The Van Diemen's Land Circumnavigation 2019 cruise.
Well here we go again. I am about down to the shopping/loading/filling parts of my lists. I have two 'to do' lists and two shopping lists - believe me there is a modicum of logic applied to these processes.
As usual, with one week to go most things are well ahead of schedule, but, as is typical, there are a couple of niggles that dominate my little mind in the wee hours of the night. That notorious legislator MURPHY has tossed a couple of wobblers in to the mix again.
The first issue is not crucial, but it would be wonderful if I could get it done - To Install a new halyard for my BRAND NEW Assymetric Spinnaker (crikey, the spell checker didn't like that one).
Sounds pretty simple you say, after all, sailors must be doing this all the time...Yes they are I reply, but I'm sure most of them do not lose the 'mousing line' on the first attempt only to go up the mast a further 20+ times using different tactics to get the new line into the mast. And don't forget its 60 feet to the top of my mast and that is mighty scary (for me)! Anyway, I'm going to give this another go over the weekend....I have a (another) plan.
The other niggle is a bit more important. Annoyingly, its a compliance thing -I have to make a successful test call using my HF radio. It does work, but I'm buggered if I can get it to receive and call on the nominated frequency...I'm not being complacent about it, but it's annoying because I have very good VHF radio comms and a sat-phone which in my mind trumps HF radio every time...Its the sort of problem that will involve hours of tracing wires, cleaning connectors, moving antenna parts with no results, while my other items on the list don't get ticked off....and after long hours of sweat and tears I will probably find out that it is a simple programming issue that takes 2 minutes to resolve.
Still one week to get this done though, so take a chill pill Andy and plough through the lists logically.
Cheers
Captain Andy
