Here's something I wrote to friends last Saturday:
"Our parts should be here "any day now" so we're scrambling to check things off the to-do list. We've scrubbed the slime off the bottom and polished the prop; I made two quarts of granola out of the last of our oats; John put another patch on the dinghy to keep it from deflating when it gets stored up on the foredeck for the passage; we have bran muffin batter in the fridge waiting to be baked right before we go; yesterday we officially checked out with the gendarmes (they seem pretty relaxed about when you actually depart); the freezer got its monthly defrosting; this morning I made a 13x9 pan of pumpkin bread and one of corn bread to cut into thirds and put in the freezer (that is, until we catch a fish!); John topped off our diesel and filled a couple of extra jerry jugs this morning (we've only burned 15 gallons of fuel since departing the Galapagos!); I went into deep storage under the Pullman berth to dig out our last Costco-sized can of dry roasted peanuts and 32 packets of Raisinets; John's out on deck sanding the soles of our deck shoes to get them grippy again; and most of our shopping is completed. We would like to get some free mangos and bananas if we can find a generous soul (I found a nice pamplemousse tree in front of a government office and asked permission to take some); there's more cooking to be done (rice, pasta, hard-boiled eggs, etc.); we'll get one small jerry jug of gasoline to run the generator for charging batteries while we're sailing; and we need to top off our water tanks. Of course this is all in addition to replacing the forestay when the new one actually arrives!"
Of course since then I've baked the bran muffins and John has baked bread and we're eating those plus the rice he cooked. So we'll need to do some of it all over again before we leave! But the good thing is that it continues to periodically dump rain either during the day or over night, keeping our water tanks full of good drinking water. Yesterday was our first all sunny day in awhile, we had rain last night, and it looks like another sunny day today.
Then it will just be a matter of getting some wind to take us out of here. John's been watching the weather closely especially since a young Polish woman (Natasza on Tanasza Polska) left for Hawaii last Sunday. She is completing a two year single-handed circumnavigation. She has SSB but no HAM to check-in to the Pacific Seafarers Net so we have a sked to keep in touch with her along the way. She had a rough first few days but the winds have calmed down a little now.
We're not exactly looking forward to another long passage, but we're anxious to end this waiting game and get cruising again.
Linda