What We Always Do

When we were out sailing over the school holidays, Alisa and I got to talking about the things that we always do when we're on the boat.  Pretty simple stuff, really, but these things have become part of our routine afloat.  

We always:

...show a light when we're at anchor...

...put a snubber on the anchor chain (regardless of how calm the anchorage is)...

...hang our dinghy from a halyard at night rather than leaving it tied up off the stern where it can get into mischief...

...lock up the outboard (had to learn that lesson twice!)...

...put life jackets on our kids when they're in the dinghy (though we got a bit slack about that in the tropics)...

...put harnesses and tethers on the kids when they're out of the cockpit...

...leave channel 16 on when we're sailing...

...stay on the windward side of a passage and well away from lee shores.

All those things are either required by the rules of the road, or just good seamanship, so they're not really remarkable in a sense.  But they can also all be optional in one situation or another,  but we've found that it's easier, and safer, to do them every time rather than wondering if they're required or not on a particular day.

And there are a few items that you might expect to be on the list, like always keeping a lookout, or always checking the weather forecast if one is available, that we cheerfully admit to skipping now and then.

Meanwhile, good news on the planning front for the upcoming season.  Australian Customs has given us permission to keep Galactic in the country until February, the best month for crossing the Tasman Sea to New Zealand.  So that allows us to plan to head out for Port Davey as soon as school ends on December 20th, then come back to town in late January to start waiting for good weather to make the crossing...