End of year 2008

Eventful year end,

Although I left Papy Jovial all by himself for most of those last two
monhs of 2008, a lot has been accomplished. Short of completing the
installation of the sat phone and the installation of the Active
Tracking transponder, once it arrives, Papy Jovial is ready to go for
the final shake down cruise in Florida and the Bahamas.
It all started with a quick round driving trip to Abercorn, Quebec, to
visit Patricia and her nice family, Alice, Remy and hubby Thierry. In
the meantime, I took advantage of the trip to take to them the TV and
haitian paintings that are too big anyway to fit in the boat.
On the way out, I stopped in Norwalk to visit brother Rascal and Theo,
As always, they gave me a warm and brotherly welcome. But I drove back
straight to Portsmouth, 13 hours of driving in rough conditions, fog
and drizzle.
As soon as I recovered from that very long ride in tough conditions,
it was time to close on the house,which took place on November 21st.
Then, it was pressure time to try and finish all the preparation
before flying off to France on December 3rd. There was still a little
bit left when I too off but Stew took care of that while I was away,
and when I returned on December 24th, only the electronic part was
still to be completed.
In France, the main goal was to visit the Paris boat show, which I did
on Dec 5 and 6, and to participate in the traditional Boat Show dinner
given by the french brothers. This allowed me to purchase the Navtex
box, the latest version of the MaxSea and the transponder from STW
(Advance Tracking).
Then it was on with my traditional tour, to visit family and friends
all around the country before flying off back to Portsmouth on Dec 23rd.
The holiday period was quiet, except for the traditional "Boxing Day
boucan" of our table, which is one of the funniest and most enjoyable
event all year.
Step by step, Papy Jovial is inching towards being finally ready for
departure on Jan 10th with David and Sam.
Starting on that day, I will be publishing the blog both in french and
in english.