Three words that strike dread into my heart are "Let's go shopping".
It's not that I'm worried about how much of a beating the credit card is going to take, it's more about how long the whole shopping process is going to take. Aannsha loves to browse and check out six stores looking for the one item. Whereas I, armed with my shopping list (yep another list), go straight to the nearest store, buy what's on the list and go home. Fun fact: My best time ever, for a week's worth of groceries, was 16 minutes, in fact the drive there and back took 4 minutes longer than the whole shopping process did.
However this week has been an exception and I've actually enjoyed going shopping because we've been buying stuff that's going to be used on our boat. One of the first things we went looking for was wet weather gear or 'foulies' as they're referred to by sailors. While we were on our sailing course in Gibraltar the sailing school supplied us with loaned foulies and even if it wasn't raining we wore them every day that we were sailing because not only do they keep you dry, they also keep you warm. And sailing across the straits of Gibraltar in early February it's pretty bloody cold even when the sun is shining.
On our quest for foulies we did have to call into several chandlers shops and I eventually found my set of foulies in the last one we called into. As we walked through the door, hanging right in front of us was exactly what we'd been looking for, but oddly it was the only set of foulies in the shop. When we enquired if they had more stock it was explained that they no longer held stock but they could order in whatever we needed. I decided to try them on for size and they fitted perfectly, that was bonus number one, the second bonus was the price. The trousers and jacket were a clearance item priced very attractively at 220 Euros (AU$350). Normally the jacket alone would have been that price. One of the features I really like is that the jacket has a removable fleece inner lining, so when it gets rainy and blowy in the heat of summer I can still keep dry and not overheat.
I explained in Barry's Blog # 13 that the previous owner, of the Jeanneau we're buying, was taking all personal items with him for use on his new yacht and that included pillows and bed sheets, so they were another 'boat shopping list' item we needed. In Javea there's a British owned store, called The Yorkshire Linen Co, that sells good quality 100% Egyptian cotton everything. We bought top and bottom sheets and more importantly pillows that suit our individual sleeping position. As we slipped into bed last night, our very first night on board A B Sea, it was nice knowing that the bedding and pillows were fresh and new. We also bought a couple of throws that are very warm and big enough so that when we're wrapped up in them while in the cockpit, no stray breezes are going to find their way around the edges.
A big ticket item that has been 'on the list' since we left Australia in December was a second laptop capable of editing and rendering videos. We held off on buying this (and other big items) until we knew where we were going to be buying our yacht, as every item we added to our already very heavy pile of possessions would begin adding to the potential airline excess baggage fees if we'd bought a yacht in say Greece or Turkey. Our yacht is of course just 2 hours drive to the south of our previous base at my brothers apartment in Javea, Spain and we organised for a friend of my brothers to drop us off here in their mini bus yesterday afternoon, so weight and space allowances were not a problem.
Anyway, back to the new laptop. Having two computers for editing our YouTube videos gives us redundancy should one fail and because Aannsha will also be making videos for her YouTube crafting channel, timesharing just one computer would have been unworkable. We ordered this new laptop from another local Javea shop, it's called PC Solutions and the guy was very helpful. For the inquisitive tech heads I ordered it slightly over-spec'd and here's the rundown. It's an MSI GP62M with a 15.6 inch FHD screen, Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU, 250GB M.2 SSD, 1TB hard drive, 16GB DDR4 RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 with 4GB DDR5 on board and a Windows 10 Home 64bit operating system. They very nicely also threw in a free copy of Office Professional 2013. It was 1,299 Euros (AU$2,065) which is not a bad price for retail. The Windows 7 Intel i3 laptop that Aannsha was using has now been repurposed as the nav station computer.
We'll be spending most of today and the weekend, cleaning our boat from bow to stern, deciding where our various possessions are going to live and more than likely adding more things to our already very long 'boat shopping list'. Then on Monday we plan on hiring a car to go out and do more shopping. Again there are lots of big ticket and heavy items to buy including, but not limited to, a lot of tools for boat maintenance, scuba gear, kitchen equipment and a BBQ. For a comprehensive list of most of the items we need check out Aannsha's Blog # 20.
Apologies that this week's blog is relatively short, especially when compared to last weeks, but time is limited and there's so much to get organised now that we're living on board A B Sea. Now that our adventure has moved into its next phase though, I am sure there will be plenty to write about next week. But for now, I'm off to watch a YouTube instructional video on how to dismantle and service Harken 53 self-tailing winches.