Chapter 40: A Light at the End of the Tunnel

Merriam Webster describes a light at the end of the tunnel as a noun phrase defined as a reason to believe that a bad situation will end soon or that a long and difficult job will be finished soon. This week we are definitely feeling like we are seeing a glimmer of light ahead.  Meraviglia is and will likely continue to be a difficult job but we are getting closer to realizing the reward of her as well. 

 Monday was a really beautiful day in Brunswick with a lovely breeze and temperatures in the mid 80’s.  It was also a beautiful day as we got our genoa sail back on and hanked on our staysail to check for the length of the sheets needed. Somehow we wrestled the Mack Pack on that holds our mainsail – that was a bit of a challenge for sure and began working on figuring out how to reinstall the lazy jacks (which will require another trip up the mast for Bob!) Something about putting the mainsail and the genoa back on made that glimmer at the end of the tunnel a bit brighter! We also got the anchors in place awaiting the windlass installation. We worked on some of our safety features and got our liferaft and our EPIRB mounted. Our plumber was here on Tuesday and Wednesday and all of our plumbing is now fully functional!!!  Woo hoo! That also meant all of the plumber’s tools and supplies left the boat freeing valuable living space.  We met with our project manager, a.k.a., “the savior” and reviewed the list of tasks left and we are down to one small piece of paper!!  He also removed almost all of his tools and supplies which means we are able to move some of our supplies on board from the storage unit and make our space feel more comfortable.  The light grew a little brighter. 

So what does all of this mean for our timeline?  Well we are still thinking we will be here in Brunswick through all of October. We still need to take delivery of our new dinghy and figure out our best storage plan for that. We still have eight winches to take apart and service.  We need to install the solar panels and the windlass. Once we have our windlass and anchors fully functional, we would like to do some daysails and overnights as a test run of all our equipment.  Until we can actually take her out and sail her, it is hard to know if there are any other things we will need to fix or get before we leave for real. But we can definitely see that light growing brighter and can’t wait for our first sail!