Our world is our Oyster

Our Oyster Heritage 37 to be exact. We have moved out of the house that we spent the last 6 years doing up and given it to someone else to live in. Well at least they are paying rent which will help to fund our travels a little. The move has brought home the magnitude of what we are doing. Amy and I have been taking turns at the twin roles of “oh my god what are we doing” and “don’t worry it will all work out and be amazing”, the only problem is when we are both in the former role at the same time.

Florence is coming together now, we have stopped taking her apart and instead are re-installing the various parts that we took off for servicing. The Aries self steering has been re-fitted to the back of the boat, now moving much more freely with its new bushes (Thanks Dad and Ron). The bimini cover made for us by Robert has been laced on and gives good shade on the occasional sunny day (more often it works well as an umbrella). The dinghy that Amy’s Dad is building for us is now at the stage of being painted and will be joining us soon.

We are very lucky to have had so much help from our close family and friends helping us with everything from skillful sewing, woodworking or engineering tasks right down to menial painting and cleaning. Without their help we would not have been able to even consider launching when we now plan to.

Which brings me to Launch day, we have had two launch days booked in since March, one at the start and one at the end of July. Since then we have looked a bit more at the seasonal weather and where we need to be when. We came to the conclusion that leaving on the earlier date would give us more of a chance of a decent weather window to cross Biscay. So we are intending to Launch at the earlier date of the 5^th of July. Once in we can test all of the things that we have had apart to service (everything) and then spend a week or so settling into life on board before we head off out of the Solent (that sounds relaxed! – it won’t be..).