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Moving Aboard - 49° 38' 27" N 01° 37' 00" E

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Wow, that was a big week.  We are exhausted. ... and smitten! Monday was a paperwork day, but aboard Chinook.  We went over the contract, item by item, to ensure that everything the contract stated would be delivered.  There were a few things missing or incomplete (mixups in ordering, vendor delivery timing issues) but they were noted with written assurances that they would be delivered, changed out or corrected.  This all needed to be clearly stated before we transfer the lion's share of the purchase amount to Garcia. Signing and double-checking the contract Anything that wasn't in place, was incomplete or not working properly would be dealt with by the warranty team.   There was no refuting that they had delivered A boat. We had no idea how she sailed and there was no way that a single day of inspection would allow anyone to check every bit of the more-than-5000-person-hours of labour that went into this sleek looking vessel. Satisfied and excited, we m

Boat Eve - 49° 38' 27" N 01° 37' 00" E

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  Today, our boat is perfect. She has been build without a flaw, the construction is millimetre perfect and everything is to specification. There is not a thing that needs fixing, not a screw or a swage that needs tightening and the engine does not need servicing. Everything is running flawlessly.  It is gleaming and clean.  There are no smells of diesel, of damp or blocked loos.  She is simply perfect. And tomorrow, she will be ours! And then the fun will start!  We will find the things that weren't quite built right. We will find the things that need fixing and tightening and servicing.  Things will break, the heads will block and the rig will chafe. There will be oil leaks and diesel spills and screws dropped into the bilge.  But for today, she is flawless. We are not really sure what tomorrow looks like but we do know we will not be sleeping aboard tomorrow night.  That will happen later in the week. We have training which involves opening everything and poking our noses into a

Kerrera, Scotland - 56° 25' 07" N 5° 29' 50" W

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A good spot to spend the winter Think back to your childhood.  Do you remember the painfully-slow march of the clock on Christmas Eve and the agonizing effort trying to sleep, of forcing the holly-draped minutes to quickly pass so you could get on with the joyous unwrapping frenzy that the morning would bring? That is exactly what Kate and I are going through as we whittle away the NINE DAYS until Chinook is handed over.   The splash was terribly fun to be present for, but once it happened we were told that we are not welcome to be around for the testing.  Personas non grata.   March 11th is when we need to be in Cherbourg for the signing of the documents, the official handover and then the training and any warranty work or changes that need to take place.  Until then, there is no reason for us to be in the European Union (with Kate burning through her allotted Schengen Zone days ), so we have gone to visit some friends in Scotland. Friends with a Garcia Exploration 45.  Hurrah!

Splash down - 49° 38' 48" N 01 35' 47" E

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Wow, today actually came!  There were times when we didn't think it ever would and we would be living in anticipation forever! A major milestone in the Chinook journey. Today she was transported from the shipyard and popped into the water!  It was supposed to happen yesterday, but the weather gods do not always bless us with perfect weather. It was literally blowing a gale . Waves were crashing over the breakwater of the outer harbour flinging spray high into the air.  It would have been a great day to watch the waves smash on the lighthouse at Goury - one of those famous stone lighthouses you see half obscured by waves. We had caught the night ferry back from Portsmouth and even in the inner harbour, it had trouble offloading.   Definitely not the day for splashing a boat! This was the weather for the proposed splash. Hmmm, now why would they postpone it? But thirty hours later, it was a perfect splash day, with almost no wind and we even had some sun. Chinook was at the Garcia b

Garcia Boatyard - 49° 38' 48" N 01 35' 47" E

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When we rocked up to the Garcia office for our Monday morning meeting, we couldn't help but notice that a mast-less Exploration 45 was parked outside the shed door where we had previously seen our hull parked.  Could this be o-u-r boat? Nice boat.  Could it be ours??? Marie, our project manager, confirmed that it was our boat!  Although we had come to the yard to put the Boat Show goodies that we had acquired into Garcia-provided storage, we were meeting with Christophe, the after-sales guy to go over spare parts and after-delivery emergency equipment that we were putting on our order.  We would not be getting a look ON BOARD this marvellous aluminium creature.  We would just be admiring through the meeting room window.  Our boat tour was tomorrow. The next day, we had mistakenly thought that the meeting was at 11 am, rather than the scheduled 10 am.  at 10:15 we received a text message from a puzzled Marie.  "Are you coming for the meeting?  Don't you want to