Day 21, Year 11: Getting Ready to Fly Home
Date: Thursday, November 12, 2015
Weather: Another Gorgeous Day, High Near 80 F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC

Today was all about checking things off the list of things we MUST-DO before flying home tomorrow night. We packed our bag and found that we needed more space. So I went to the Post Office and got a large Priority Box. It was barely big enough to take the extra things, but we made it fit. We’ll mail that in the morning. Then we added something to the list—clean the canvas on the ceiling of the cockpit. When we left Cape Cod there were a few tiny spots of mildew on the Sunbrella, but they seem to have exploded since we arrived here. I had hope to do this job when we return after Christmas, but today we looked again and were afraid the spots would never come off if we waited. Cleaning the Sunbrella with a Clorox, water, and New Dawn mixture is a nasty job because you are working over your head with the mixture dripping on your head and face constantly. Thankfully that’s done. While I did this, Mark finished off the stainless. And then I washed down the bottom of the dinghy and the deck. The dinghy sits upside down on the deck when we are in port and while we are traveling. Before leaving Cape Cod, we put it on deck and it was growing lots of goodies as it had been in the water most of the summer. It has basically been sitting upside down on the deck for the past three weeks and the growth has dried out. Yesterday we noticed bits and pieces were blowing off and onto the deck. So I scrubbed the bottom of the dinghy and then washed the bits off the deck. The last job was to wrap the headsail and staysail with their own sheets (lines) as we would if a hurricane threatened. It is doubtful that we will get a big blow here in the next six weeks while we are gone, but we wrapped the sails just in case. I’ve spent my evening doing back-ups of the photos and videos taken in the past seven months. I try to do this every four months, but better late than never. So I think we are just about ready to go. We have a few odds and ends left to do tomorrow, but nothing major. We have friends coming to visit from out of town late tomorrow afternoon. We’ll go out to dinner with them and they will take us to the airport. We’ll arrive in Boston after midnight, take a cab to Sue and John Reed’s in Cambridge, and spend the night there. On Saturday we’ll take the bus to Falmouth and be home in time for dinner. Lookout Goldpebbles, here we come!