Two weeks to go

The preparations are all over, and both we and Pindimara are as ready as we'll ever be. We did have to dismount the Hydrovane rudder a few days ago to remove the three inches of coral growth which had built up in only one month; the little critters seem to love that black plastic! The rudder is now hanging in our storage unit getting successive layers of epoxy undercoat prior to antifouling.

Now it's just work-work-work to get everything finished up at the office before we retire. In fact we moved off the boat to a hotel near to work so that we could put in the hours without killing ourselves, as something has happened to Sydney's roads and our simple forty-minute commute from the marina has suddenly, in conjunction with the incessant rain, turned into a two-hour nightmare. Still, only two more weeks and we'll never have to deal with commuter traffic again.

It's an incredibly liberating feeling. Neither of us have ever worked so hard or so long or so single-mindedly on a single project. Four and a half years of learning and planning, of cutting back and saving, of neglecting all our other myriad interests - even travel! - in order to focus on preparing for this trip and what is to come after. It's all coming to a head, and we feel giddy with the approaching freedom.