We arrived in Texas on October 19^th 2012 hoping to be there for just a week or two before setting sail across the Gulf of Mexico. Work on the boat began in earnest with day one spent cleaning and taking a full inventory of what we needed for our trip down to St Lucia. We wanted to make a few upgrades to the boat as well as getting all new safety equipment.

The thing about the Texans is that they’re very friendly and talkative and it did not take us long to find out the whereabouts of all the stores that we needed to fit out the yacht. I would never have guessed at this point that I would be spending so much time in Walmart and Home Depot. With Seabrook/Kemah being such a sailing mecca there was even a second hand store, an Aladdin’s Cave of anything and everything you could possibly imagine for a yacht. Some of the items were in great condition and came at a good price; other items looked very much like they had seen better days.