And holy sh*t, time is flying by – crazy fast, just seriously crazy fast – we are going to be out of here before you know it.
Last year, it was kind of a stab in the dark at what to bring.
We knew we needed a few things, we brought some other random-ish stuff. Luckily, having friends who have a few years under their belts, we got some good advice for what we could get easily in the Netherlands. Well, here we are prepping for our second season – first full one – onboard, and I’m still not sure I have any real grasp of what we should or need to bring with us, beyond a few things.
I was smart last year. I have pretty much all the clothes – except for my travel outfit and one upscale something or other – already onboard, so I don’t need any room in my bag for much as far as clothes or shoes. We are getting a rental car and going to the Pension Op’e Koai that’s next to RFU Marina in Jirnsum, and we are fingers crossed for an upgrade since we really need to hit the ground running in order to make the most of having the rental car the first few days we are there.
Things I learned over the winter –
- Have an idea of work to be done over the winter VERY early. The Dutch take their downtime seriously and they are very well focused on work-life balance, so when I was late requesting some interior carpentry changes, it did not make it onto the schedule. Right now I figure we’ll be doing something – maybe not perfect, but usable for this summer – that we hadn’t planned on as part of the project we did plan on. Not the end of the world but it just means more money or more time (or both) than it probably would have cost if I had my act together faster. On the flip side, if I had ordered something in November for this summer, it might not have been the correct idea, since we have had to look at some realities that we kind of tossed off as not gonna happen.
- There are never enough pics and measurements from the boat. Somehow neither Mike nor I managed to get pics of the whole boat, inside and out, and somehow when I was doing my measurements while cleaning out the boat, I didn’t wind up measuring what I thought I had measured. Not the end of the world but it makes doing things from here very dicey, unless they are stuff like throw pillows 😉
So now it’s gonna be a breakneck rush to finish the stuff, even if it doesn’t appear that way now. There’s no way we’ll be ready early, I just feel it in my bones.