A Busy Year
ALICE'S ADVENTURES
ANDREW AND CELIA SHARPE
Sat 2 Apr 2011 12:52
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It has been a whole year since we bought Alice.
What a year! We bought the boat, moved her to Swanwick, did a mini refit,
set off in July to cruise to the Canaries, did the ARC and have spent the winter
cruising the Caribbean. Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves that we have
actually done all this - especially as it was never an ambition of ours.
We have covered a total of 7191 nautical miles and missed the worst English
winter in years!
We have just had a quick trip home to make sure the
house and family are still there and also to apply for US visas. After we
had filled in the online form which asked us the questions about genocide and
terrorism the embassy seemed to be satisfied with our answers and we got the
visas. We are now planning a summer cruise to the States. We have
met up with Elizabeth and Martin on Caduceus and are planning to sail up in
company with them. We have set a date and place to meet them in the BVIs
later in the month. It was lovely to see them again and catch up and also
to meet their friends Kate and John. They also introduced us to Julian who
is working on his boat in the boatyard and joined us for drinks last
night.
We went home with the watermaker and chart plotter which
both needed to be mended. We took the chartplotter to Dave at Raymarine
who updated the software and changed the card reader for us while we
waited. Fantastic customer service from Raymarine. The watermaker
was also sorted out the same day. It seemed that one of the membranes was
faulty. Apparently this never happens but of course it did happen to ours
and was replaced under warranty! Hopefully we will make good tasting water
now. We also came back with various bits of plumbing and a lot of anodes
and filters. Andrew has done most of the jobs now and hopefully we can go
off cruising again soon.
We are still in Jolly Harbour Marina which suits us very
well as there are still more jobs to do. Its still very breezy but
hot as well. We can do our morning walks here, go to the supermarket and
then we have a late afternoon swim in the sea- bliss, the sea temperature is
about 29 degrees C.
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