!
It’s fair to say, though, that, by the time dinner rolled around, not only was Elaine exhausted, but her legs and feet absolutely ached, all of which resulted in a meltdown; everything had simply become too much for her. Thankfully Justine was there to make her laugh again; guess that’s what dear friends do.
Yesterday Roy and Justine were up early to get back to the HiperDino for the final provisioning round; this time for all the beverages and a few last minute items, which were then delivered to Paw Paw, rather than having to be hauled back to the marina.
Once that all arrived, there was another round of having to sanitise everything, finish the chopping and bagging of meals and getting everything stowed. In between all this activity, while Justine folded all the laundry, Elaine sorted out the starboard forward cabin to make sure we could access anything needed on passage like the pilots, emergency equipment, etc and lifted everything off the sole so the bilge could be accessed easily if it needed to be checked while underway. While the girls were busy with all that and since Paul was back onboard, the boys washed the decks.
By 1530, quiet time ascended on Paw Paw and everyone found their spot in the cockpit to relax, giving us all a breather before our team photographs with the ARC photographer.
Afterwards Elaine and Roy rechecked the Iridium-GO to ensure we could get the weather forecasts and send and receive emails, to be sure, to be sure, following which Roy ran the engines and generator, again, to be sure, to be sure, then snorkelled Paw Paw’s bottom to clean the depth sensor and saildrives, check the zincs and inspect her bottom, only to discover a rope wrapped around the starboard propeller.
Sundowners on Paw Paw then preceded a delicious dinner at the Barracuda restaurant. Thank you Paul!
Today we ran around again like headless chickens. First Justine and Paul set off to Immigration to get cleared out of Schengen. Then Elaine cleared us all out with the ARC. That was followed by Justine and Paul setting off to purchase a few last minute odds and ends, while Elaine and Roy attended the Skipper’s Debrief.
By the time we returned from that, we had just over an hour to tidy Paw Paw up for a video call with a potential buyer. Leaving Roy to take the call,Elaine finished up the last of all the documentation required, while Justine and Paul completed the Pre-sail Checklist. We were ready to set sail!
A relaxing evening while enjoying a barbecue onboard brought another hectic day to a close.
