We have to admit that we are embarrassed that we allowed almost six months to go by since we last updated the web-site. This seems particularly unfortunate in that we were beginning to build a pretty regular and loyal following of readers after the Makara was delivered in May of last year. Doubtless some readers have thought we had given up the dream and had simply not gotten around to deleting the digital record of our folly from the web. I am happy to say this is not so, we are right on track for departure.

When we last left you, it was the dead of winter, and Makara's captain was still marooned in Tokyo. The month of February was bitterly cold and other than a brief check on her condition by the Sailing Master, Makara slept. Finally in mid-March the captain returned permanently from her seven month stay in Japan and shortly thereafter Makara was awoken from her winters nap.

In mid-April the big event was moving Makara from the commissioning dock(s) in Spa Creek to Port Annapolis Marina in Back Creek, which is now Makara's home until we shove off for good late next spring. Port Annapolis is a much more pleasant place than the work docks. It was a very amusing exercise getting Makara into her slip when the fairway (space between docks) is just about as wide as Makara is long. We managed bow first. Ah, the beauty of spring lines. We have still yet to put her in stern first, but that will come in time and with practice. It will be easier to disembark to the dock finger once we've mastered that.

By early May we managed to get the sails back on the boat after the main went through a set of post production modifications to get things in good shape to start sailing for the season. One of the more complex issues involved getting the reefing lines (which allow us to reduce the size of the main sail in higher winds) to function properly. Makara has a loose footed main and the reefing lines need to be lead fairly through the grommets at the reef points and then bent to the boom. Only tricky part is figuring out which reef line is which. Just need to pull them through and see who is papa bear, momma bear and baby bear (i.e. lengths).

Since Makara has moved to her new slip we have completed 195 (yes one hundred ninety five) projects, both large and small, on our now infamous "List". Each of these are important in their own way to a vessel which will be sailing around the world but it seems the list just goes on and on. One of the more challenging tasks was simply to get Makara's stereo installed. Believe it or not we spent an entire day getting a single speaker wire from the speaker to the stereo. As painful as that experience was, at least now we know every nook an cranny of the boat (which it turns out is where the speaker wire had to be run!).

By late May our beautiful arch was fully loaded with antenna's and sensors and our Navigation station became fully populated. The final piece of gear was a Maretron display head to both display information from our ultrasonic weather station and second GPS. You may be asking why we need two GPS's? Having been in the business of GPS’s back in the day (firmware and applications mainly) we like having a backup GPS that is NOT the same manufacturer as the primary, which in our case is Raymarine. So we installed a Maretron GPS. Also, to aid in our weather divining we added a Maretron weather unit as well, which is quite a nice instrument. The Maretron NEMA 2000 bus is also cross linked to our Seatalk system so if the Raymarine GPS packs it in we can switch to the backup on our plotters.

Our onboard WiFi setup is also now installed - a special marine unit called a Syrens EC-HP. WiFi is becoming quite common in even the most remote places, and this simplifies our use as if allow multiple PC’s to use the bridge. This particular unit is the highest power allowed by the FCC and should allow us to connect even if anchoring a bit further off the access point, which hopefully will translate into less bugs in the tropics!

In early June we installed our new massive Rocna 40 (88 lbs.) anchor on 150’ of G4 3/8” chain which itself is backed up by 150’ of ¾” Brait line. This installation didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked and resulted in the first semi-serious injury on Makara. While pulling the anchor into place on the anchor roller with the windlass the Sailing Master accidentally pulled the anchor in place a little more quickly than any of us anticipated. The result was the Captain's hand was jammed between the 88 pound anchor and the stainless steel of the bow pulpit. The result was a broken bone in the Captain's hand which the great medical folks at the Mid-Maryland Health services (who cater to us boating types) patched up in due course.

The weather in Annapolis has now turned hot and sultry and we were determined during our break after the 4th of July to finaly get some sailing in. I am please to say that the Captain, has finally had her maiden sail on Makara on a beautiful July day. Going forward, the challenge will be to balance getting more sailing in while we continue to work away at the 122 additional tasks on our “get ready” list. We promise to do a better job of keeping the web-site update as well.