Logistics, gear and more gear

Zetty is ready for the Arctic!

The Arctic Monkey crew took the boat down to Cherbourg again two weeks ago to have some of the final items fixed, repaired or installed.  The guys at Garcia arrived at the boat promptly at 8:30AM and had everything finished by noon.  We headed off to the cité de la mer while the Garcia sales people took a prospective buyer out for a test sail on Arctic Monkey.  I hope it all went well as the boat has been kid bombed for a couple of weeks!  The trip back was plagued with very light wind and we motor-sailed most of the way back to Lymington.  It was nice anyway to get a handle on fuel consumption.  The current, almost reaching 5kts in the middle of the channel, was caused by one of the largest tidal ranges ever recorded in France.  Some places along the north coast expected a 15 meter range, almost 50ft!!  This was is turn caused by the solar eclipse on March 21st.

During the final days into Easter, we're packing the last of all the gear need for our trip to the Arctic.  I remember the days of taxi after taxi trying to source items, getting it back to the boat, off again.  Jeff Bezos has changed everything with Amazon.  I hopped online with the marina WiFi and had pretty much everything ordered in a couple of hours.  A lot of time saved and I think at a reasonable price.

Harken UK has very kind to us, helping to setup Arctic Monkey with a mainsheet traveler.  Although we could probably get away without one, it just doesn't feel right.  I think the sail shape will be much better and maybe squeeze 3-5 more degrees into our pointing angle.

All said, I think I had close to 800 items on my "list" to sort out, procure, store, read manual for, practice on, etc.  I'm down to the last few.  Zetty has been doing a great job with the kids schooling and we've done a few field trips for fun.  The younger kids are sleeping over at Aunt Nicky's tonight, and we have the older ones on board.  It should be interesting as the wind is gusting to 38kts and the boat is lurching a fair amount even as we're tied up in the marina.

Miles so far: 210 NM.

Zoe and Leah pilot the Le Redoutable, a French nuclear ballistic missile submarine from the 1960's on display in Cherbourg.

Radar image crossing the English Channel tracking multiple bogies.

The girls and I on Utah Beach reading about the "Rochambelles", a group of women ambulance drivers in WWII.  I feel like a wimp!

The girls in a bunker on Utah Beach, France.