Inflatible Wishes, and Spreadsheet Dreams

    We haven't posted in a while, so I'm gonna let you in on all the action you've been missing.
    I hope you guys love spreadsheets as much as we do, because that's been the name of the game for the last two weeks. Carl put together a spreadsheet of all the worthwhile stuff we inventoried during our 48 hours of fun. It's riveting stuff; here's but a small taste:

Ya gotta have guts

Main Salon area - under port-side benches
Diesel Kleen - octane boost - treats up to 100 gallons
lighter fluid (x2 bottles)
paint stripper
new winch maintenance kit (Lewmar)
compass fluid

- And how could I leave out these heartfelt lines?:

Locker/lazarette next to deep locker
fish beater
2 boat hook extension pieces
plastic bin
2 fishing weights





  Some of the more interesting things we found were all the original boat plans and documentation. These will primarily be used for storage planning, but it also gives you a better idea of the boat layout.

Don't be a deck

    Inventory is pretty heart pounding stuff, so before you read this next section maybe a little respite is in order.

    Captain selection for the passage from Sausalito to Aldeberan's holiday hang out of Ensenada, Mexico was yet another prime opportunity for a spreadsheet. Featuring such columns as Name, Origin, T Rate, LD rate, Time, Notes, Contact. Now most of those are obvious but the T and LD may not be. They stand for Travel and Lay Day. Ahh the lay day rate, nothing like paying someone to wait.
    Now onto the hotly debated and heavily advertised finale, the life raft research!! This is one of those areas where you're naturally an easy sell on the bells and whistles. Because of this fact I would advise anyone looking into a life raft to not buy last minute.

We would have been easily talked into
something like this on the first day

    After researching what's needed, we found that adequate is not a compromise, it's the ideal. Somehow we'll survive without the 'calming blue liner' of the more expensive model.
    The talk around the cruising forums all refers to life rafts as "the sailor's curse" or some other drama soaked nickname. I guess the reports of people found in a life raft tend toward two main options. Either they're saved but their boat is found still afloat, or they're simply found (not saved). So you have a lot of people who don't make it, and a lot of people who probably should have stayed with their boat. Not very promising. Kinda makes you want to work more on plan A rather than plan B.

Maybe a bit of a compromise

    Now some of you may be saying 'wait the boat doesn't have a life raft already? was this guy nuts?'. That's the kicker. The boat does in fact already have a viable life raft, but it needs to be repacked and certified. This will run us about 75% of the price of a brand new life raft. Considering the one currently on the boat is 15 years old and the apparent technological leap in raft design, it seems like we'll be buying a shiny new raft. I hate buying things I hope to never use.

 Alright, Goldilocks, we get it