As we cleared out our beautiful apartment and got ready to sell the only place we ever lived together, the one place I had lived longest in my life, and the only home the Michin had ever known, it was bittersweet and a royal pain in the ass. The old place was beautiful, had glorious views, superb location and unbeatable weather.

In preparing to cruise, Fatty Goodlander advises being ruthlessly unsentimental, taking everything to the dump and giving it the old “heave ho”. I, however, am about the most sentimental person in the world and was unable to do that. We both had things we wanted to preserve against some future date when we wash ashore and start a new land-lubberly life. And so we hired a moving company to load us up and move our land-bound life to storage. They came on 2 April and found we had about 2000 lbs. more “stuff” (meaning books) than they had estimated over the phone. But they got it all packed up and carted away. We made multiple runs to the Salvation Army, to friends’ houses, to the dumpster, and to the boat, and gradually got the mess whittled down to zero. The painter started patching and painting on the 5th, we went to get WA citizenship on the 7th.

In the meantime we have continued working on Antoinette. We had our windlass rebuilt and refurbished for about 1/3 the cost of a new one; we put a new fuel lift pump on the diesel engine. We do however have the compulsory never-ending punch list of things to add and address and of course find more things each day (the Whale freshwater galley footpump, which we just rebuilt a few months ago, was discovered leaking just before we moved our stuff).

The Michin adapts well to life aboard, at least while we are tied to the dock. He will also adapt to life underway, after a day or two of being seasick. Fortunately he doesn’t need much in the way of space or amenities.

7-8 March 2021 we blitzed into SEA-TAC Airport, traded in our Driver Licenses and jetted back out. A large expensive admin PITA but one we hope will pay dividends. J continues work on our blog site so we can keep everyone posted. You are seeing the results of her efforts here.