Sock and Sailing Update

I'm definitely making progress on my sock! As you can see from the photo, I've made it around the heel, and am now working down the foot, toward the toe. The heel was a little tricky, and I had to get out my good old reference book, "Stitch 'N Bitch," by Debbie Stoller when I ran across this abbreviation -- ssk -- in the directions. Huh?? Turns out that's a slip, slip, knit which I found out makes a cool decrease stitch. It was a little tricky to get the hang of, but I did it! There are a few small flaws in my sock, but overall I'm quite happy with it. I can just see myself on those cold nights aboard the Mirage wearing these purple and green warmies to bed. Of course, by the time we get to Mexico and the warmer weather they will get packed away with the rest of the foul-weather clothing.

Speaking of our sailing trip to Mexico, we have found our housesitters! A really nice couple, originally from Idaho and who just sold their home there. They are now traveling around the U.S. and Canada, housesitting, and experiencing different areas of the continent. They seem like just the type of people who will enjoy living in our home with our cats, and who we can trust to look after both as though their own. Boy, is that a load off my mind. Now I need to get my house in tip-top shape so I'm not embarrassed to have them living here!

Mike thinks he will be done with bottom-scraping and painting on the boat today, and will schedule her to be put back in the water tomorrow afternoon. At that point he wants to start the trip back to Alameda with a stop somewhere part-way to anchor for the night, then finish the journey on Wednesday. I'll be going with him. It will be a good time to take a close look at how much storage space we have on-board, and make some decisions on how much we can realistically carry with us on our trip. We already know we can't possibly take enough food for 8 weeks and will have to re-provision along the way. We'll also study maps to get familiar with all available ports along the coast where we can stop for overnight stays. I'm crossing my fingers that we won't have to do too many all-nighters, at least on the southward journey.

Yes, I know I need to post a photo of the Mirage, and I'll do that as soon as I take one! I've been looking through my pictures and, so far, I don't see any. The Mirage is like the second child. Our first boat, Little Debbie, got her photo taken constantly; the Mirage . . . not so! I hadn't even realized it. So I'll try to remedy that in the next couple of days!