The longest offseason – literally and figuratively.

This has been a really hard offseason for me.  It’s typically difficult in that I hate winter with a white-hot passion and I hate not being on the boat, but this one has definitely been the worst.  Jeff came really close to dying during the holidays (and ended up with a heart failure diagnosis which has been life changing for both of us), I sank into a depression (which I tried to white-knuckle for a few months before finally listening to my friends and therapist and starting Lexapro), and then my father (who inspired me to start the blog and commented on virtually all of my blog posts) passed away a few weeks ago after being diagnosed with a rare, aggressive cancer last summer.  Less important, but still a significant factor for me, is that winter rolled in with a vengeance in January, was slow to go away, and we’ve had cloudy, rainy, and below normal temperatures for several months now.  Needless to say (and obviously based on the lack of posts), the blog has taken a back seat.

But this post isn’t all gloom and doom.  At this point Pegu Club is finally in the water.  She still needs her mast stepped and a sea trial on the engine, but I’m keeping every finger crossed that next weekend we’ll be taking her back to Shenny to finally, FINALLY, start our season.  I’m still struggling with everything that’s been happening so after next week I’m taking a leave of absence from work for a month (maybe longer) to try to clear my head.  Boat therapy is definitely in order so expect much more activity on the blog from this point forward.

So despite everything, what did we manage to accomplish over the past several months? Well, we put new wires in the mast (although we still have to finish the terminals) and installed the new B&G wind instrument; installed the new B&G transducer; finished hooking up the new electric panel which included new heat shrink terminals at the end of all of the wires and running cables to the battery selector switch; reinstalled the galley cabinet that was removed to install the engine; ran new bilge hoses for the electric and manual bilge; finally installed a new backing plate for the electric bilge so it won’t fall over anymore; and we put two coats of bottom paint on to get Pegu Club ready for the season.  Jeff also started varnishing the hatch boards and I started making a new mainsail cover (which has stalled until the mast is stepped).

It doesn’t sound like much, but it wasn’t until the last month or so that Jeff has been able to spend more than a few hours working on the boat (and climbing the ladder), so we actually did pretty well under the circumstances.  Here’s hoping that things will start looking up and we’ll have a great season – once we can finally get it started!