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Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Oh Boy, Things are Happening!

Another month has gone by but, finally, things are actually progressing.
We have managed to rid ourselves of most of our worldly possessions, selling or giving away all of the big items and storing those few valued items we just cannot seem to part with. We are down to one car and an empty house. Much cleaning and painting, etc has been taking place.
Our house went up for sale last Monday and we accepted an offer 3 days later. So now we are scrambling to get all the paperwork done to meet the requested August 15th possession date.
The good news is that we are able to do all of this from the boat.
Anticipating a long wait for the house to sell, we had packed up what we thought was the minimal collection of junk that we had to take to the boat. Food (we couldn't just throw it away now could we?), clothing (we need stuff for both cold and hot weather because we don't know where we will be), computers (we now have 4 on-board - because again, you cannot just throw them away when there is nothing wrong with them), printers (since we have them, we have to use them right?), books, tools (you need at least two of each don't you?), etc. The resulting load to go to the boat had mushroomed to the point that it would not fit in the car. Fortunately, we have very good friends who were quick to lend us their minivan so we would not have to leave anything behind.
So now, we are sitting on the boat, carrying out the necessary steps in the sale of the house via lawyers, emails and faxes, and trying to figure out where to store a minivan load of belongings on an already fully loaded vessel.
The weather here in Nanaimo has been unusually hot and humid, hitting the mid 30s every day for a week. We were not very well acclimatized yet and had a hard time getting up the energy to do much of anything. The last couple of days it has been cooling off a bit, so we have managed to get out for one day-sail to check out some of the new equipment and try and re-acquaint ourselves with the operation of the boat. Of course we cannot let ourselves get out of cell-phone range until all the house stuff is settled. We will have to get back to Edmonton before the 15th to remove the last of the remnants of our former life from the house before letting complete strangers have their way with it. Mixed feelings here.