Welcome Aboard

We are currently sitting in Ocean Village Marina, Southampton. Toasty, warm and happy.

I guess that kind of spoils the surprise of everything really. All the questions of: 'did we get everything ready in time?' and 'how did that final 10 days go?' or ' did we actually leave?'.
Well we did leave; on the 20th of Feb just as planned (mini Mexican wave and celebration to us.... a whoo hoo)... but we did not get everything ready in time and the past week has been a mass whirlwind of phone calls and fixings, travels and training. Running to one place and then sprinting to another.

After our arrival 'surprises' on the boat when we returned from Perth a few things got better; I totally made amazing curtains (if I do say so myself) and the gas cooker just needed a new pipe so we finally had cooking... but sadly most things got worse.

 

Awesome Curtains

The Sails, super important right? One might say numero uno priority with it being a sail boat and all and yet we foolishly left them as the last item to be checked and boy it definitely taught us a lesson. Our nice £35 sail service ended up actually costing £600 to repair the outer edge of the Genoa sail. Ouch!! This was coupled by the price of the new front batteries... £200.., more mooring ropes needed, and few dozen other items tallying up.. more ouch!

We mostly spent the 10 day countdown in two locations. Jarvis on the boat - being a fix-it man extraordinaire (There is nothing that man and a spanner cannot fix), and me at mum and dads. The time was regularly dotted with what became 'the dreaded phone calls' (bam bam bam). These most often started; "erm.. we have a problem...". The temptation to not answer by day 5: very strong.

Jarvis was not the only bringer of bad news. Whilst pulling together the final documents before we left I double checked our Visa requirements for the US and found we needed to go to the embassy and apply for a special Visa as we would be arrive by private boat. Another hefty charge, the loss of a whole day in London, a "erm, we have a problem" phone call, and finally finding out from the embassy that they would need to hold our passports for 5 days before we got them back.

*Enter our wonderful, kind friend Mim who has offered to have them delivery to her in Southampton for us and then when we get there we can pick them up*

Yet our bad news piece de restistance was trying to obtain our Ownership certificate. That beautiful piece of paper that would finally say that we are now officially called Croc Bones, and that the name Chelsea Flower was lost to the seas forever. I was informed that the certificate had been delivered to our old address in London whilst we were in beautiful Perth, but on arrival it wasn't there. It wasn't at the Post office, none of the old housemates had it, the only person who could have picked it up was our old Landlord who, conveniently, lost the ability to answer the phone after we told him we were going to pop around to pick it up.

Certificate status : LOST

This was a problem indeed. We officially cannot enter any other country without this (and we would still be called Chelsea Flower), so a few frantic phone calls later and a lot of pleading to a very nice man in Cardiff and a new one was being issued for free, but wouldn't get to us in time.  We were at T-minus 3 days for leaving. *Re-enter Mim who offered to accept this too*. Marvellous Mim to save the day again.

Certificate status: IN TRANSIT

All fine and dandy. Problem solved. Except one. The re-issue would be in the old name!!! Apparently we were meant to have received another final form to fill in before the new name would be official and now we did not have time to do it. On being told this I called Jarvis toot suite as he was in the process of removing the dreaded name... you can see the current state of things below. At least on the plus side it really isn't Chelsea Flower anymore :)

Chels Lower...hey, its better than the original!

Day 1 finally arrives - 20th Feb
So the day finally arrived. Goodbyes were said and lots of hugs were had. We shopped, we packed, we stressed and then finally, we sailed. Chelsea Flower/Croc Bones, officially left Harwich and started the adventure at 5:30am on the 20th Feb and went down to Ramsgate. Not too many problems, a niggle here and there and a very long day but all good. The highlight of the day was a super yum pub dinner. I know, i know spending money when not necessary and all, but it was day 1 and we needed a celebratory treat.

Day 2 - 21st Feb
Plan was to Sail from Ramsgate to Dover, but we ended up doing a very long sail and went to Newhaven Marina instead. 16 hours of sailing, and it was rough sailing. Choppy seas, feeling sick and tired and then the gas went so no hot food. Apparently it had been leaking this whole time, and going into the back cabin. Very happy we found this out now and didn't accidentally put an end to Mark (the guy who is going to do the first crossing with us). All up a bit rubbish and manic.

Day 3 - 22nd Feb
A happy day.  We got gas before we left. Then sailed from Newhavenbestest showers ever, plus all the facilities are in an old giant lime green ship called Minnie Mouse. I kid you not!!

Day 4 - 23rd Feb (Today)
Another good day! Only went from Portsmouth to Southampton. We had a few morning niggle;, the accelerator handle snapped off and the boat had actually been taking on water and the entire bilges were full... humm. Well spotted Jarvis, otherwise the next blog entry would be coming at you from the bottom of the sea! (Only small problems *ehem*). But Super Jarvis attacked it with the trusty spanner and low and behold we are here in a working boat. Lots of activity on arrival, washing, cleaning, bits of shopping and organising. Busy, busy. You can see below the current state of our poor boat! However we do get to see the lovely Mim tomorrow to collect our documents and say our last and final farewell to our people here in the UK *sniff*, and have a day off in Southampton before we start the second leg of our UK sail down to Falmouth. (Jarvis tells me it is going to be brilliant weather).

All up I think its all going well. We miss everyone so much already but are really enjoying ourselves and looking forward to getting to somewhere warmer!

More updates to come soon.

Tia and Jarvis, Over and Out!