Back to school/Life update

Attending one of our former Scouts wedding this month

Every year I'm amazed how fast the summer months go by. We always seem to have grand plans to spend a lot of time on the boat and for one reason or another it just never seems to happen. By the end of August Amy is usually busy with ice skating stuff and trying to get all of the kids pulled together across the various teams and learn to skate programs she coaches during the school year. Max is back to playing tennis again this year. I'm starting to think about how we might recruit and what the season events/budget should look like for the Trap team I coach. Mean while we have two boats in the water not really getting used with no real plans to use them rest of the season. I'm still holding out hope to at least get the Tug out for one more trip to Put-In-Bay or Middle Bass Island this year but it's not looking good for the Catamaran. I was hoping to take it over to the Annapolis area for the big fall boat show there but some friends of ours that did that a few years ago and sort of dashed my hopes of finding a good anchorage the week of the event. So I suspect we will just stay on the boat that weekend at the dock using it as our hotel room when not visiting the show.

Sending Annabelle off to Disney

In other news our daughter seems to be struggling with what she wants to do with her life and does not seem to be especially enjoying college. We suggested that she consider taking a year off to figure out some direction. This summer she got a job woking at Cedar Point as a life guard and really enjoyed living and working there so she decided to apply for the Disney College program again this time without taking any classes and allowing her to enjoy the Disney bubble. So she will be taking at least this semester off and maybe the next one as well while she figures out what might be next for her. She will be working as a life guard & recreation leader around a few of the resort pools for the season. I'm sure it's something she will enjoy and who would not like working and living with a bunch of college kids with no real responsibilities other than just showing up for work :). I think it was a good choice to take some time away and I can't imagine a better place to look around to figure out if you really want a carrier in hospitality. I also know her Disney loving mom is looking forward to visiting her while she is there. In fact we are in the process of planning to take much of Amy's extended family down to celebrate Annabelle's 21st birthday in October.

Max's last Court of Honor?

In other sort of sad news it feels like Max is done with Scouts this year. He and I started Scouts when he was in first grade and I've been an active leader the entire time doing everything from Den Leader to STEM & Shooting sports director. It's been something we both really enjoyed doing together over the years and has lead us to a number of adventures we would not have had the opportunity to try otherwise. I feel like we have both learned a lot being so involved in it over the years. Unfortunately our current Troop had not been very good at recruiting so we decided to merge with another Troop this spring. For Max & I this was our third Boy Scout Troop. Our first one folded during COVID. When we got back from the Great Loop trip we joined another small troop in the area, and now we are shutting that Troop down and merging. This is partially due to Scouting not being very popular in our area and a lack of Cub Scouts feeding the Troops. It seems most of them folded in our area as well during COVID and are just now starting to get going again. Sadly neither Max or I really had the heart to start the process over again and ultimately he ages out of Scouts in April when he turns 18. We had tried a Venturing Crew last year with the hopes of going on one last adventure to the other big Scout camp in Philmont, NM but for whatever reason Max did not feel the connection with them. Not to mention that both Scouting and sporting events take up a lot of time it seems he would rather be spending with his girlfriend these days :).

Our favorite tennis player

So our last few weeks has been filled with cheering Max on 2-3 times a week at his various tennis matches, scheduling college visits while settling back into our fall schedule of activities.  I don't know that he really knows what he wants to do next but he is leaning towards something in Engineering or possibly Pre Med at the moment. He has visited Central, Bowling Green, & Trine this fall. We have plans to visit MSU, Western, and Hillsdale in the next month or so. I'm not sure if he wants to check out Ferris or not but other then visiting Eastern he will have at least seen all of the bigger colleges in our state including Northern, Michigan Tech, and Michigan. I suppose the next step there will be filling out applications then waiting to see what kind of scholarship offers he might get. Fortunately he has maintained good grades through high school and did pretty well on his SAT so he should have his choice of schools. 

Max and the GF out sailing

In other good news we finally got the little sail boat in the water. It's an Interlake that was designed for racing in the Sandusky Bay. We got it out sailing a few times before school started and Max even introduced his girl friend to sailing in it a few times towards the end of summer. I am always pleasantly surprised how easy that little boat sails and just how much fun it is. I'm a true believer that if you really enjoy sailing the little boats are the most fun. Sure the big boats can take you more places and handle bigger weather but they just are not as much fun to sail. Not to mention they cost way more to fix when you need new sails, run aground, or any other number of dumb things sailors do. For now the Interlake is back on its trailer and will be put back into the barn soon for the coming winter months here in Michigan.

Amy & I with her parents cheering Max on at tennis

Finally got to use the boat

We got back to the boat late Tuesday night. Unfortunately Max could not join us as high school tennis practice started on Monday. Monday was also the day we dropped Annabelle off at the airport heading to Rome to visit one of our past exchange students for a little over a week. That gave us 6 nights to explore the Chesapeake a bit. We went without a plan and hoped to figure something out after we got there thinking we would run in to some other boaters that might point us in a good direction. Also I was not sure if we would have a working dinghy which might eliminate or at least really limit anchoring options.

I'm happy to report that after only 3 working days the boat yard had figured out a way to fix the steering in my dinghy and even had it back hanging in the davits when we got back. I've never had a yard actually fix something that quickly without standing over them and even better it worked correctly the first time. Turns out the steering tube needed a better cleaning and more greese. I have to admit I'm pretty excited to have a working dinghy again. Hopefully it still works when we come back to the boat in September.

The weather on Wednesday was not great which let us do some provisioning, we tested the dinghy out, and talked to a number of characters around the boat yard looking for some good places to visit. We decided to stay close and would head up to the town of St Michaels for our first stop (about 38 miles by water). We left Thursday getting in around 5:30. There are four anchorages close to the town. After exporting the first two it appeared we might be a bit too large to drop a reasonable amount of chain and still have the ability to swing as the tides shifted so we headed out a bit and picked another one. I should note that we have not tried anchoring with this boat before and are new to using a bridle with all chain and a new style of anchor. Before leaving we checked the windless (the motor that drops and pulls up the anchor for those not in the know) and everything looked good. Unfortunately when we went to drop  the anchor we found that we had pulled the anchor in a bit too far and it was now wedged in the anchor locker pretty good. I found some shoes and attempted jumping up and down on it a bit with no luck. Next step was to break out the hammer to beat on it a bit. After about 10 minutes I finally persuaded it to come free and we successfully dropped the anchor let out a bunch of chain, attached the bridle, and backed down on it. At this point it was time for a cold beer. Unfortunately after taking a better look at where the boat was settling in we didn't like our spot as we were fairly close to a buoy. So back to the bow I went with Amy at the helm I detached the bridle, pulled the anchor up and moved the boat about 200 feet over to what we thought might be a better spot. After going though the whole process again we once again sat down and when looking at the chart plotter realized it might not be as good as we hoped as we might be sitting on the bottom should the boat swing around when the tide goes out. So once again we muddled around getting the anchor up and redeploying it about 500 feet from the most recent location. This time after letting the boat settle in we still liked the spot. By this point we were hungry we made dinner and enjoyed the sun set. At which point we realized we were now dragging anchor. Why does everything bad always seem to happen in the dark? Luckily we were pretty far from the shore so were able to pull in the bridle then let out an additional 50ft of additional chain redeployed the bridle and backed down on it again. It seemed we were once again stuck pretty well. We were both a bit nervous if the anchor would hold so neither of us slept very well getting up to check on the anchor about every hour. Fortunately we didn't have much wind and didn't move that night.

The next day we headed into town. We found the public dinghy dock and set off to explore. We checked out the museum, the brewery, the candy store, got some fresh crab, and of course checked out one of the ice cream shops. St Michaels turned out to be the typical cute tourist town and also one of the location they used when filming the movie Wedding Crashers. One of the local hotels had a fleet of boats that would take their guests out for sunset sails every night. 

We ended up anchored out there for three nights. We took the dinghy around and introduced ourselves to a few of the other folks in the anchorage on the other side of the channel. For some reason nine other boats came in and anchored there vs the one we selected (maybe the holding is better over there?) The anchor seemed to hold the boat well. When tide shifts happened we could see where the anchor drug a few feet before repositioning itself. For some reason on the last night we found ourselves dragging again. So we pulled everything up once again. After a couple try's we got the anchor to stick once again not getting much sleep worrying if we might be floating away again.

The next morning we decided to head over to check out the town of Oxford. We got a dock for the night. It should have been an easy dock, unfortunately the wind was blowing us away from the dock. Luckily one of the fellow boaters helped us with a line and I eventually got it backed in. Seems we still have a ways to go as far as coming up with a repeatable docking process we can accomplish with just the two of us.

It seemed the town consisted of two restaurants, a bowling ally, and three ice cream shops. We found some dinner and of course had to sample the local ice cream. On our way back to the boat it started to rain and we found cover to wait out the storm only to realize that we had left all of the hatches open on the boat :(. So it was a quick run back to the boat to close up with the hope of not having a mattress that was completely soaked though. Turns out we had got lucky and actually had a waterproof matris pad on the bed so with a little clean up we had a good/dry nights sleep.

Unfortunately the next morning we did not fair to well getting off the dock. We had asked another fellow boater to hold a bow line for us which would have allowed me to pivot the back end of the boat out using one engine. He apparently didn't understand the ask and tossed us the line before the boat was ready. It was windy, we were now being blown into the dock and I had a large concrete dock about three feet from our stern. Somehow I managed to get the boat out without any damage but it was not as graceful as I planned. Once we were a few feet away from the dock I realized we didn't have any steering. Luckily I could steer the boat enough using just the engines  until I figured out that Amy had engaged the auto pilot (which is hydraulic and bypasses the steering wheel when engaged) when plotting our course back to our home dock. During this process we also picked up what I suspect was a large bundle of sea grass in one of our props. This also made steering by the engines a bit more challenging as I had one engine running about twice as fast as the other just to get the same speed from both. This entire experience was a good reminder that its not just one mistake that generally gets folks in trouble its a series of unfortunate events or bad decisions that really gets you. Luckily in our case nothing major happened and we didn't panic but I could have easily gotten into some good trouble and damaged the boat or worse yet other folks boats around us if one more dumb thing had happened.

Coming back into our home dock was again another humble reminder that we need more practice docking. Again the wind would be blowing us away from the dock. The goal should have been to get a bow line on then put the port engine in reverse to back the boat alongside of the dock. Unfortunately I can't see much on the starboard side of the boat due to the location of the helm and was a bit far from the dock not allowing Amy to get a line around the pole. Instead of backing out and trying again she tossed a line to someone on the boat next to us. Unfortunately the water was too high and he could not get off his boat to really help us and with the wind working against us the boat was too heavy to pull over. Eventually we got the boat in with help from the dock but it was not with any grace or elegance... once again :) 

During the rain storm the previous night we had identified a leaking hatch. We drove into town found a replacement o-ring got some dinner at a fantastic local Italian place the cashier at the hardware store recommended then headed back to the boat for the night. The next day we packed up and headed back home for the next set of adventures.

Overall I think we both left this adventure feeling humbled. Nothing had gone really wrong. We sort of enjoyed our time onboard for the week but it was not a comfortable relaxed feeling. We were reminded this is a new boat for us and we need to come up with new processes for everything we do on board from pulling the sails out, to cooking, as well as anchoring and docking. The odd thing with this boat is that it's the easiest to maneuver boat we have ever had but I feel like I'm really struggling with docking for some reason. I don't recall learning to dock the tug being this difficult and its the least maneuverable boat we have had. This boat is big or at least really wide, visibility is somewhat limited, and both factors help make communication hard. We have headsets we use when docking on the tug. Once we bring those to this boat I think it will help a lot allowing who ever is at the bow to call out distances and where the boat needs to go. The other big thing we have been used to is having the 3rd person on board. The spry teenager that is willing to jump off the boat at hights we would not while running around to get things tied up quickly. I'm not sure how we are going to make up for that loss yet?

Boat work

Now that fair has ended we are hoping to head back to the boat next week for some actual cruising and getting to explore the Chesapeake a little. During our last trip I had started a running list of boat projects. Most were nothing major but all of them take time. So I decided to make the 8.5hr trek to MD to check on the boat and hopefully get a few items on the list addressed.

Unfortunately despite calling the generator repair guy for four weeks now I still have not got anyone to come look at it let alone fix it. So that's still a work in progress. He has promised maybe next week? Unfortunately I have a feeling the inverter is going to need to go back to Fisher Panda for repair/replacement so even when they do get out to look at it/take it off the boat I'm probably looking at another four weeks before it comes back then will have to get on their schedule to put it back on. If I'm lucky we might get it fixed before October when we want to take the boat over to anchor somewhere close to the Annapolis Boat Show.  :(

I did however manage to get a bunch of little stuff done like getting new o-rings for the depth sounder and the blank, getting the Garmin chart plotters registered and up dated, replacing a couple of the hatch locks that were missing parts, fixing a broken sink drain, getting a new screen/shade unit put up in Max's cabin, and replacing a couple fans. Nothing major but all stuff that needed to be done and it pretty much consumed both days I was there.

After finishing a couple projects I decided to head out for a dinghy ride to explore the area a bit. I got it launched, got the dog in the boat, engine running, I shoved off only to realize the steering was once again seized up. After paddling back to the boat I started playing with it.. disconnected the motor from the steering to validate it was still moving freely. Unfortunately it seems to be the steering cable again. Last time I replaced it to get it working and when I pulled it out was quite rusty and all the grease had dried up on the tube it's supposed to move in. The previous owners clearly had not ever lubed it. I had before installing so have no idea what I did wrong that it would jam up after sitting for a month hanging on the back of the boat in a creek with brackish water. After my last experience trying to fix it in the water/back of the boat I decided to enlist the yard for some assistance in getting it hauled out making it easier to work on. They also suggested pulling the engine might make it easier than pulling the cable back and forth under the floor that you can't access. This all sounded good and they even offered to do the work so I left it in their hands as I was done with this project having already put three days into it the first time. Hopefully it's just a lubrication issue that can easily be solved.

I left the dinghy in their hopefully capable hands and Remi and I headed back to Michigan for a few days before Amy and I would drive back to hopefully get to do some sailing on the Bay. I would be really impressed if they have the steering issue fixed before we get back next week which would allow us to anchor but I'm not holding my breath. 

Life vest testing

This is the first used boat that I've bought that did not come with life vests. Before we left Florida we purchased the minimum find the body West Marine orange life vests to ensure we meet the minimum safty requirements before crossing over to the Bahamas. Knowing that the World ARC folks have some specific requirements for life vests I planned to figure out what they were and order them when I got home, then bring them back before bringing the boat back to the US. This was all well and good except for the fact that one cannot fly with self inflating life vests :(. Luckily we met a boat that was for sale and attempting to sell off all their stuff. Rummaging through their various items we found three very basic self inflating vests that looked like new and snagged them so we would at least have something more comfortable to wear on deck if needed. Fortunately I didn't need it but I did have it on while out on deck during the small storm we went through. Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself...

Life vests we purchased

When we came home from the Bahamas I spent a couple nights reading and watching YouTube videos about the various merits of different life vest systems. There is a lot of information out there but the one that came up as number one or two over and over again was the SpinLock vest here. There are a few versions one can get but I decided when it came to safety and having the best chance of being found at night having the additional lights and releasable harness system was the way to go. According to the marketing the vests had two lights in them. One is inside of the part that inflates and the other is on a stick that pops up to blink adding additional visibility. While I could imagine how this might work unfortunately I have not seen any videos showing the lights in action. I also purchased a set of three point safety lines (also an ARC requirement) ensuring we can be well attached to the boat should we need to go forward on deck in bad weather. Additionally we will eventually add personal locater devices to each of our vests. Hopefully we will find them on sale at the boat show this year. Either way it was easier to spread the costs out a bit as these vests were not cheap.

Personal locator

As I started to mention earlier I had purchased these thinking we would take them back to the Bahamas with us only to find out we could not fly with them due to the CO2 cartridges. I supposed we could have pulled them out and simply planned to manually inflate the vests if needed but that would not due much good if one of us were knocked out or otherwise hurt. Luckily we stumbled across the other vests so we hopefully had something better than the basic orange vests for the return trip home.

While we were out there during my night shifts it really hit me how hard it would be to find someone that went overboard. In the past doing overnight trips on the Great Lakes we could generally see shore even if it was five miles off there was still a certain amount of ambient light. This was not the case in the ocean and with the much larger swells one would be lucky to just keep an eye on someone if they watched them go over but I'm guessing after the first or second swell they would be quickly out of sight. Once the crew could get folks on deck to get the sails down and the boat turned around it might be 5-20 minutes. I would guess the person would be out of sight then they would have to locate the person in the dark probably during bad conditions. I can't imagine the changes are great they would be found easily. With all that said I think I want to be well lighted and as easy to find as possible. Additionally I think the personal locator beacon may help as supposedly as soon as it hits the water it sends out a radio signal that will create an alert on any nearby chart plotters that someone is in the water and needs help. Additionally it will show roughly where they are. While not cheap it seems well worth the money if ever needed and I have seen videos of several folks trying them out showing how effective they are with the chart plotter alarms and integration.

After experiencing dark nights at sea I wanted to see if I had purchased what I hoped I had. Spinlock has what appears to be a number of part numbers and options one can get for their vests. I thought I got the one with all the lights but was not sure. I also wanted to see what it felt like when the vest inflated and how visible the lights would be while also having an idea what I might be looking for if one of us happened to fall overboard. Fortunately my sister in law has a pool and was up for letting me test it out one evening. I also got to test out our new dog's swimming abilities but that's the subject of a different post. The video here shows me testing what the vest looks like in the water and the neat thing is there is a dongle that hangs down so the vest knows when it's in the water. When I got out of the pool it immediately turned the lights out. Pretty impressive as I even jumped back in again to ensure they would turn back on and once again everything worked as it should. This quick video shows the vest in use with the spray hood up. The hood seemed to do what it should. I'm sure it will fog up with heavy breathing but it would defiantly help keep the waves and water out of your mouth making it easier to breathe should one fall off in bad weather.

Three point safety lines

Over all the vest felt like one of the orange vests above and easily kept me afloat in fresh water. It should work even better in salt water. When deployed it was snug around my neck. The strap between my legs was not uncomfortable and the lights appeared to do their job. Hopefully the harness system works as they say it does should I or another crew member not be able to get in the boat the crew could attach a line to the vest using a halliard and electric wench to pull the person out of the water. The only item I was not really impressed with was the included whistle. It took a bit to blow the water out of it and did not seem very loud while in the water but my wife and her sister claimed they could hear it clearly.

Next step learning to repack the vest, replacing the CO2 cartridge, and water deployment sensor. While not an inexpensive test to do I'm glad I tried it out. I now have trust in these fancy new life vests and just hope that it will still deploy correctly after I replace the spent items and get everything zipped back together. After trying it I'm guessing with the addition of a whistle and a light the basic orange vest would work just as well but time will tell if this one is more comfortable to wear during life at sea.

Home for a month

Max rock climbing

As I mentioned a few posts back buying a boat was not in our plans for this summer. Like most parents we have a seventeen year old kid with a full schedule which means we have a full schedule to support those plans. Once we landed it was time to shift gears and start getting ready for a week of Scout Camp. Fortunately we had got home on Friday which gave us Saturday to rest and prep to leave the next day on Sunday with several other leaders also transporting car loads of teenagers and a Troop trailer in tow. 

Max & I kayaking at Summit

Max has been a Scout since first grade when he joined as a Tiger and I've been a leader since second grade doing most of the various scouting positions along the way including running various STEM programs and Shooting Sports in our area. For us Scouts has allowed both of us to learn a lot and have a number of experiences I'm sure we would not have had following our everyday path. Last year he earned his Eagle Scout award and with moving to a new school at the same time which offered a much larger number of athletic programs and clubs he has found more interest in those activities (and girls) then Scouts. So I've begun to back out as well. Having been a leader for 11 years now, it's probably best to make room for new blood ensuring other parents get to have the same fun I did with their kids. With all of that said this would be our last summer camp before he ages out of scouts and we hoped to make it a good one. Our Troop decided to head to West Virginia this year to visit one of the bigger camps called Summit Bechtel Reserve.  The nice thing about this camp was they have a lot of high adventure activities most the other camps don't have. With no required merit badges to earn Max made the most of his time white water rafting, doing ropes courses, playing on zip-lines, rock climbing, mountain biking, and swimming.

Trap Team at Nationals

After a hot and exhausting week at summer camp it was time to switch gears once again. I am also the head coach for his high school trap team. Our team had qualified for Nationals. Fortunately Nationals is only about 3.5hrs away in Columbus, OH. We got back from camp on Sunday and had to be in Columbus on Monday morning for the teams first event. Luckily I have some good assistant coaches that were taking RV's up and did all of the meal planning and shopping for the team ensuring everyone would be well feed, rested, and hopefully hydrated for a weeks worth of shooting with the best kids in the country. Overall our team did pretty well. In Trap we placed 57th out of over 250 teams. In the other events the kids stayed in the top third of the pack. I was proud of their performance overall. We got lucky and had good weather for the days we were there. Some of the teams that were shooting later in the week were not so lucky getting held up by delays due to thunder storms.

Max and his cousin at Trine

We now had a week before or next planned summer activity which allowed for some time for a couple college visits. Max got to tour Trine and Central that week. I tried to fit in MSU but for some reason he wanted to be home and spend some time with his girl friend instead. So we both enjoyed some downtime at home. He still wants to visit a few more before making a decision and at this point really has no clue what he wants to do. For the moment he is thinking about being a Dr. or an engineer of some sort. Someone suggested biomedical engineering which has currently peeked his interest. Anyway we still hope to tour a few more schools he has not been to yet like Ferris, Western, Eastern and State.

Heading to Sandusky on the Tug

As if this month has not been packed enough we still had two more weeks in the month with more activities packed in. I don't think I've mentioned that I have the role of Cruising Fleet Captain for our local sailing club. Basically this means I'm responsible for setting up and organizing a number of events over the summer for our club to do by boat. Unfortunately I had already missed our clubs first two events while we moved the new boat to the Bahamas and then again while we were moving the boat to the Chesapeake. We had a week long cruise planned which was supposed to include a night on anchor (a rare event for our club) and visiting a few of the Lake Erie islands.

Dinner with the club on Middle Bass Island

The event went well and we enjoyed some time with friends we had not seen much this summer. Traditionally these events involve a little bit of sailing and a lot of eating, exploring and just hanging out. This summers was no different and we had a good turn out with 11 boats joining the group. Unfortunately our planned night on anchor got canceled due to weather so we headed to Put-in-Bay for a mooring ball one night, then headed over to Middle Bass for two nights. From there we visited downtown Sandusky where we got to see Annabelle (she is working at Cedar Point this summer as a lifeguard). Then went on to the city of Huron where the club stayed for two nights but we had to leave early to get back for our county fair. The club moved on without us to Kelly's Island and then everyone went their own ways with most heading back home. Everything with the boat was working well other then a exhaust leak I found right before we left. Luckily its easy to get to for a fix but is a pain in the rear to actually take everything apart to put a new gasket in as the leak is between the exhaust elbow and the turbo unit on the engine. We decided to ignore it for the week and deal with the mess later.

Max doing the Pack Goat competition at fair

We had to leave the summer cruise early to head back for barn setup and animal check in at our county fair. My wife and I have been 4H leaders for a number of years now and she was once again on the roster as the Goat Barn Leader for our 4H club. 4H is big in our area and was one of the bigger clubs at our kids previous school. Even though our kids don't go to the school anymore they both stayed active with the club and have shown goats for the last 8 years. If you have not experienced fair as a 4H member you will have an entirely different view of your county fairs. For the 4H kids fair is an opportunity to turn in the various projects they may have worked on during the year to have judged where prizes are given out and show/sell their animals. This is all a big commitment though the entire year with fair week being the peak. If kids are showing animals they are required to be there all week to take care of them ensuring the pens are clean every morning, during the day, and at night when the fair shuts down. Max is a Jr Superintendent which also means as one of the older kids he is responsible for the overall barn and ensuring the other kids are doing their chores and other fun things like early morning hay and straw pick ups, grand stand cleanups, turns working the cafeteria, and more. Fair is usually the first week of August and generally around the hottest time of the summer which always makes for a long exhausting but generally fun week. This year was no different. It was a long hot fun week hanging out with our 4H friends. Max is saying this may be his last year showing Shadow (his goat). I'm not sure if its because we packed to much stuff in this summer or if he is really ready to move on to something else but is a reminder that the kid is growing up and things are changing around our house.

One year of retirement

A couple days ago I hit a big milestone. At the moment I wondered why I was not celebrating it like a birthday or other major life event. Unfortunately celebrating something like that feels odd as most of folks I meet cock their heads and look at me weird when they hear I don't have a job or a business anymore. On August 1 of 2024 I officially left my job with a company I had been with for 28 years. 

When I left it was a scary moment. I had all of our expenses tracked down to how much toothpaste cost us per year and decided I had to trust the math. It all added up saying we should be able to do this thing. I had even taken a year's leave of absence when we did the Great Loop a couple years prior partly to test our spending plans ensuring they actually worked as we thought they should. To say it was scary would be an understatement.

I'm happy to report I've really enjoyed this year and have no regrets leaving when I did. Even though I had been reading and watching YouTube videos on the subject for the last few years on what to expect and how to be "successful" in retirement. I almost found myself falling into the working one more year category but thankfully got a buyout offer at the right time. 

I will say there were a few surprises. I really thought I would have more time to do things I wanted to do. I had a list of items to address around the house, I thought I would work on our landscaping, I thought I would get into a workout routine, I thought I would play more video games. At this point looking back I can safely say that I have not got many projects done around the house. Much to my wife's concern the fan in the sunroom still does not work, the old water pump from the Tug still has not been rebuilt, and a long list of other items are still being neglected. The landscaping around our home looks worse then ever, I did start walking about an hour every day with the dogs but would not call that a workout. Unfortunately I have also played less video games this year.

What I did learn is that I now have the time to say yes anytime my kids want to do something with me. While I did spend a lot of time with my kids while they were growing up it didn't really hit home until my daughter moved out two years ago for college that I would not be getting that same kind of time with them again. So I have really been trying to make the most of my limited time left with our son at home. I have learned to slow down and appreciate the little things more. When we go places I like to think I'm walking a little slower taking everything in rather than being focused on rushing to the next thing. I've also started talking with people more. Historically I was not good at making time to get to know new people. As I'm starting to slow down and creating new routines I'm also taking the time to make more then just passing acquaintance type relationships with a number of new people.

It's been a fun year and it's gone by fast. With that said I'm really looking forward to what's next. This year will be my son's senior year. After that he will be off to college and hopefully soon after that we will get to start our sailing adventure around the world.

We found a home for the boat

Our boats new home for the next year

Being fairly late in the season and not knowing much about the Chesapeake Bay Area (turns out its about the size of Lake Erie but probably a bit bigger shorline wise due to all the various rivers and fingers in the area) we pretty much took the first marina that sounded good not paying much attention to location or details.

When we called the owner had told us he had just put in new docks designed for big catamarans and was planning to start focusing his business on catamarans. Turns out we were his fifth one. Three were on the hard for the remainder of the season while the owners went home and one was for sale as the owners wife was done with it. There was one other in the water but the owners were not around. The docks were nice. He was still working on getting power out to the docks and lighting was coming soon as well. Soon in this case might be November(note we came in towards the end of June). It did not appear to be the busiest place but one could see it had been an active but smaller boat yard at one time. The marina was in a quiet and seemingly well protected area from wind/storms towards the end of a creek.

The owner a fellow probably in his late 70's was on the dock to greet us and help with lines as we came in. He provided suggestions for timing up and offered to give us a tour of town and ensure we got a rental car.. neither of which we had been planning for. Our first stop was his main office in Oxford at a different marina he owned. When we first talked to him he suggested we stay at that marina but after finding it on google maps it appeared that he only had one dock at would fit our boat while allowing his other dock holders to actually get out of their docks and it sounded like maybe he already had some transient boats planning to come in during the month of July. So we opted for his working boat yard with the new docks. One of the downsides as we would find out later was that the yard in Trappe did not really have working bathrooms/showers for dock holders. They are in the process of being remodeled. If I had to guess this may not happen anytime soon? Anyway the Oxford location did have showers which we promptly took advantage of. While waiting for my turn at a shower I had a chance to get to know our new friend. Turns out he bought the marina we were staying in to build boats back in the 80's and he did so until the last recession when the boat market crashed and it was not viable to create them anymore. He had also been a Grand Banks dealer and service center at one point before they went bankrupt. He was still actively servicing a number of his customers but as those boats got older and changed hands that business was shrinking so he recently decided to pivot his business into one focused on catamarans. His goal was to establish a service center first then become a dealer for a brand of power cats I had not heard of. The display model he had looked nice. He's an engineer at heart with an entrepreneur's spirt that loves sailing and overall a very sharp and interesting fellow.

Once we were all showered he drove us down through his home town of Oxford (think a one stop light town) which is quite cute. It has a restaurant or two, a yacht club, bowling ally, his marina, and a hotel. From there he took us to the next town over in hopes of getting us a rental car so we might get to an airport to fly home. This process took us about 3hrs as the first location did not have any cars available and of course we did not know we were even doing this so had not made reservations ahead of time. Eventually we were successful at getting a car at a very small regional airport, found some lunch, and headed back to the yard.

Once back at the yard we signed a contract and paid to keep our boat at his facility until November with plans to store the boat there for winter. Turns out he just purchased a travel lift that can pull out boats up to 33ft wide. Seems this is a unique thing in the bay area so it appears he may keep our business for more than just the one season. Being a true entrepreneur he tried to drum up some service work from us but I felt I could manage the current list of items and had a fair amount done a couple weeks ago while at Xquisite. The only thing left on my list was the generator which he could not tackle but knew someone that could so it seems I have a good contact to start with. 

Now that all the business was settled, we were feed, we had a loose exit plan, we could all feel the exhaustion settling in so back to the air conditioned boat we went for naps. 

By this point we had worked our available timeline to within one day. It was time to find some flights home as I was due back to take our Scout Troop to West Virginia in two days. While Max and I rinsed the boat down Amy found some flights home and we were off to celebrate our first two successful overnight trips on a new boat with some ice cream. The next day we packed up, put stuff away, and headed out. Time will tell if we picked a good spot or not.

The adventure continues

 After recharging in Southport for a couple of nights it seemed that we had a decent weather window to make it all the way to the Chesapeake Bay. Based on the weather forecast we would have some wind the first day then get stuck motoring for a day then the wind would return on our third day out.

Unfortunately we ended up motor sailing the entire way. We did not get much wind at all and the trip ended up taking us 4 days to get to Trappe, MD. The waters were calm and it was hot... Turned out it was the hottest 4 days of the year. It was so hot we really didn't want to do much so we each took our turns on watch and enjoyed the water. 

We did get a little visitor that decided to hang out with us most of the first day. He was a cute tiny little bird with a yellow breast. You can see Max walking him out of the boat on the top of the VHF antenna. We had to do this a few times as he was determined to check out our salon & cabins. We got some other visitors the next day in the form of dolphins. Dalphins happen to be one of Amy's favorite critters to see in the water and she is determined that if she calls them and waves her hands just so they will come to visit. I just happened to be reminding her that she had not seen any that day when she decided to call some over. Seems like they were just waiting for her call. As soon as she held her hands up and called, one popped its head up and started swimming towards our boat bringing its friends with him. They entertained us hanging out for about 5 minutes and then moved on presumably to entertain another crew somewhere or find some lunch.

Our new friend perched on top of the anntenna

As we worked our way up the coast I was surprised how many big cargo ships we passed. Some were anchored others were just drifting waiting for their pilot boats to come get them and bring them into port. Usually once we got within about 5-10 miles of them they would make contact providing their status and which side they wanted us to pass them on or which side they planned to pass us occasionally. This proved to be our primary entertainment for this passage.

As we worked our way up the coast we were also running closer to shore still trying to keep the boat in the Gulf Stream. Off shore Starlink had been working great. Before leaving the Bahamas I signed up for the offshore plan that provided 50GB of data. The first day we somehow managed to use 20GB after that we limited the Instagram & Facebook scrolling. I'm guessing the video bits that go with that really chew up the data. Now we were limiting our data to download mainly audio books, weather updates, post trip updates to family and some other basic stuff. Once we came in closer to the Outer Banks of NC our cell phone data plans started working again and we could all start getting our social media fixes once again.

Hatteras Lighthouse

Once we made it to the mouth of the Chesapeake we checked in with the owner of the marina we were heading to ensuring he knew we were really coming and when to expect us. We realized that it was going to take us about 12hrs to get there from the mouth of the bay mostly working against the tide so we made the decision to slow the boat down to ensure a early morning arrival vs getting in at 2 or 3am in a place we were unfamiliar with.  We were all a bit disappointed that we would be out one more night without ice cream and AC but the weather was good and it's always nice to just be out on the water even it meant motor sailing though another hot & humid night.

Southport, NC

What we thought would be a three and a half day trip turned into a four nights at sea with one minor storm. Overall it was a pretty good start to our sailing adventure on the new boat. Southport provided a nice marina with a long easy fuel dock for us to tie up to. We shared the dock with a couple other large cats and a 90 & 120ft power boats. We were tied up by 4:50pm. This is when I remembered that we need to check back into the US. Unfortunately it seems that customs now only works business hours and we were too late to get cleared in for the night leaving us stuck on the boat until about 8:15am when someone somewhere would come into work to approve our entry to the US via the app.

This was the night that we discovered that one of our water tank gauges was off. It had been reading 75% but never went down. I had thought the water maker was in an automatic mode and keeping it topped off. Turns out our water maker was not running correctly and the crew had just been clicking ok on the error code it displayed each time it attempted to run. Luckily before we left the Bahamas I had insisted we fill up our water tanks before we left. Otherwise we might have been a bit thirsty and no one would have been getting showers underway. Turns out our pre filters were clogged up and needed replacement. Once we got those swapped out the water maker worked like a champ for rest of our journey. Luckily we had a second set of tanks that were full and we were all able to still take showers on the boat that night. Just maybe not as long as we had hoped for :).

After being cleared in that morning we headed out to explore town a bit. We had passed by Southport when doing our Great Loop trip unfortunately missing one of the more active AGLCA members houses that have a standing invite for all loopers to come visit their font porch. I was a bit sad the first time we came through to miss it and really wanted to ensure we could stop by to say hi this time. As luck would have it they stopped by the marina to find us. We chatted for a bit, learned that their front porch had been made even more famous by a recent Netflix series called The Waterfront. Seems the show had even gone as far as renting their house to film there making their front porch truly famous. We stopped by for a visit getting some good suggestions on what to see & eat while in town for a couple nights.

After some good guidance we headed to the recommend open air bar ordering some really good cheeseburgers. Turns out this sign was needed as a few of the birds were pretty aggressive about their desire to share my french fries. The guy beside me actually punched one of the birds which seemed to intimidate the rest of them from trying for the remaining time it took to consume our meals. Afterwards we found the nearby ice cream shop and thoroughly enjoyed our Sundays nearly putting us all into food commas.

Coming into Southport we really had no plans for a next stop. We had talked about parking the boat somewhere in the outer banks for a month where it would be much cheaper then Charleston until we could get back to moving it to the Chesapeake Bay Area. We thought the bay might be a good place to leave it for the season. Making for a 7-8hr drive to use the boat vs 12+hr drive to North Carolina. But not knowing what the weather would do we did not want to make marina reservations we might have to cancel later possibly losing at least a deposit or more. The Southport area might have accommodated us for a month but we still had a full week of time available before we needed to get back home so we needed to make some plans to keep moving.

Looking at the weather it appeared we would have several good weather days. Unfortunately good in this case meant good traveling days but not good sailing days. After our most recent minor storm experience we were ok with little to no wind and some motor sailing. Looking at the chart it seemed like in about 3 days we could be in the Chesapeake. We started calling marinas looking for a long term home. Turns out this is not a great thing to be doing on a Sunday. Monday rolled around and we got confirmations from several of the bigger well known locations that they did not want to keep a boat our size for the rest of the season as it would block their ability to take in better paying transient boats. Luckily the same marinas that turned us away were also familiar with other marinas that were in the rebuilding stages thus less popular and able to accommodate us. It seemed we had two choices. One looked really empty as the dock manager took us out to the dock he was proposing via FaceTime and a bit challenging for us to get on and off our boat at. The next one sounded promising but they didn't have any pictures to share. However they offered to let us stay a couple nights to see if it was a fit. We now had a goal.

We went back to visit our friends & their famous porch again and they offered up a car allowing us to go shopping for provisions. At this point we were pretty low and frankly were hungry. By the time we left Walmart we were reminded that it's truly a bad idea to shop hungry. I think we filled an entire cart with food that only needed to feed us for the next 5-6 days. So after two nights in Southport we now had a new destination, a boat well stocked with food, and a good weather window to continue on. We truly enjoyed our time in Southport. We found some great food, it was nice to connect with folks that we meet a couple of times at the Great Loop conferences and we were now ready for the next leg of the trip.

Adventure time

 Our weather window was now and it was time to leave. Which is always when that one more thing comes up. I had just fired up the various electronics and noticed that our depth sounder was not working. Sometimes this would happen on our Tug I would turn everything off and try again and it usually came back on. Unfortunately that trick did not work this time. The question then became how big of a deal is a depth sounder for where we wanted to take the boat. We were at a facility that had knowledgeable folks and a haul out if we needed it. After looking at our charts one more time and scratching my head a bit we decided to go. Unfortunately the channel into the Xquisite center was in the process of being dredged so we only had a two hour window to get out on this tide so if we messed with the problem to long we would miss our window to leave and maybe our weather window. We decided that after we got out of the channel we would not have to worry much about water depth until we came in to the next port or wanted to anchor. On the chart it appeared we would have 20 feet or more under the boat coming into Southport the biggest problem might be if we changed our route and needed to spend a night on anchor somewhere and maybe I might find the problem while underway and get it going again. We untied the boat and headed out for what would be our longest passage to date.

Max up the mast untangling things

It was a fine day to be leaving we had wind pushing us in the right direction at about 15mph. Perfect champagne sailing conditions.  Better yet this was predicted for the next 5 days which should make for a great trip north. Our sailing instructor was leaving the in the channel just ahead of us in another boat training yet another set of new owners. We hoped to make him proud showing off our basic skills as we headed off on this adventure! This is where humility sets in. I let the head sail out first then decided I would attempt to raise the main. Yes that's the wrong order and it's dumb to have a big head sail out while one is pointing into the wind and wave trying to raise the main sail. This was then compounded by some additional frustration as the dumb thing did not want to go up. Yes unfortunately my fragile male ego was endanger and after a few attempts we were not making much progress so in an attempt to save face we put the boat back into the wind and sailed until we were out of sight with just the head sail. 

As we came around the island I found some calmer waters out of sight of our friendly instructor, and attempted the big main sail again this time pulling in the Genoa. Turned out we had forgotten about opening two of the 5 clutches used for reefing. We have 3 clutches in the cockpit and two more on the boom (one on each side). Additionally it also seemed that we had the main halliard crossing into our Lazy Jack system which was also limiting our ability to raise the sail past a certain point. Unfortunately we managed to tangle this up sufficiently enough that someone needed to go halfway up the mast to do some untangling. Have I mentioned how nice it is to have an eager teenager that actually wanted to go up the mast while we were rolling around out in the open ocean. Max volunteered to go up and sort out our problems. Once these issues were sorted we had much better luck getting the darn sail up and then turned to boat back into the wind.

So now we were officially underway! Rest of the evening went pretty well. We decided to put a reef in the main and a reef in the Genoa even though the weather forecast predicted 15mph winds with the occasional gust to 20 during the night. Speeds our sails should be able to easily handle without the reef but it was a new boat and we were erroring on the side of safety. I won't lie the first night was a bit ery. It was full of new sounds and not really knowing what to expect from a "new" boat but we managed it ok.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it yet or not but before we left we also found out that our generator was not working. It seemed the engine was running fine and it produced power but that power was not being sent to the batteries for some reason? This ment we would be fully reliant on our solar and wind generators to produce all the power we would need along the way... Again it's a new boat and we had no idea how much power anything used. So we turned off extras where we could and experimented with running stuff we prioritized like the icemaker, Starlink, charging cell phones, iPads, and microwave use. Turns out running these systems along with our other power hungry stuff like radar, electric winches, auto pilots and what not would use about 40% of our battery bank most nights. During the day our solar would get the two banks back up to about 80%. When this happened turned out to be interesting as half of our solar is on the starboard side of the boat and half is on the stern. Turns out the stern gets a lot of sunlight all of the time vs the starboard side that was in the shade much of the time when were had the sails out on that side of the boat. So depending on our wind angle our batteries might be recharged by 2pm or 9pm. Turned out we had 4 mostly sun filled days heading to Southport and we were generally back up to 80% of power or more by 9pm when the sun started to go away. During the day our panels were pretty good about generating 60-70 amps of power along the way and the battery system/inverter kept up with all of our needs even supporting the hot water heater occasionally.

By the third day we had all mostly settled into a routine. During the day we took turns when awake at watch. I would take the 9pm - 2am shift. Max would take 2am-7am and Amy would take the 6/7am to whenever I showed up again shift. Most nights we reefed the main sail to the first reef but we were now leaving the headsail out and pretty comfortably sailing 6-10 knots in the jet stream. On our last night we had seen some small storm predictions and I was hoping that if we slowed the boat down a bit we might avoid it. Unfortunately we still found the storm. Luckily we were able to sail through the smallest part but we still saw winds up to 35kts and the waves creeped up to the occasional 15ft range. As we sailed into it we had put our 2nd reef in the main sail and pulled in the Genoa replacing that with our storm jib. As the wind continued to build I got nervous and dropped the main completely and we sailed for about an hour under just the storm jib making 8kts. Unfortunately after the rain and high winds passed it was still dark we were still in pretty large seas and while we could easily pull out the head sail I was less inclined to turn the boat into the wind to raise the main again leaving us traveling at about 4kts. This slowed us down quite a bit. Eventually the sun came up and the adrenaline from the past night went away and by about noon the sea had calmed back down allowing us to sail into the Cape Fear inlet and into Southport. We had survived our first minor storm at sea and were all looking forward to some time on land.

Back to the boat

While we were away the Xquisite Service Manager did a great job keeping us up to date on the progress of the various items we had left for him to address. I think he was able to get to all but one thing addressed that was sort of a wish list item anyway... The boat needed new bottom paint and I was hoping that that they might be able to strip the old stuff off and apply Copper Coat. Unfortunately they did not have time to take that item on... Oh well maybe we can find a yard to do it this winter when we haul the boat. Unfortunately he also identified another item he did not have time to fix as the item would need to be sent over to Fort Lauderdale for repairs. It seemed our generator was not passing power to our batteries and would not provide AC to the boat. This would mean we would have to rely on our wind and solar to power everything we needed while underway. What this meant we really didn't know as we did not get a hand off from the previous owner so really had no clue if the wind and solar could keep up with all the systems on the boat? Guess we will learn soon enough :)

So now that our engines had all new fluids in them, the sail drives had got new seals, our dive compressor was working as well as a bunch of other little items we were hopefully ready to bring the boat back to the US. Our insurance company told us we needed to have the boat north of Cumberland Island, SC before July 1. So that was our mission. I had been watching the weather and it seems like we should have a good weather window for 3-5 days of sailing North West. We were originally thinking of challenging ourselves a bit with our first long passage and going straight to Charleston, SC. This would take us about three days and would be the longest continuous trip we have ever done. It seemed like a big inlet with several large marinas that could accommodate our boat. Unfortunately there were three things we were not very excited about 1. The large tide swings of about 6ft they have while being on a fixed dock. 2. The traffic 3. Turns out it's expensive to stay there and it seemed availability might be an issue if we got stuck there over the 4th of July due to weather or something else. Note we needed to leave the boat somewhere for the month of July most of which we needed to be back home for. So we decided to get even more ambitious and take the boat into the Cape Fear inlet to visit Southport, NC. This trip would take us 4 days and the marina was about 1/3 of the cost. We consulted with Travis our training captain. He confirmed it was a good plan and we had a good weather window.

Next step.. Provisioning... Buying anything in the Bahamas is expensive. We had not purchased much to bring the boat over and much of the food we had was given away before we left the boat for three weeks. The question became what do we really need, what can we cook in our one skillet, and what can we fit in our backpacks to get from the closest store. Luckily Xquisite has some bikes we could borrow which extended our range a bit. We picked up some basics like lunch meat, bread, pasta, some fruit, and even attempted some ice cream bars figuring we only needed to have enough for a week or so should something go wrong or take longer then expected. After a couple of bike rides to the store we were all stocked up and ready. I was even able to get a couple of packs of Goombay Punch and some local rum :)

Before we left I really wanted to get our dinghy working. When we did the survey it was noted the steering was frozen up. When we purchased the boat I had tried playing with the steering cable a bit to lubricate it and validate it was really the problem. The captain that we had in Fort Lauderdale attempted to play with it a bit and ended up breaking the cable so I spent half a day driving around Fort Lauderdale trying to get my hands on what appeared to be the only one in stock in the area. Prior to leaving the boat at the Xquisite center I had started the process of replacing it but didn't have a wire brush or anything to really clean out the channel it goes in within the outboard. So now that we were back I had brought the wire brush I use to clean my shotguns. It worked pretty well now the trick seemed to be how to run the cable under the floor of the dinghy and up to the console. After a full day of all three of us attempting various methods we finally figured it out and got the dumb thing working. Long story short as nice as this dinghy is and as clean as it looks.. it is a PIA to work on. I don't think I would buy the sport version given my experience so far. Not to mention it's really too heavy for the boat. But I'm sure it will be fun to run around with! It was almost dark but Max and I felt like we needed to take it out for a test run. Everything ran great, the lights work, the boat is fast, and seems to have a lot of torque which should allow us to pull a tube or maybe even a wake boarder. I am looking forward to using this boat quite a bit one day but for now we had a working dingy should we not find a dock and need to anchor which would allow us to get into shore somewhere.

When arriving in the Bahamas we only had a window of 12 days to get the boat to a place we could leave it for the month of July and that place needed to be north of Cumberland Island. We really had no idea what kind of weather window we might get or where we might end up or if we would have the confidence to be at sea for multiple nights. One possibility was to simply sail back to Florida and do day sails up the coast hoping we would make it out of the hurricane zone. After spending two days at the Xquisite center it seemed we had our weather window, we had a plan to go straight to Southport, and planned to leave at high tide the next day.