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.