Major Setback

We still have no mast. There is a lot to do on the boat, despite Dan's hard work. We sat down on Thursday morning & assessed the situation. There was a lot that needed to be done, and realistically, we could not do it in the timescales which would allow us to return to the UK before two of us needed to get back to work. A hard decision was made - to delay the departure significantly.
The pressure of trying to sort everything out had got us all down, and we were all becoming frustrated. Once the decision was made to delay, the pressure was off, and we could all relax & just get on with fixing the boat without an awful deadline looming.
Suddenly, things have really started to happen. All the damaged floorboards have been replaced. The forepeak bed is complete. Today was a major event, as we finally pressure-tested the gas system last night, and this morning fired up the cooker. Spurred on by this, we also re-built the refrigerator, which went icy about 2-00pm Friday afternoon EST.
We also had to leave the pontoon we had "Borrowed" at Oyster Bay, so as a birthday treat for me, and as we have eaten in about every restaurant in Oyster Bay, we motored to Huntington Yacht Club, to spend Saturday there.


Part of me is disappointed that we aren't making the trip straight away, but being sensible, when we do make it, Lotus will have been sailed, problems sorted, and we will be less of a hazard to ourselves and the US Coastguard.