We were blessed with an unbelievably mild winter which allowed us to bring our house building project pretty much to completion. Our kitchen is installed, basement bedroom ready for use, retaining walls and garage done just to name a few of the main projects.
There were an unusual amount of very strong southerly winds this winter which for us was great as the cove in which we anchor the “Encounter” has great protection from the south, however not so great for some others. See this video of one of the ferries trying to get passengers and vehicles off in a Force 9, March 25th. http://wp.me/pJ3Pd-3F9 It gets interesting about halfway through.
In a few days 4 volunteers from Austria and Canada will arrive to help with maintenance on the boat. We’ve a lot of fibreglass work to do, sanding and painting, varnishing, oiling as well as the usual plumbing and mechanical work. We’ve extended the maintenance period an extra month so as we can get it all done.
This meant that Impact Training was pushed back and is to be run in two parts of 4 weeks each, Spring course starting mid May and a Summer course offered in July. Of course this means fewer Sailaways are to be offered this summer. These are two programs in August with the bible teaching in German and a third in the last week of August through to the first week of September in English. We hope our Summer Impact course will attract what would have been Sailaway guests.