11.18.2021 Meet Captain Andy

After our first night on the boat, we spent the morning getting setup to continue to be able to work remotely.

Around lunch, our Captain from Living the Dream Sailing came by to meet us and do a pre-departure checklist. Andy van Zyl is originally from Cape Town, South Africa and will be spending the next week with us going over a refresher from our ASA 101/103/104/114 sailing certifications as well and giving us his Captain’s sign off on our sailing abilities for our insurance company.

In order to be insured, we must demonstrate proficiency in the following areas:

• Use pre-departure checklist

• File a float plan – will share more information on this is a subsequent post

• Tie & untie basic knots

  • Clove hitch

  • Cleat hitch

  • Bowline

• Adjust for wind & current under motor and under sail

• Maintain control on approach & departure of docks, anchorages, and mooring fields\

• Chart plot for navigation

• Respond to safety issues

  • Fire onboard (engine, stove/galley)

  • React to man-overboard (MOB)

In going through our pre-departure checklist, we identified a few additional maintenance issues that need to be addressed before we set sail on 11.21.2021 -

• Update cruising permit – this is issued to any foreign-flagged vessel and is required to be able to operate the vessel in the current country.

• Adjust courtesy flag – the courtesy flag is what is flown near the mast/mainsail for the country in which your boat is currently present in. One of the dockmasters walked by during our checklist and noted that our Grenada courtesy flag lost one of its rivets so we had to fix it.

• Repair generator - despite it being cleared on our survey, we couldn't get it to start

• Familiarize & organize storage lockers – lockers are the boat term for any storage area and include both outdoor and indoor.

After going through all the boat things with Andy, we were able to make our to-do list for the next couple of days.