Well we're on board. A board anyway :-). Our flights ( separate bookings on Alaska SEA-IAD, United IAD-STT ) went very smoothly. Only complication is that we checked a bag this time and the Alaska staff at SEA struggled to check our bag through until they got some help.

We got out of STT and to the ferry terminal with enough time to have a nice mahi platter at the pump room, then on to the 2:30 ferry.

Got our rapid test results and through customs, maybe 45 minutes total. Really not a hitch until we got to the Moorings base and found that they had not put us on another 3-cabin M4000 as Jenn had assured us, but a 4-cabin M4500.
Being that we are only a couple, the bigger boat with 4 cabins and 4 heads really has no advantages and my initial reaction was on the WTF side, but there was nobody around with the authority to make any changes.

The boat we are on didn't make the best initial impression with some dock rash at the stern. The idea of having to figure out another boat because they couldn't find an M4000 for us was initially irritating.

However, once aboard I can see how similar this boat is to ours... must be a comparable vintage too. 1000 hours on the engines. I have a meeting with a base manager tomorrow morning, but it could be that this is our best option. There is still the possibility that our own boat will be back in the water during the course of our 4 week charter and we will switch to that.