Provisioning doesn’t just mean carrying on food and beverages onto a sailboat. It implies getting everything ready for the passage. But before you can bring more things onto the boat, you need to scrub and clean all the decks, compartments and storage lockers so that when you stow things away you don’t have to pick them up again.

I like the routine we established many many years ago when we first took out Jorge’s boat. Kurt, McKenney and I went through every locker and cleaned the ship from stem to stern. This way we knew where everything was and it gave us a chance to see everything uncluttered. Al and Jill do the same thing every season when they come back to Dragonfly. Of course they have two or three pages of lists to give them some guidance on what they need to repair, replace or purchase, not to mention scrub and clean. Parts and spares are much more readily available in a place like Florida than they are on a small island in the Caribbean.

I wish I thought to take a photo or two of Joe and Helen’s van when it was piled to the rooftops with stores for the winter cruising season for Dragonfly. That was just one of many trips to Sam’s Club, the local Publix grocery and of course Walmart, West Marine and any other Wally World Franchise in the Tarpon Springs area.

It’s been cool enough to wear fleece and long pants several mornings, But since I refuse to bring anything to remind myself of cold-weather, I had to try on one of the standard-issue Dragonfly jumpsuits. These jumpsuits are designed so that after you eat so much you can hang around like the 1970s RV set in their “one-sies”. Last time I wore a set of coveralls was when I got a flight suit from the Coast Guard.

For those who have not been in the boatyard in a long while, here’s what it takes to modify one inch battens to three-quarter inch. Note the hand lathe, belt driven by a handheld hand drill. We did five iterations of this system until all 12 batten ends were tapered. Al is “shoe-shining” down the fiberglass with a 24″sanding belt.