We are busy making final preparations for our departure on March 2. Fortunately, we have plenty of time for that these weeks. It feels like a special "in between" time between a busy working life / our trip to Australia and being on the boat. A period of 8 weeks that we are still completely free to fill in.

The first day we start by making a list of all the things we still want and need to do. Soon the days fill up with various things from this list.

Besides visiting family/friends and playing sports/hiking, we have already been able to complete the following items on our list.

• Apply for Spitsbergen permit; it has been approved, and we are very happy about it! 😃
• New passport Toine and apply for multiple entry visa USA; that has been sent but not back yet.
• Establish comprehensive medicine box (based on the drug list for sea sailors) with the help of our family doctor and pharmacy; that is already neatly organized by the first aid box on the boat 🧰🩹💉.
• Thoroughly cleaning the boat (including under the hatches) and critically assessing which items we will need in the coming years and which we will not. Thus, we are getting rid of quite a few leftovers from 3 years of living on the boat and reorganizing closets and hatches with boxes for food supplies, among other things.
• Buy handy things for food storage and preparation. Such as a vacuum machine, a starter kit for sourdough bread, and a rice cooker 🥖🍚.
• Buying safety items such as new Epirb and MOB (man over board) devices for on our life jackets.
• Install PredictWind with associated data hub for GPS tracking. On the page 'Where are we' you will therefore always see our most recent position and the route traveled. It also allows us to start feeding a digital logbook with boat information. More on that will follow in a separate post.
• Purchase Navionics charts and the books World Voyage Planner and World Cruising Destinations by Jimmy Cornell 😊 🌏⛵️.
• Deel van de zeilen erop gezet; de kotter en de genua. Het grootzeil wacht nog op de mastmotor die in onderhoud is bij Seldén in Denemarken. Het onderdeel is al wel weer terug in NL. Dus dat komt wel goed 😃.

By now 5 weeks have already passed. How time flies. We have a little less than 3 weeks to go before our actual departure. The biggest chores left to do are stocking the boat (with food and clothing), and replacing the lead batteries with lithium batteries.

A week ago during a night of anchoring on the Grevelingen we noticed that our current batteries were draining too quickly. The batteries are now over 7 years old and no longer work 100%. Also, our consumption has increased somewhat partly due to Starlink. We already knew we had to replace the batteries sometime in the next few years and decided to do it now before our departure.

This is a project in itself that Toine in particular is very busy with. Busy coming up with an installation schedule and ordering all the parts. Tomorrow we can pick up all the parts and start the installation. More on this will follow in a separate message.