A tradition we have built up on the boat over the last 10 + years is movie night, we have not had TV on the boat at all, we have only a Big flat screen

And a multi region DVD player which has allowed us to build up 100s of DVDs, movies, nature, and many documentaries on the places we have been travel etc. Mum sends good ones from ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp), I buy off BBC, and collect. In the years before kids Tracy and I use to enjoy sitting at anchor in Cat Harbor at Catalina Island in winter in warmth of Gijima, as the wind whistled pass and watch a series we had picked up. We still have not watched everything we have, and we often re watch favorites like Michael Palin’s travels, or these fly fishing ones where two funny guys go all over the world enjoying the trip and scenery as much as the fishing.

We have brought the boys up with these Movie Nights, and we sit as a family and watch either the same movie or two separate ones as they have their own DVD player.  The idea is to to escape for a couple of hours, and enjoy we also use the natural DVDs of the places we have been to revisit them with the boys, and the love it we talk about the experiences.

Tonight was no exception the boys wanted to watch part of ours and then switched to Backyard Friends, (when it is pure nature they watch all the way through, like an Alaska one we did last week) but Tracy and I watched “Surviving Everest” a documentary on “Peter Hillary climbing Everest. It was very interesting as they constantly compared what Hillary used and had vs Peter and the equipment, and how it has changed, most telling was when they summated there were 40 people up there at once.

But the part we enjoyed is the will to succeed, the planning and preparation and the patience which goes with it, waiting for weather, making everything is correct, that part has not changed. (how similar to the experiences we have gone through this year, and are doing now waiting for the correct weather window, and planning.)

When I look at life and taking on challengers and going forward this does change, plan, set goals, and see how to execute. Anyone who has worked for me or with me knows I do mindmaps each year of my own life, the past year, what worked what didn’t and then what I want to achieve this year, family, personal, finance, and work, education etc, to this you take a fresh look. Through out the year I revisit this, tune the execution add goals, and evolve, but it is like the guys on the mountain us in a port about to leave take a fresh look, access the goal, access the plan, and have a back up plan, it does not take long, but is rewarding. I found that useful for the development of employees, and I am now doing the same with the boys, setting out goals and evolvement . Tonight and this year has re- enforced this practice.

So as the rain pitter patters down on the canvas top of the dodger, and the water rushes past on the out going tide, I sit here at the Navigation Station, reflecting on the film tonight, and excitement building in all of us as we look forward to the travels of the next 3 months, it will be different to first 3 months in vegetation and also in remoteness as we will be sticking to many more isolated bays, and the runs will be shorter, except for the first 2 legs. The forecast is looking good for Sunday, which looks like “Sunsenation” will leave with us, Danny, and another young single handler plan to leave Monday, we will see.

I was amazed again today how “non Use is one of the worst enemy of systems, (I know this and is why I exercise everything so regularly ) but still when I went to run the water cooling on the freezer which I have not used since getting here in April due to water, it did not work. The wires had oxidized (rusted)through, and pipe was blocked solid with bark. So after attending to these it ran, and we have been tuning the freezer thermo to get it where it freezes but does not run all the time, I am marking it this time so we can monitor as I hope this will reduce power consumption, I did not pay enough attention to this in the first 6 months, but now I have reviewed the whole freezer/ refrigeration system.

We will see, tomorrow I will complete packing away the decks ready to go, if the rain is eased up.