Order Out of Chaos

My friend Nancy used to say, when we worked together at the Post Office, that she liked making order out of chaos. I do too. Which is a good thing, because the boat is a horrible mess-- was when I got here a week ago, still is today. And Bob and I have both worked, steadily, ten to twelve hours a day every day since then. Doing what? you might ask. Well, for one thing, we have delved into all but two of the sixty (count' em, sixty, at least) separate cupboards, lockers, and hidey-holes on the inside of this boat. Most of them were filled with stuff, all of which needed to be identified, cleaned, labeled, evaluated (does it still work?) then either moved to storage in the yellow truck, thrown out, or, more often, stored somewhere else on Kalliope in a way that made sense to us. And it turns out this all takes time. But despite the mess that surrounds me even now, we're beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. Which is good, because, once again, our plans have changed. We are no longer on our own (ever-expanding) timetable. We have signed up with other people! Three other man-type, sailor-type friends have offered, for fun, to help us sail Kalliope to Florida, not on "the ditch", but on the deep blue ocean. Departure date is February 4 (weather permitting) and we need to have this boat ready by then! I gotta get back to work!


PS We put the last coat of bottom paint on yesterday~~~
PS 2 The photo at the top is of the Navigation Station, Day 1. I still haven't figured out how to add captions....