Before Leaving on a Trip...13 Things to Do
/Before we leave Nine of Cups on her own for a few days, we have some chores to take care of and a “leaving the boat” list to work through. We've mentioned that she's on a mooring and she's pretty much by herself in the bay midst some diamond boats and forlorn-looking, unattended sailboats. We never know what the weather and wind might bring and we need to make sure Cups is equipped to handle whatever comes up ... all by herself.
Because our memories are “challenged”, we have, of course, a list of things to do before leaving Cups.
1. Shut off the propane at the tank.
2. Shut off the fresh water pressure pump.
3. Insure bilge pump is working and make sure it's on
4. Check mooring lines and double them up
5. Notify someone that we're leaving and ask them to check on her and provide a contact number to get in touch with us, just in case. Ian has offered to keep an eye on Cups and we've also let our friend, Andy on the trimaran, know that we'll be away for a few days.
6. Remove anything from the decks that might wander when no one is around for a few days, e.g. life ring, winch handles, canvas bucket, etc.
7. Lock up anything that can't be brought below, e.g. fuel jugs
8. Lock dinghy and engine at the dinghy dock.
9. Lock the companionway entry
10. Make sure all hatches are dogged and locked
11. Shut down any non-essential electrical devices
12. Shut off the wind generator. We've seen wind here to 40knots … not good for the wind gen. So we'll shut it down and rely on the solar to keep the batteries up.
There's more to do if we're leaving for more than a week, like pickling the head and shutting down/emptying the fridge, for instance. But for this trip of just 3-4 days, we're all set. It's not much more than you'd do if you were leaving your house for week, except your house probably wouldn't sink or float away while you were gone.
That's only 12 items on the list. I thought there was one more.
13. Oh, yeah, we've still got to pack and get our gear together!
