A rocky start into our adventure

Sorry - This post is out of sequence now, as I accidentally delete it. I am in the process of recovering it. Switching between a sometimes working wifi, a sometimes working French cell network and going between laptop and iPad, one runs into new obstacles all the time.  

Pictures to follow soon - again.

This morning, I am leaving for good: 12 months on the road, I mean ocean. Many things have been prepared, as you can imagine. The to-do-list just did not get any shorter, despite my best efforts, and time is running out. In the end, I mostly worry about the things you forgot to do.

First pebble:
My iPhone woke me as I had set the timer, but the alarm clock on my bedside did not go off. After my shower, the screen on my iPhone on my bedside was still on. It should have been off. No time to investigate.
At 7:30 Kim and I dashed to the dentist office to make sure the payments for her braces would be taken care off. One thing I forgot to do last week.
Sparkles is inside. Quick, close the cat door. He knows things are going on that he does not like. Why would his crate be in the hallway otherwise with all those bags?

Second pebble:
Kim is going into the garage to get her bike to go to school. I follow her to say my last good bye for 3 months. As I am in the door, my iPhone rings with Alex, a sailing buddy, on the line. He had purchased the old anchor from me yesterday afternoon (one thing I did get done just in time). "Rolf. You called!" - "Eh. No." - "Yes you did. Twice. Once I heard you talking in the back ground.". By this time I realized that my iPhone was really warm. Something is wrong with it. It must have switched itself back on in my pocked and redialled the last number. "Shit! (No, not you, Alex). Kim hold Sparkles! Quick. To late. " My hands full and distracted by the call and the iPhone spookiness, Sparkles seized the moment and escaped between my legs, dashing past Kim to safety under the motor home in the front yard. After that, he made a quick dash to the neighbour's garden. Chasing him now would just drive him up a tree or further away. Just over 1 hour until I have to leave for the ferry and still so many things to do. "Bye Kim - kiss - I got to run. Sorry. No time."

Think Rolf, think fast. Chasing Sparkles will not do any good. The chances that he goes back in through the cat door, once I have opened it, are really, really slim. He just ate, and the only thing that drives this very fat cat is food. I have one more chance, though, so I call our neighbours, Tom and Doreen. "Doreen, Sparklesescaped. Can you try to coax him into your place? He is not happy, as the crate is waiting for him, and that usually means injections at the vet." Doreen is just too happy to try. I go off and drop some last minute items off at the office and at the mail box, buy some things for the trip, get my first coffee of the day (The coffee maker has been prepared for long absence already). As I come back, there is no Sparkles in our place, but the message light is blinking. This must be good, and it is. Sparkles is at Tom and Doreen's place. As I come in, he dashes to the sliding door desperately wanting to get out into the garden. He is NOT a happy camper. I rejoice as I feel that we people are still a tiny bit smarter than our pets, or so we hope. 

Completely resetting the iPhone seems to clear the problem with it. My time is running out. Recharging the drained batteries takes its good time. Other things to do. Shut off water, set thermostats, etc. etc. I am running around like a chicken with the head chopped off.

Third pebble:

Kevin picks me up 5-to-10 to take me to the ferry. On the drive I get voice message. Glad I charged the phone. It is Lufthansa. "Your flight is delayed until 17:30." That is 1 1/2 hours later. I could take a later ferry now, but we are almost there. 

Oh yeah! By the way, I had planned to take the bus from down town Victoria to Vancouver airport. Luckily, I went yesterday to get a ticket at their office. All was fine until I mentioned my extra pieces of luggage, of which one would be a pet crate. "No sir. Not with us. Cannot do that." Plan B: Ferry and an expensive taxi ride on the other side.

Forth pebble:

At the airport, all is going well. I tell the lady" "I am doing well. I know we are delayed, but at least I am flying." The lady at the counter replies. "You could say that. Let me see where you are going. Oh you are lucky, you are only going to Frankfurt. Anywhere else and you would be stuck. We are lucky this plane made it out ofFrankfurt. Big strike there. Most flights are cancelled." I check in my luggage and I know that I have to go over to the Lufthansa ticket counter to pay the extra charge for the cat crate handling. Big line up as many people are trying to re-route through Paris, London, you name it, to catch a connecting flight. Many are from Irak, Russia, Poland, Italy. You can imagine how quickly that line moves, with everybody very tense. Molasses in a deep freeze.

Vancouver airport line up of rebooking travelers 

 Luckily, after about 45 minutes,  somebody from Lufthansa spots the cat crate and whisks me to the front of the line to take my credit card.

Now I am sitting in the lounge and I will have a glass of red wine in a minute, as soon as this post has been sent. 

Cheers.

P.S. I just hope the whole trip will not be an obstacle course like this one today. I am holding my breath, though. Crossing my finger. Drücke meine Daumen. Whatever helps. Maybe, I even let Silke hang a charm from the bimini over the steering wheel. You might want to ask Silke in a quiet moment about that "removed charm obstacle course" of mine.

PPS: (from Silke) My lucky charm has long been packed and will get a prominent place on the boat. I really did not want to experience a repeat of the "removed charm obstacle course" from some years ago, so packing my lucky charm prior to leaving has been on my todo list for the last 3 months...Looks like we are ready to go after all. :-)

At Frankfurt train station

PPPS: Despite the information that luggage service will be spotty in Frankfurt due to the strike, Sparkles and the luggage arrived quickly.  The weather is absolutely great here. Sunshine and about 20 degrees. We managed to get the high speed train just after 2 pm. Lucks like I was able to leave the rocky path behind.

The adventure has begun

Seeing (and touching) our boat for the very first time

Posted by Silke, Apr 2

8:07 am on Saturday March 31 and we are saying 'so long' to my sister Petra and Hennef.
Roughly 10hrs later we arrive in Les Sables d'Olonne, France, at 23 degrees Celsius! Not long and we can see and step on our new home, our floating apartment, our catamaran 'Next Life'. What a great feeling!

The following Sunday and Monday prove to be challenging, so many stores are closed, either entirely or during lunch hours. Getting our phones to work (without being overcharged) is another challenge. And the language. And locating stores...

At least we spent some fun hours with Gonzalo and Karina from sister ship Kazaio as well as our Canadian Lagoon dealer Scott. Sea trials are scheduled for tomorrow, as are orders for electrical items, and the name stickers for the boat, cushion material, and, and, and. Days are full and over in no time. A boat surveyor flew in from London today to measure our boat. It's 'only' ;-) hull number 130 and a sister ship has been delivered to Vancouver, but measurements are not transferable, so the surveyor had to come for a job of two hours. From London! No kidding! Yeah, makes so much sense! What a waste of money.

Ah, and another challenge: apparently, our 31 boxes are nowhere near Les Sables. They were supposed to arrive last week. So, no tools to start working, no bed sheets etc. to sleep on the boat, with a tight schedule to begin with and the hotel only booked until Thursday. Chaos, here we come! And for Easter holidays this resort town is fully booked. We will have to buy stuff that we do not need.

Regardless of all this, Rolf and I are very happy. The boat is beautiful, we cannot wait to move in, we enjoyed a champagne dinner with baguette and cheese in the cockpit tonight watching the sun set, we already feel at home.

More info to follow whenever we can find the time.

New cell phone numbers

We now have French numbers for our cell phones, they are
for Rolf +33 6 31 94 96 50
for Silke +33 6 31 94 89 10
starting April 2 until further notice.

Going crazy?!

I have 3 1/2 more days left before I leave for Germany. Most things are taken care of, some things still need my attention, but I should be able to manage. Weeks ago, I had made a groomer's appointment for Chester, my dog. I'd like him to be nice-smelling and clean when we get to Germany, of course. So, here I am, telling Rolf "I'm taking Chester to the groomer" and off we go. After dropping him off, I drive straight home, where Rolf ask's me "Where have you been?" Me:" At the groomer...?!!" Rolf: "Ah,...I remember now...". I get back to what I have to do at my computer. Half an hour later, going back to the kitchen, I wonder "Where's the dog???" I check his usual places in the kitchen. Nothing. The winter garden. Nope. Living Room? No dog. So I ask Rolf: "Where's the dog?" Rolf:"I don't know, maybe in the basement?" But the door to the basement is closed, so that's not where he could be...??? That's when it dawns on my: The dog is at the groomer!!!
And you wondered how we were doing, eh?! Well, now you know... ;-)

The Story of the Pee Post and the Poo Parcet...eh...Carpet

So much needs preparing and the devil is in the details. We will not only cross the Atlantic in November, but also the Bay of Biscay in April. Now, what about our dog, Chester, who has neither been trained to use a litter box, nor a toilet, and who will not be able to do his business on shore during those crossings?! Well, the solution lies in... 

...tada...

...the Pee Post and the Poo Carpet!

Chester's Pee Post and the Poo Carpet

Well, and the devil is in the detail: how do you tell your dog that he is supposed to pee against that weird yellow pole that grew out of the lawn one day and to target-poo on the 3 feet x 3 feet (1sqm) square artificial lawn carpet? Yes, it's green and it looks remotely like grass, but a substitute for lawn...? You must be kidding!!! 


So far, he has been free to roam our fruit tree area; that freedom has found a sudden end today. His potential business area has been reduced by temporary fences to about 1/3 of its former glory. Now, I just need to make myself walk outside with him, rain or shine - lately mostly rain -, point him to the PP (pee post) and the PC (poo carpet - could be applied to non-apple products too, though), ignore his questioning look, find somewhere inside of me a lot of patience and hope he gets the idea, waiting with a ton of treats for the moment he maybe - even if only marginally - either hit the post or the carpet, or both - in my best case scenario. 


I have 4 more weeks to create a miracle, and then I have to fly with the - hopefully - peed-on-post and the - hopefully - pooed-on-carpet to Europe. Has anyone ever travelled with weirder luggage???!!! Germany is where I will continue the training on my sister's balcony - I already have her approval (whatever made her say yes?!). Once we get on the boat, the hope is that Chester will be well adjusted to the "target-business" business and will be able to relieve himself without much of a fuss. 


And the best of it? I actually claim to not have lost my marbles (yet anyway)...so, wish me luck, I need it!

The Big Shipping Experience

by Rolf

Wow - that many boxes. I guess Next Life will sink as soon as she hits the water.

This is the chaos in our basement a few days before our shipping date 

Over the last few weeks we had unloaded The Kid in preparation for her sale. The usable items from her moved into a big heap in our basement - secondary anchor, chain, ropes, lines, shackels, screws, bolts, fuses, cables, tools, boat hooks, towels, cups, plates, cutlery, baking forms, ... - you name it. Several hundred individual items.

A see-through box loaded with odds and ends - The red ring contains a tool to pull cables through walls and conduits. We will be installing a lot of electrical equipment ourselves. Pulling cables through difficult spaces is not a fun thing to do.

Over the last months I spent endless nights researching the Internet for equipment for Next Life. Just researching which water maker to get took weeks.  With all this work we accumulated a water maker,  ice maker, invert/charger, solar charger, battery monitor, VHF Radio, Honda generator, kitchen mixer, vacuum,  toaster. 

During Internet research process I started a thread on the Cruisersforum. You can take a look here. It is the most popular recent thread in the Lagoon section. http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f139/purchasing-and-commissioning-70969.html I also made contact with Gonzalo and Karina from Spain. They are getting their Lagoon 450 at the same time as we do. Since November we have been sending each other several emails a week discussing to cons and pros of all things boat.

X minus one - 15 of February,  came and we rented a UHAUL trailer to pack all the boxes. First they had to be moved from the basement up the stairs into the garage. Who needs fitness machines when you can lug about 800 kg in 31 boxes up the steep stairs from the basement to the garage. 

Then all boxes had to be labelled, listed, documented by picture and then loaded into the trailer. Silke did this really well, as she took Chester to a vet-appoinment - leaving me alone. This was one of the several pet appointments to be allowed to travel with the pets to dozens of countries in one year. So I was left to my own devices. Needles to say that in the rush I would mislabel boxes, (I had two with the same number on my list), forget to take pictures, have conflicting entries in my list, and all the other surprises that Murphy has up his sleeves. On average I packed every box twice into the trailer. In my wisdom I put the heaviest ones way up front to make it more exhausting to schlepp them in and out and in again. 

The collection of boxes awaiting being packed twice

Silke returned on cue, just as I closed up the trailer, only to find that there was still one more box in the basement, and did I tell you that the trailer was full -  as in no more space.  Then we had to write up the packing list and email it to the shipper in Vancouver. We made it just after they had quit for the day. Perfect timing. 

Next morning we left for the ferry hoping that we could sort things out with the shipper as we travelled on the ferry to Vancouver - and we did. 

The next little hurdle we mastered was to stack the boxes in the most space saving (we are paying by space) manner on two pallets in a short time, as - you guessed it right - it started raining and the boxes were in danger of falling apart before they even made it into the warehouse. Beside us somebody was picking up a shipment which consisted of content with some soggy pieces of cardboard still managing to hang on to it. I forgot to take a picture, as it looked so comical - at least from our side. 

We are praying the guy with the forklift comes fast before it all falls apart in the rain

Watch this short video to see how we are faring in the rain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObVR4A_EA&feature=youtu.be

And finally - all boxes are safely in the ware house and out of the rain. Now we just cross our fingers that they make it to Les Sables d'Olonne in good shape and on time.

"Next Life" will start THIS year!

Rolf and I are getting excited. It feels so different now that the year writes 2012!
2 1/2 months left and our trip is about to start! My biggest worry right now is that Chester, our Golden Retriever, will make it safe and sound to Germany. Rolf will follow with Sparkles, our cat. And at the end of March, we will see Next Life for the very first time!