A week from departure.

I'm not one to get overwhelmed with packing, but this is proving to be a different animal.  After months of planning and gathering stuff actual organizing and packing into the van has proven challenging.  In short, I have too much crap!

First up - tools, recovery, and maintenance items.  Assess what I have, very inefficiently pack it in the van "basement" and one of the back boxes, sleep on it, unpack it all, thin the herd, and repack.  Will probably go through one more iteration of that until I get it acceptable.

Finished up the side mount for the SUP.  This will only be for when I'm hopping from beach to beach.  Otherwise it will be on the roof.

Sort of finished the screen to keep the bugs (well, most of them) out on those hot nights.  I'll fine tune once I actually use it.  Thanks to my sister-in-law for modifying the length of this otherwise house screen to fit the van.

Physically, my arm / shoulder are in pretty good shape.  Range of motion is nearly 100% and strength is building up.  I've resigned myself to leaving before the thumb wound closes.  It's making good progress and will probably be closed a week or two into the trip.  That will put me in the presence of warmer waters anyway!

Started figuring out clothes this afternoon.  That doesn't seem as difficult as the tools and maintenance items.

Tomorrow I get Mexican FFM (basically a Visa), arrange Mexican auto insurance, subscribe to Ripcord (search / rescue / extraction)(just in case), increase subscription plan for Garmin InReach, try to find more malaria pills (I'm way short on those for South America), and continue to organize and pack.

My initial travel partner Gordon just put in his last day at the office FOR EVER!  Welcome to retirement Gordon!