1 week left?

We continue to make progress towards our destination. Life is pretty chill on board Maple with not a whole lot going on. As some wise people said before we left, it is much better to have a boring crossing than lots of problems. Although as I said last time, we do have our share of things that need to be repaired or replaced. Funny story, apparently you are not allowed to swear via HAM radio frequencies, I had no idea. So my last email was rejected until I renamed my broken "stuff" list. On the plus side, we have found the best station to connect to and it is as far away as Georgetown, Texas. So I need one of my Austin friends to track this person down and buy him (or perhaps her, although a long shot) a beer.

We received some sad news yesterday. Our cat, Jack, died last week. We picked up Jack as a kitten back in 2005. At the time, I told D that if we got a pet, I would wait longer to have a child. He liked the sound of that so we acquired Jack. D is a sucker. I think it was no more than 9 months later I was pregnant with Ella. Jack had a love/hate relationship with the girls. I have sweet pictures of Jack curled up next to Ella as a baby. However, a favourite game of Jack's was he liked to stalk the girls. He would unexpectedly jump around a corner and swat or nibble at their ankles, which neither girl appreciated. Jack was an astute hunter and loved to bring home "gifts". The most memorable was a small bird. Upon dropping it on the mat inside for me, the bird took off like a shot. As I ran around the house trying to catch it, which I eventually did upstairs in E's room, Jack just curled up and went to sleep offering no assistance whatsoever.

As D and I made plans for this grand adventure, Jack was always top of mind as to what was best for him. We looked into countries rules around bringing pets in on the boat. But ultimately, it came down to we could not picture Jack getting comfortable with being confined on a boat. So what do we do?! Obviously, Jack has been a member of our family for 10 years at that point. Well D's mom, Ann, made the decision easy in the end for us. Ann generously offered to take Jack for us. It could not have been better for him. They were a wonderful match and I know Jack settled in beautifully with Ann. Thank you, Ann, for giving Jack such a loving home these last four years, we are deeply grateful for your love and care of Jack.

Needless to say, the girls are heartbroken on this news. They are grateful they got to see him one more time when we were back for a visit in September. As usual, Jack was his aloof self and paid very little attention to the girls. However, the girls look back on Jack with fond memories and seem to have forgotten the ankle biting.

We are officially in the triple digits for miles left to landfall. Yesterday marked two weeks at sea, we anticipate at least another week to go. The forecast is for the winds to start to slow which will not improve our speed, so we are just being patient and will get there when we get there. We have plenty of fresh produce left and are all doing well.

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At 2019-05-14 19:00 (utc) our position was 08°19.18'S 125°148.18'W