Senior Prom Already

I can't believe last weekend was Max's senior prom. He and his girl friend Sofia decided they wanted to do pictures at a local florist that usually has some amazing grounds set up for folks to use for just this kind of occasion. Unfortunately it seems prom is a bit early this year and there were no flowers in the ground yet so we tried to make the best of it. Below are a couple of the pictures I liked.

It's crazy to think in only one more month I'll officially have two high school graduates. A few months after that and we will be empty nesters with two kids in college! It's crazy how fast this school year has gone by.

Found winter storage on Lake Michigan!

I've been looking for a place that can pull a catamaran our size for no less than two years now. At one point we were going to put an offer in on a different boat and I spent all of two days calling every marina on the Great Lakes I could find about the possibility of hauling out a 50ft boat that is 26ft wide. Seems the 26ft thing is the real problem. Most of the boat wells are about 14ft wide, some are 18-20ft, and I even found one or two that were 24ft wide. The other option is to use a craine which we were quoted a price of 10k a day. So 20k just to haul out then go back in. Who knows if they have any clue on how to handle a catamaran without damaging it as these guys are just contractors that pick large things up for a living mainly around construction sites.

Last year at a boat show around Sandusky I found a yard in Cleveland that said they could do it. I called them several times this spring playing phone tag with them but never getting an answer so I decided to make the 3hr drive over there. Once there they seemed confused that I was looking for winter storage when everyone else is looking to get their boats in the water right now. After explaining that I did not want to do a 3000 mile trip bringing my boat back to the Great Lakes without a place to haul it they finally decided to chat with me about specifics. Seems our boat is too heavy for their craine so it was back to the drawing board. As usual I asked if they might have any suggestions and what they gave me I had already called or they could not do it.

Two years ago when I was looking I had found a yard somewhere on Lake Michigan that thought they might be able to do it but getting the boat in the well would be a tight fit. By this point I had forgotten the name of the place but after chasing down just about every marina on Lake Erie and Lake Huron this spring I was starting to think about them again.  Then I found this picture posted on the Great Loop site. If you look in the background one can see another boat exactly like mine sitting on the hard. Seems I've found a winner! I reached out to the poster and found out it's at Safe Harbor Grand Isle in Grand Haven. This will still be 3hrs away from us but much closer than MD. I'm excited that I've got this key hurdle to our trip planning taken care of. Of course right now I'm just assuming they will take me but I'm pretty sure if they can pull it they will have a spot for it to sit all winter. Then there is also the additional 600 miles or so we will have to travel with the boat to get it from Lake Erie to Lake Michigan where this marina is located during a time of the season with more limited weather windows but that's a problem for a different day :).

Planning to bring the catamaran back to the Great Lakes

When we purchased the cat we knew we were buying a year too early. But at the time it seemed like a good price and it might be nice to have the boat a little longer to get to know it better. We did sail/travel about 1400 nautical miles with it last year but I don't really feel like we used it much or got to know it other then over the few days we traveled from the Bahamas to the Chesapeake Bay and then winterizing it last year. Much of which I've probably forgotten since. Note the jury is still out on how the winterization went.. We will find out next month when it goes in the water.

As we talked about how we wanted to use the boat this year we seem to have narrowed it down to two options: 1. Bring the boat back to the Great Lakes or 2. Leave it in the Chesapeake for the summer using it maybe a couple weeks and a long weekend or two then take it back to the Bahamas for the winter where we may hopefully make time to use it a week or two a month. Oddly enough option 2 is Amy's least favorite option as winter is her skating season and she really does not have much time to go jetting off to the Bahamas which would mean I would be down there by myself trying to recruit our retired friends to come hang out with me on the boat. So we decided option one is probably the best and started researching how long the trip really is and what that might look like with a large catamaran.

The scale of the distance bar on the map is a bit off

Our plan is to bring it up along the East Coast of the US and though/around Canada bringing it into the Lakes via the St Lawrence. There are two reasons we are selecting this route. 1. It's a trip we want to do and hoped to do with the tug. 2. We won't have to take the mast down or worry about bridge clearances. When I called a couple places along the Hudson River they said they did not have the capability to take a mast our size down mainly due to the beam of the boat and how far their cranes can safely reach out. The other problem is even if we get it down I'm guessing we would still be somewhere around 16-17 feet high with the mast somehow laying across the roof of the boat which would rule out our ability to navigate the length of the Erie Canal. We might have been able to ship the mast but that idea did not appeal to us as we would still have to find someone to put it back up. From what we can tell we think the trip from the Chesapeake to a dock in Lake Erie will be in the range of 3000 miles. Some of the books recommended planning for 45 travel days and suggested it as minimally a 90 day trip ensuring time to see some sights and wait out various weather events. Unfortunately we have a senior in high school graduating this year and he is not really thrilled about the idea of being away from his girl friend and missing all the graduation parties this summer while traveling on the boat with his parents. So what do we do?

We think we have the semblance of a plan. We will hopefully have the boat in the water in June and mostly ready to travel. We plan to do a week or so trip with Max in early June over to Mt Vernon to visit George Washington's old stomping grounds as a shake down cruise. Max has plans in mid June at which time we hope to move the boat up to New York where it will sit for the next month or so as my/Max's trap team will compete at the State event and then Nationals a couple of weeks later. Once this event is over we may move the boat again up to Maine or the Halifax area. Once there we may leave the boat for another 2-3 weeks to allow Max to enjoy the last of his summer at home before he heads off to college. Once we drop him off at school we will then head back to the boat at the end of August and start looking for weather windows that will allow us to bring it rest of the way around to the St. Lawrence. Once we get it there it should be fairly straightforward to get back to Lake Erie. Unfortunately this will not be the kind of trip allowing us to smell many roses along the way but hopefully we can do a slower more enjoyable version of the trip on the way out of the Great Lakes next year when its time to move the boat down to St. Lucia for the start of our circumnavigation in 2028.

I think it will be a fun trip, I hope we get to see some whales along the way, I'm sure it will help us get to know how to sail the boat better, but I'm sad that we will have to skip some things along the way and we will probably have to dash the hopes of visiting Newfoundland this time. But hopefully we can make time to do that stuff next year when we bring the boat back out.

For now I'm off to try and secure a winter storage location at a place that can actually pull a boat with a 26ft beam out of the water in the Great Lakes. I've got a couple leads but so far no one has actually committed to the project.

Time to earn my Captains License

I'm not sure where this goal came from.. I suspect the goal to get both a Pilots and Captains License may have come after reading Jimmy Buffets book a Pirate Looks at 50 many years ago. A Facebook add popped up one day for Captains training class near by and it seemed like the right time. So I decided to take advantage of it. Honestly I really had no idea what I was getting into, what the extent of it would be, or what I might do with it once I got it. I just knew I wanted it. Not to mention I figured a little more knowledge never hurt anyone and it might be fun to do some boat deliveries one day should I get the opportunity. Just to ensure I was not alone in this endeavor I talked Max into joining me on this adventure which really did not take much convincing.

We both signed up for the OUPV class. Which provides the bearer of the license the ability to take no more than six paying customers out for boat trips fishing, diving, sight seeing, or whatever. This is the first level of many it seems but it is the basic starting point should one wish for a paid life at sea. Turns out one needs to be 18 to get a license however Max could take the class and the tests then wait to apply for the license when he turns 18 in a couple months. 

The class entails teaching you over a period of 60 hours how to "successfully" take the four tests required for this license. Additionally they offer to help review your paperwork for submission once you have past the tests and have all the other required items in hand.. More on that later. The four tests required are 

• Rules of the Road
• Navigation General
• Chart Navigation
• Deck General/Safety

The class was taught over a period of ten consecutive days and required two full weekends. There were no excused absences, if you missed you were not allowed to sit for the exams. It was a commitment. Most the classroom time was spent on learning the rules of the road which seemed to come down to memorization. Then there was chart plotting. Surprisingly chart plotting was quite a challenge for me. Mainly because I'm not a very exacting or detailed orientated person. Turns out you need to be pretty precise with those sliders and compass rose when determining coordinates, drift, and routes. Frankly after going though it I'm not really sure how relevant it is in todays age where everything is electronic, we have multiple back ups, and charts are hardly carried in stores anymore. But we had to show proficiency with it none the less. I suppose knowing that I still remember how to use a chart, can plot a course, look in the coastal guides & or piloting guides for a white light flashing four times as I come into a channel may give me some additional confidence while I'm out there. But I would still feel better if I had some working knowledge of celestial naviagation or something slightly more useful for determining where I am should I loose all the electronics while out of sight of land.

After completing our classroom time they suggest studying for a week or so at home before taking the tests. All four tests are available though the school and done online. The tests all have to be taken at the same time. They did give us a 10 minute break between tests. One has to have a laptop with a video camera attached ensuring the proctors see a 360 degree view of the room you're in before starting the test and then watching you while you take them. If you step out of view of the camera during testing it's an automatic failure. This does not sound like a big deal when taking a multiple choice test however when doing the charting test where you end up with a full size chart rolled out on the dining room table looking for points on the map then charting angles, approaches, and what nots its a bit more intimidating. At one point I simply crawled up kneeling on the table while drawing lines and looking for bouy's to ensure I did not step out of view of the camera.

Prior to ending the training our instructor informed us that only about 70% of the class would actually complete/pass the tests to successfully become licensed captains. I'm proud to say both Max and I successfully completed it and Max was their youngest ever to take the class and additionally passed everything the first time. 

So now with the hard work done of passing the knowledge based tests we now both have to get physicals where they test hearing and vision. We both needed current First Aid/CPR certificates. Once that is complete we need to apply for TWIC cards which is a government background check ensuring we are not terrorists I suppose then follow that activity up with a drug test. Once we have positive results from all of those in hand we can then submit our application for the license along with our documented time at sea.

Turns out all this is quite expensive. First there is the cost of the class in our case about $1200 each, then the cost of taking the exams another $100 each. Then the costs of a physical, drug testing (if you're actually a working captain then you need to join a drug consortium where they test you regularly. I think this is about $200 a year), then the background check $135. Additionally we needed valid First Aid/CPR certificates which we had but they were not USCG approved which meant we got to pay $125 each to take an approved first aid class. Finally there is then the cost for submitting all of this for the license which is around another $150. Seems we will be in this for around 2K each once it's all said and done.

At this point I have the completed testing certificate in hand, a USCG approved First Aid/CPR certification, and my physical completed. I still need to complete the drug testing and background check then I should be able to apply for the license. I've been dragging my feet on those last two waiting for Max to turn 18 so we can do both the last two at the same time. Not to mention with the government shutdown we've been told the application process is quite slow right now. So hopefully that gets cleared up sometime soon.

I'll be sure to post here to brag a bit when it's finally official! Guessing sometime this summer.

Its time to sell the tug

Some people say the best two days of boat ownership are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. I disagree. I have generally enjoyed all of our boats. It's weird to say but I think you have to love them like a family member in that some days they really frustrate you and some days they provide an absolutely blissful experience. Not to mention they are a bit like your kids in that both are always needing more money and attention. The other side of that you have to put a lot of your trust into them that they will take care of you along the way ensuring you arrive at the destination safely.

When we bought the tug we originally planned to do the Great Loop in it and sell it when we were done moving back to the sailboat. About the time we were coming back from the Bahamas we realized how little many of the boats down there actually sailed, we were running out of time and would have to skip the Canadian canals, and that we really liked doing the rivers. We also knew we wanted to do the Down East Loop and maybe even the Inside Passage to Alaska with it one summer which would not be ideal in a sailboat. So we decided to put our sailboat that was in storage up for sale and keep the tug. For better or worse the sailboat sold really quick which made things easy. Unfortunately over the last three summers we have not made the time to use the tug as much as we would have liked as it seems that all our kids activities have kept us pretty busy only allowing us to put around 75-100hrs of engine time a year on it.

I have been fascinated with circumnavigation since I was a kid. But it never seemed possible or something that I might be able to do until I found the world of YouTube sailors maybe ten-twelve years ago. Once I saw them doing it and found groups like the Oyster Around the World Rally and the World Arc I knew it was something I really wanted to do. It took a bit of talking but I got Amy to agree to the idea of trying to do it one day. Now that both of my parents have died and my kids are almost out of the house I realized there are not that many more one days so we sat down and put a date on when we wanted to leave. The key was to balance our youth/health, my in-laws health/needs, our kids needs/weddings/grand kids, and the time/money equation. As you can imagine there are a lot of conflicting priorities there but January of 2028 is what we came up with for a date we wanted to leave for that trip. This is basically a long way of saying while we still want to do all of the adventures we planned with the tug. However, we feel like many of those can be done between or while balancing the other life events and maybe its best to do the circumnavigation now and then come back to those smaller adventures closer to home later.

With all of that said I officially signed with a broker today to sell the tug and start focusing our time on learning the sailboat we bought last year for the circumnavigation. I'll miss the tug. It's been a very reliable, easy, and a comfortable boat for us. I hope we can find as nice of a boat once again when it's time to sell the sailboat and buy the boat for the next adventure.

The Neglicted Blog

Seems my biggest theme for this blog is neglect, unfortunately not boating, photography, or some fun adventure. I honestly opened this up to sit down to write a monthly update post when I noticed I had not done a monthly update in the last four months. In my head they were happening. I'm not sure how that got away from me? 

So where do I start?

Seems I last talked about photography so I'll start there. I've been neglecting my photography goal (imagine that) of getting out taking pictures then actually looking at them to pick a few to post each week. For anyone that knows me since closing the photography studio about 20yrs ago I have not used a camera much and worse yet when I do, I don't take the next step to actually look at the fruits of my efforts. This year I wanted to challenge myself to do more. I started out strong on that mission over here but fell off after about week seven. Hopefully with spring emerging I can get myself motivated to get out more with the camera and back to actively posting. Oddly it seems maintaining hobbies is just as hard in retirement as during one's working years. There always seems to be other stuff that needs to be done first... or maybe I just have too many interests? Either way for a brief moment I'm actually feeling caught up and like there may actually be some time to do something I want to vs what I have to. I'm off to find some pictures to post then maybe tonight I'll get back to that giant lego set I got as a birthday present that's been sitting half done for a while now :)

Dusting off my 85 1.2

Yesterday I took the 135mm lens I borrowed out for a walk with the dogs today I took the 85 out at about the same time of day. Unfortunately the light was not as nice but the goal was to see how the two compared when attempting to shoot about the same subject.

This is going to be a tough choice. The 85 reminded me how sharp it is and while a bit heavier and slightly bigger I'm not sure there is a huge difference between the two lenses other than focal length. The only difference is that all of these images were shot at an aperture of 1.2 vs the 1.8 of the 135 lens. I guess I should have tried using it at 1.8 to judge the focus fall off as having shot at 1.2 at first look clearly drops off much quicker.

I think next I'm going to shoot some indoor subjects that don't move in an attempt to directly compare the two. At the moment I'm leaning toward the 135 but really want to convince myself it's based on the merits vs a shinny new toy.

Photographing a couple of my favorite subjects today

On my way back from a coaches meeting in Lansing today I stopped by the local camera store and they were kind enough to lend me a lens I've been lusting over for a couple years now. When I bought this latest camera I convinced myself that I would have a lot of fun with the 85 1.2 as I loved the images I could get from an 85 1.4 I had with my prior system. Unfortunately that fun has not yet happened. I do like the images it creates but don't find myself using it much and have been thinking a lot about replacing it with the 135 1.8. For two years now I've been thinking about selling the 85 to fund the 135. I don't use it much, it's heavy, and frankly is too big for my camera bag. But I know I'm going to loose a lot of money selling it and I just might find an amazing use for it one day so I continue to sit here staring at on my desk while it collects dust. 

In hopes of convincing me to trade in my 85 towards the 135 and ultimatly making money on both sides of the transaction the fellow at the store was kind enough to let me use their 135 for the next week. Also he might have been tired of handing it to me to fondle every time I visited the store :). 

I have to say based on my first use of it I really like the focal length and the pictures look really good! I hope to get out using it every day this week and really compare the two to see if its really a good fit or just one of those things that we all think would be nice to have in the back of our heads. Either way my goal is to finally make a decision and maybe some additional room on my desk ;) So keep an eye out for some more posts/pictures this week. Note: All of these are with the 135.

Boat yard pictures

After my last photo class I have started watching videos on how to edit in Lightroom. I'm thinking of making one of my goals this year to carry a camera and shoot the environments that I'm in and maybe if I get brave the people I'm with. Maybe I can learn to develop some street photography skills? Last week I took my camera with me but unfortunately only picked it up evening while waiting for my batteries to charge at the boat yard. The photo of the abandoned American Dream boat is my favorate. The yard has a long history and a lot of stories in it. Up until about 20 years ago they used to build Dickerson sailboats there. Seems they were also one of the bigger Grand Banks dealers at one point before the company went bankrupt. Their newest endeavor is a plan to focus on catamarans which is how we found them. Walking around one can see a lot of the old tools, molds, and scraps from how they progressed from wooden boats to fiberglass.  I've added a few here that caught my eye as I skimmed through what I captured that evening.

Finally got my batteries charged and started the process of getting the boat ready for shrink-wrapping

I made the nine hour trek back to the boat this week in hopes of getting my house bank of batteries charged up for the boats winter rest. Its starting to feel like at this pace I should have everything winterized just in time for spring to roll around.

Following the directions from the Xquisite service manager I attempted to limit all of the power consumption on the boat so the charger/inverters would not have to worry about charging my starting batteries or doing much with the inverters. This turned out to be a bust. The hope here was maybe the chargers were not getting enough power to kick in. I called back and was then advised to keep pressing the remote switches every time they popped to bring the batteries back up ensuring that I did this within a few seconds of popping in an effort to to keep the battery chargers continually pushing power avoiding them spinning down. I did do this for about four hours and was making progress getting a couple of the batteries up to the 50% range but it was a lot of work and the chargers still were not kicking in to take over. This did not feel like the right solution.

During the drive to the boat I remembered a discussion I had when we first bought the boat that we thought the 50amp splitter that came with the boat might be messed up. I wondered might this be the issue so I pulled out my tester and sure enough one side of the 50amp 125v splitter was only getting about 60 volts. After calling around a bit I did not have much luck finding a new 50amp 125v end I could put on the cable but I did find a new adaptor cable that was only about an hour drive away. Long story short I made the trek, installed the new cable, and while I now had a constant 125volts per side this did not fix the problem.

I then decided to call in a Mastervolt Tech. The first one I called had no clue how to help me but provided me his service line directly with them. The actual Mastervolt tech on the other end was great. He told me what I had been doing was ok to get them out of the danger zone but it was a bad idea to continue forcibly charging the batteries. I was told if I could find a windows laptop with a USB type B cord to connect to the Mastervolt system he could remote in to reset the battery safety error for me. It seems this is an automatic safety Mastervolt builds in ensuring that a tech looks at the batteries to validate they are still safe after a discharge that takes the battery below 10% of capacity.

Somehow I was lucky enough to find a cheap windows laptop on sale at the local Walmart along with a USB type B cord that I had not seen used anywhere in the last 15 years. I had figured I might have to go to the Goodwill to find something like that. I brought it back to the boat, connected to the internet via my phone called Mastervolt back and sure enough the tech was able to remote into my PC connect to each of the batteries resetting the three that had gone below 10%. Seemed the fourth one was ok. Once he did that they were happy to talk with the chargers again and after about six hours were back to full charge. The other upside is that I now have the Mastervolt software and a password that will let me see more of what's going on with the batteries. One problem solved!

Time to move on to the next concern. Last time I was at the boat Trappe had got around 2-3 inches of snow. This time it appeared they recently got another couple inches. I'm starting to get concerned about water getting in to things and freezing then contracting all winter. I started thinking about how to get some tarps over the boat. After another 40 minute drive to a store for some wood I started building a brace that would allow the tarps to have an angle to them but seems the yard did not love my idea should a tarp break loose and start beating on my neighbors boat. Apparently this has been an issue in the past. So the new plan is to shrink wrap it and they will use my existing frame. I feel like the yard might have simply come up with a creative way to get more service work out of me but hopefully its not to late to avoid damage and I'm sure it will work better then my plan. Hopefully the stantions will hold up to the shrink-wrap.

Goals for next year

With the end of the year quickly approaching it seems the right time to start thinking about some goals for next year. This has to be one of the harder years to make goals for as in about 9 months we are probably going to be empty nesters. Is the goal to enjoy as much time with the boy as we can before he moves out and things start to change.. Yes. Is the goal to get some fun extended adventures in.. Yes. Is the goal to loose some weight, get in better shape, spend more time with the wife, learn to use the new boat, sell the tug, develop my photography skills, learn to play the guitar, get a Captains License, and get my Trap team to Nationals. Yep.  Will I have time to do all of those. Maybe.. While I may make progress on all of them I really need to pick three to focus on and I'm sure there are a few items I left off the list.

If it were up to me I would spend all my time on a boat. I would love to take the tug up to the North Channel this year and explore Lake Superior for a month or more. I would love the adventure of bringing the sail boat back to Lake Erie via the St Lawrence while possibly stopping by Newfoundland on the way. The question is will the boy be willing to do either of those adventures with us? Do we leave him at home while we do one or more of those? I think he would like the sailing trip but am not so convinced that he would leave his friends and girl friend for six weeks to do it. Is it fair to ask him to, for what might be his last summer at home? Should we just sell the tug and leave the sailboat where it is one more season.. maybe doing some long weekends and a week or so trips here and there exploring the Chesapeake Bay?

It seems the answer when we talk about it as a family right now is we just don't know. For now we are still marching towards the circumnavigation goal with the plan to leave with the World Arc in January of 2028. For the moment the boy still says he is coming with us and the girl is 100% sure that she will not be coming with us. For now it seems that we have a lot of options for adventures next year and while none of them are bad some do seem more exciting than others. I look forward to seeing what we choose!

Finally finished winterizing the sail boat

I got the call shortly before Thanksgiving that the yard had hauled the boat out of the water. Last time I had left it I had managed to get all of the sails down and everything but the AC units and water maker winterized. To winterize the water mater I needed a couple special hoses that had not come with the boat. Unfortunately the quick connect ends needed were not something I could buy just anywhere and with the boat being in a somewhat remote location I decided I would try to find what I needed at home or get it shipped to the house. To protect the water maker I left an electric heater running in the forward compartment. This was great while the boat had shore power but was less great without. Seems the yard remembered that I had left the heater running in it and had rigged up some shore power for me. Unfortunately it seems a squirrel decided to commit subside by nibbling the wiring and no one noticed the dead squirrel or the fact my boat was not getting power. To complicate things even more everything on my boat runs though the inverters/chargers this means the boat was trying to supply power to the heater and it seems with all the gray days the solar was not enough to keep up with it. Needless to say when I got to the boat my house bank was dead (Lithium Ion) as were my starting batteries(Lead Acid). Once the yard got ahold of the power company I got power back to the boat fairly quickly. I then spent the next few days trying to figure out why my batteries were not charging and why the starting batteries were dead.

It turns out I had left the ECU fuse on for the engines. This is the engine computer. It seems that it's always running and does eat some power which was enough to kill those batteries over the period of 13 days with no power. I've never had engines this new before so it was not even on my radar to know to turn those off when I left the boat. Lesson learned and I probably should be turning them off when I leave the boat for more than a week going forward.

The house bank was a different story and I'm still not sure I have that solved but after talking with the guy that designed the system for my boat I think I've got some good direction to try when I get back to MD. The first day I was there I went about winterizing the water maker. Once I was done with that I moved the heater into the main salon while I was doing other stuff (mainly reading up on the batteries and chargers) as it was about 35 degrees outside. The first thing I tried was to plug a normal battery charger in and attempt to bring the house bank up from 7 -12% depending on the battery to at least 15% thinking that they were below the min cutoff for the charger to recognize them for safe charging. For some reason one battery did charge but it only charged to 53% and quit. The rest just kept popping the remote battery switches. Well I got one of them as high as 20% the charger would attempt to kick on then then shut off and the safety switch would once again pop. What I've learned is that as everything on the boat runs though the chargers/inverters they were working to charge my starting batteries, managing the power the heater was drawing, as well as the power from the battery charger. The power was being provided by a 50amp cable that is then spilt to two 30amp outlets going into the boat. When I looked at the load I could not figure out why the units were showing 25% not thinking it was the heater/aux battery charger I had borrowed. His suggestion was to get more power to the boat thinking the chargers were starved of power thus unable to start the charging process. As I'm probably not going to be starting the generator while the boat is in the yard, though it is an interesting thought to run a garden hose into the sea strainer while somehow holding it there ensuring the generator gets the cooling water it needs. I think instead I'm going to try charging up one battery at a time with nothing else running on the boat. Hopefully the power provided will support this more limited method as I have seen the chargers pull almost 200amps while charging. 

I was pretty frustrated when I left on Friday having not had success with getting the house bank charged over the 3 days I had been at the yard. Then adding to that frustration as I was trying to just turn everything off with the intent of coming back one more time in two weeks to get the house bank charged up I could not even figure that out. Seems even when I flipped all of the breakers and the master power knob to the off position the boat still would not completely shut off. When I left I was more than mildly mad/frustrated.

Before leaving I thought about the training we had got on the boat and decided to reach out to those guys. They then put me in touch with the guy that designed the electrical system. I learned they had hid a 12v battery in one of the heads that is in place to ensure an even 12v power flow. Seems some of the CZone stuff would glitch from time to time without really consistent power and this was the solution. Thus no complete power cut off. Seems their thought was the boat would always have enough solar to keep the CZone and Mastervolt system running. They did not plan for folks winterizing boats, inside storage, or long gray winter days :(

On a good note as I was trying to devise a method to get my mainsail off the deck of the boat one of guys in the yard offered me use of their craine. At 35ft it was just long enough to reach the where the sail was sitting on the deck of the boat. With it I was able to lower it to one those airport type tugs the yard has then drive that over to my truck where it took three of use to slide it in. Next stop will be my favorite sailmaker in OH.. Hopefully he is equipped to deal with this big heavy thing!

Photoclass.. Creating mood.

I was inspired to sign up for a class at our somewhat nearby camera store this week. The goal of the class was to explore mood in photography. I'm not much into landscape photography but have begun to think more about color and how it can provoke feelings. After the first class we made an early morning trek out to one of the local Metropark's. I'm not sure I love any of them but these were my favorites captured on the day. Next week we are supposed to get back together to discuss how to improve our favorite image. Not sure which I'm going to pick yet but thinking of the one framed by the dead tree?

The interesting thing is all four were shot at the same spot at sunrise. I find it neat that it at least feels like three fairly different pictures. The most interesting thing will be to see what the other folks saw and how different their photographs will be.

What's your favorate?

Sailboat Winterization - Did I destroy our water makers membrane?

I've made a couple trips to the boat over the last few weeks attempting to get it ready for its long winter nap. The first trip I was able to get the two head sails off, take our VHF radio and AIS in to a Garmin dealer to get reprogramed with the boats new name, drain the water system, and might have finally got our generator working. After getting back home I started thinking about our water maker and the fact that it does a fresh water flush every week to keep water moving though it with the hopes of keeping things from growing in the membrane. Well I had drained the fresh water how was that going to work? Seems I should have pickled or really just run the pink antifreeze through it before draining it to store it properly per the manual. About three weeks later I made it back to the boat with antifreeze in hand only to realize I didn't have the right sized valves to get the antifreeze pumped into it. Ugh.. I gave up and asked the yard to take care of it for me. Hopefully they can figure it out. But I'm guessing it will sit for at least another week before they get to it. Something tells me I just ruined a $400 membrane :(

While there the second time I was able to get the main sail off by myself. The thing is a little over a 1000sqft and I'm guessing around 200lbs. It was not fun and next time I'm going to make sure the boy is with me to help manage that monster. Seems when I started asking around the yard for tips on how to manage it everyone just laughed at me telling me things like they had not taken theirs off the boat for nine years and they had four people to help, others told me its one of those things they just pay a loft to do. Well lesson learned. I think next season I may do just that and open up the check book but I do intend to put it back on this spring just to ensure I know how it all goes back together and how to hook up the various reefing lines that run though the sail. I'm sure I'll screw up that a few times in the process of raising and lowering the sail to figure out the correct way to get the reefing lines working. I also took the stack pack off to get some repairs done. I'm guessing it's about 40% used up and really hoping they don't tell me I need to have a new one made.

It had been about three weeks since I dropped off the electronics so I decided to check in on that process. Seems they were able to quickly reprogram the AIS but unfortunately the VHF had to be sent into Garmin to be reset and still had not made its way back. So I picked up the AIS and reinstalled that. I'm happy to report that it's working and can now broadcast the boats new name.

I spent rest of the next day pumping antifreeze into the boats water system. I guessed I would need about 10 gallons. Turns out it's more like 14 which meant another trip to the store. Yet another process I would not recommend doing alone as the water pumps are in the front locker on the boat and all of the water valves are somewhere else inside the boat so one is always running back and fourth to swap empty gallon jugs. I think this might also be a process for the yard to do next year with their big 50 gallon drum of antifreeze that they pump into the boat via a water line somewhere. Bottom line I was able to get all three engines winterized and the water system leaving only the AC units and water maker for another day.

Every project I've done these last two visits has reminded me that one person can technically do all this stuff but it's a heck of a lot easier with two people. Our past boats were all much easier to do this on by myself. Heck while it was challenging I could manage the mainsail by myself on our 47 mono. Seems the sail on this boat is at least twice as thick making it way heavier and probably significantly bigger as well.

Unfortunately only the two head sails, stack pack, food and other items I needed to take home fit in the back of my truck so I'll have to grab the mainsail next time. I've been told the boat should be coming out of the water sometime this week. I suspect I'll be lucky if it comes out before the end of November but we will see. For the moment I'm looking forward to at least one more 17hr round trip back to the boat this month.

Another busy month went by

It's been a busy month. We've been pretty lucky with the extra warm weather we got here in Michigan up until this week when the weather finally started moving back to normal. The nice weather let us do crazy things like playing with the jetski and sailing dinghy well into October still enjoying the 80 degree days. Unfortunately it's now the end of October and the weather is now moving back to something more normal and its now time to put the water toys away and getting everything ready for winter.

The Tug was the first to come out. It's now winterized and sitting in a barn which will hopefully keep it warm and protected. I've started taking all of our stuff off of it and begun the long process of getting it cleaned and shined up with hopes of listing it for sale  this spring. Unfortunately there is still a lot cleaning and a few small projects to take care of before I can do that which of course include redoing the teak, oiling the wood, lots of scrubbing and polishing trying to get her looking her best for the potential new owners. I've heard the boat market is slow right now so I'm assuming we may get to enjoy her on the Great Lakes much of next summer. I would love to take her up to the North Channel for a month but am not sure how that will workout with Max's schedule and having the other boat that we need to learn to use as well?

In between playing with water toys we have been going to as many of Max's tennis matches as we can this season. It's his Senior year and has been fun seeing how much he has improved from when he started tennis last year. 

While we have very much planned for it, it still seems strange to think we will be empty nesters this time next year. I've heard that between birth and the age of 18 is when one gets to spend 80% of time they get with their kids so I'm going to make sure I enjoy it while I can. 

On that note we have been continuing our college visits. This month we went to check out Western Michigan University, Michigan State, and Hillsdale. The only schools we have not visited are University of Toledo, Ferris, and Eastern Michigan. Two of those he will do as a field trip in school and with his sister going to Ferris I'm not sure he has much interest in following her footsteps. He has worked hard to get good grades over the years and with some effort during the application process should be able to choose from any of the schools he wants. 

At this point he is thinking he wants to be a doctor and is looking at Pre-Med programs. His second thought is something with engineering but he has not found anybody doing fun stuff in the real world that has excited him about that. So we are simply encouraging him to pick a school that offers a lot of choices in majors should he want to make a change after taking a few classes in the subject.

As I write this he is just now starting to fill out a few college applications. It will be interesting to see if he is too late for scholarships and placements has I'm seeing a lot of friends with seniors posting various collage acceptances and scholarships awarded in my Facebook feed recently.

Personally I'm still hoping he will take a break/gap year or more after his first year of school to join us on our circumnavigation. It will be interesting to see where he ends up and what he decides to do?

Annabelle turned 21 a few days ago. She is back doing the Disney College program again this semester working as a lifeguard this time and asked us to come down to celebrate with her by drinking around the world. In Disney speak this means going to Epcot and getting a drink at each of the country's. As it also happens to be their food and wine festival so they have some carts set up for bonus countries as well. She managed to talk us, her grandparents, aunt, and one cousin into joining her for this expedition. I think we ended up having drinks and snacks from 15 different countries by the end of the night. The strangest snack was defiantly the onion cake from Germany. It was a fun way to celebrate and everyone had a good time. We rented a place for a week in Orlando going to the Disney Halloween party, various shows, and spent some time just hanging around the pool for a bit while getting to see Belle when she was not working. It was a good time. Unfortunately Max is still in school and could only join us for a long weekend but it was nice to have both of our kids together even if it was only for a couple days.

As our sail boat is pretty close to Annapolis we decided to attend the annual sailboat show again this year as it's always fun to walk around looking at shinny new sailboats and gear for a few days. One surprise was that a Privilege 510 we looked at last year (and waited too long to make an offer on) was there on display. After getting to see that boat and about a dozen other cats we confirmed that we made a good choice and didn't have any regrets on buying our Xquisite. While there we were able to meet up with three other Xquisite owners to have lunch and chat about experiences and future plans with the boats. From what I can tell it seems most are pretty content sticking to the Bahamas and Caribbean with theirs. We seem to be the odd balls that want to sail around the world but then again three of the four we meet were fairly new to boating and big boats in general. So maybe they will get there and come join us ;).

While at the show we attended an informational session on the World Arc and a cocktail party they had the next night confirming that its probably still the direction we are going to go with when it comes time to circumnavigate. However the Xquisite folks are talking about setting something up soon as well and plan to announce it at the annual owners party this year. I'm looking forward to seeing what their plan is and how much interest they get. Its always better to have choices :)