We have a freezer...

Well after a long night and the services of AP Heating our freezer is going below zero again! Before Andre got to it, the coldest it went to was +15C. After replacing the coolant and fixing the poor installation job, the freezer is below zero. Next step is to get the water cooling working again (rather than only air), which will help it even further.

Registered

After much waiting and frustration Geru is finally a Canadian registered vessel. The paperwork was initially sent to Transport Canada in February. We then found out that they would not accept the registration without a tonnage survey. After arranging for that survey (pretty hard to do in Ottawa - far away from the ocean and in the middle of the winter) and a lot of hand holding, we are finally done!

Our Current Plan

We thought we'd summarize what our plan looks like right now.
Our house closes on August 10th, at which time we will be moving onto the boat. We will live on the boat at BYC (Britannia Yacht Club, where it is currently located) for a week or so and then the boat will be trucked across town to Mooney's Bay. From there we will head south on the Rideau Canal to Kingston. This means we plan on leaving Ottawa around August 20th. From Kingston it's up the Saint-Lawrence River through Montreal. We will take a right turn at Sorel onto the Richelieu River towards Lake Champlain. After another canal system south of Lake Champlain we will be on the Hudson River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean at New York City. From there it's south down along the coast using the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).
We'll keep you posted on our further plans as we figure them out.

New Boat Upholstery Arrives

It's been a while since we've posted.... Today's news is that the new boat upholstery and our new mattress arrived (thanks Gord!) - one step closer to having a boat we can live on. ;)

The last two weeks have been spent working on the water tanks (cleaning and fixing the cracks in the gelcoat) and getting a new head (toilet) and holding tank installed, along with a bunch of other small boat tasks.

Our cleaning up at home is going well. We have sold many of the larger items (there are still a few things left - want a couch ?), and we had a great garage sale this past Saturday. On top of all this, Ruth is working away on her honours thesis - it's due in three weeks... We are very busy but also very excited as our departure date is rushing towards us.