The burgee flies and the journey begins

Life over the last couple of days has been extremely busy and challenging. It seems that the old lady (Easy Rider that is!) has different views what it means to be ready to cast off. Yesterday the gearbox of the anchor winch decided not to oblige and to only produce an unwilling noise - no action whatsoever. Don't worry I will not bore you with yet more technical illustrations of things which can go wrong! However, just for the record we found a spare gearbox at Yacht Parts in Plymouth (excellent traditional chandlery which still stocks spares...) on Sunday.
After having spent about 5 hours with my head in the chainlocker trying to dismount and mount a 16 kg unit lying on my back - success! Nothing can now prevent us from leaving Plymouth as planned on the 1st of June.