It is now end September 2001. And we are less than 8 month away from departure. And there are still a lot of things to be done.

The boat is more or less ready. During the past summer we scraped the hull completely and applied 7 coats of epoxy as barrier coat. That ought to keep the hull dry for the years to come. Furthermore we renovated our sleeping cabin and we installed a washing machine. It sounds like luxury but we did not plan to do our laundry in a bucket for the next 10 years.

For the upcoming winter we plan a watermaker and an Inmarsat-C for our e-mail needs.

And of course the very many small items that remain. In this respect a boat is worse than a holiday house because you're never finished and everything will brake down again due to vibration and corrosion.

Our main activity, next to normal work, are the many organisational and bureaucratic tasks to be done.

Just to mention a few items on our spreadsheet: Finish the sale of our house, terminate the contract with my employer, say goodbye to the municipality and the taxman, decide what to take and what to leave, and find storage space for that. Get new passports and ID cards. Change insurance and obtain good sickness insurance, visit the dentist and the notary public. Terminate suppliers, newspapers and magazines. Inform friends and family. Vaccinate the cat, print business cards, farewell parties. Get nautical charts for 2002.

Actually it is the same process as emigrating, we only immigrate nowhere. We started this preparation process in the year 2000 already and at the moment we go through this planning item by item.