Under construction

Waiting for the weather window

We are ready as we will ever be in the time we had.
Our sails are here finally. Are they perfect - no, do they still need adjustment - yes, are we happy - absolutely yes!!

We took the boat out for a test sail on Friday noon, and it sailed great. We loved it. We had friends on the boat and they had great time too. The boat did over 50% of wind speed reaching and into the wind. We got as close as 45 degrees and it did great.

Yes, we can work on adjustment (some time in the future) but for now - we are good to go.
We make water, have a generator, solid boat, loaded with food, we filled the tanks and sold our car.

The only thing holding us to shore are the dock lines, and those we will take with us.

The last two weeks flow by. We cleaned, de-cluttered the boat (seems to be an on going theme), fixed, adjust, put the nets around the boat to keep Coco safe and on-board and continue to learn. 
I even got certified in administrating Oxygen.

We bought most of the food we need including greens and herbs. And we vacuum-bag them to keep them fresh for long time.

We worked on the route we plan to take, leaving St. Petersburg, staying about 5 - 15 miles offshore (depends on the weather) and stopping in Marathon, FL before crossing the golf stream to Bimini.

I will do my best publishing our location from our Iridium Go as we sail.

As we were getting ready, we got our new refrigerator / freezer (SnoMaster), no, it is not replacing what we have on the boat, we are just in need for more cold storage space, and yes, we love it. ( Now I have room for keeping my drinks cold)

We are completing our last activities, following the weather on a daily basis and running weather simulations. And as everybody knows - weather is hard, very hard to predict.

So, G-D willing soon we will be on our way.
I hope that the next blog will be from Marathon (or even better from Bimini)

Time is flying when you are having fun

I sound like a broken record, 10 days have passed from my last entry - wow
Things are moving faster now and we are ALMOST (!!!) ready to leave (in two weeks (+-).
Both engines are functioning well, our generator is good, we have our new anchor roller and we have our main sail!!
One day we even had time to take the boat out  (yes we did) to the yard, so the can replace the anchor roller to the right one for the size of anchor we have.
And I almost forgot, we also now have the life-raft, the Sea-Anchor and the drogue (tool to slow the boat in not so nice weather...)

We saw a Manatee!! It came for a visit and I thought he tried to have a conversation with me.

As you can see, many things are coming (finally) in to place. We even got our SSB radio which will be completely installed tomorrow.
We are working already on our route planning leaving from here, going south toward Marathon and (hopefully) without stopping going to Bimini.
Even Cocoa already got his import permit from the Bahamas.

A better attempt :-)

We started tracking the weather daily (this is probably why the next two days will be crazy here, with strong winds and rain)



We had a visit of friends from MN and we had great Friday dinners with friends on our boat and dinners with friends on their boat. The friendships that we develop enhance us, and helps us everyday appreciate more and more the values in life and the values of life. And learn how to take a time-delay selfie....
And...
Hani exercised her fist hair cut ... she cut my hair and I will admit - she did a great job- well done Hani!!
Thank you!!

We started provisioning (buying food for the trip), and we visited Costco..... No more words needed. I need to watch the waterline much more carefully :-)
We now have all the jerrycans we need, and even put the nets today (so Cocoa can stay on-board while we are underway).

The days are going very fast. Every day we are working on organizing the boat, learning it systems (today we even showered for the first time on the boat). BTW - Cocoa had his first shower on the boat last week :-)

So - last things for us (aside from taking the boat out and practice). is installing the head-sail (this week), selling our car (next week), getting the final permit for Cocoa (this week), complete provisioning (this week and early next week), fill water and fuel including jerrycans (next week) and... here we go....
We are getting very excited!

The new main sail

Installing Cocoa's net

Time fly when you are working all the time...


I can't believe it.

I thought that last week I wrote the last blog, but it has been almost three weeks.
Many things have taken place.
First - we have both engines completed, working  and functioning. Now we just need the sails....
Those, hopefully, should be her a week from today.




We have the new oven installed ad working, the new batteries are in, a new solar panel and a new controller in place,



We have new covers to the hatches, we have all our jerrycans and spare gas tank on the boat, we sold our old dinghy, operated the water maker (still on this to talk and learn), installed new shower heads, and finally entertain guests and friend for dinners, dinghy ride, etc. etc.

So as you can see, we are moving on a very fast pace.
We hope to complete all the prep work in the 3 weeks remaining.
Tomorrow morning we plan to take our boat for the first run (engines only) to the....... yard.
We need to install the new, and correct anchor roller and replace a through bolt (that yes, it was suppose to be replaced when the boat was in the yard). We should be back in our slip tomorrow afternoon.

We also had an interesting learning experience on what does it take to fill an Oxygen tank (or not to fill...) - I will have to take a course in administrating Oxygen, and that means that first I will have to take an advance First Aid course...

We also had an opportunity to go out sailing twice with our friends on their boat. We saw dolphins, manatees, and other sea life. It was great.

All in all - great few weeks, of hard work and great progress.

Progress Report - February is almost over

First good news -
We have one engine working and running smoothly - this is good news as now we have only one more engine to complete, work on the generator and wait for the new sails to come..... Tic tac tic tac...



Second good news - we finally put the dinghy in the water, and took it to a (very) small ride. First time this dinghy is in salt water, I wonder what it is thinking... LOL. It run well, has some water coming in, something to look at and fix sometime in the future. Work never ends. We also had our first guest with us today for the first dinghy ride!!
I almost forgot to mention, we saw dolphin. It was the second time this week we saw one. The first time we saw one it was just next to our boat. By the time I got the phone out and ready it moved - so the photo is not the best - sorry.

And third good news - more progress, I finally managed to connect the boat WiFi to the internet, and I even managed to connect my iPad to the navigation devices on the boat.. progress is made.

We have part of our new shelves installed, and we are busy organizing the new space. However - the boat is overloaded.

Our new oven has arrived and we hope to have it installed by this coming Friday - we hope. But is we are learning (the hard way) time commitments and Florida are on different continents, and never meet.

Last week we drove to Miami. We went to the boat show expecting to find things we needed on sale. It was disappointing. The boat show is really geared for power boaters more than sail. It advertised to have over 1400 boats, I thing over 1300 of them where power. SO was the rest of the show. The area for sail-specific was a 40 X 40 area. Still we did manage to find a new life vest for Cocoa, and PLB's (Personal Locator Beacon - when you are lost but not the boat. We have two of those on our life jackets as safety) and MOB AIS (Man / Person overboard AIS - that transmit locally to your boat and boats in close proximity - e.g. 10 miles, to be carried by the person on watch. Again another safety device.) that we were looking for. And did I mention that to get to the show we took the shuttle from the parking. 10 miles drive for over an hour!! On the plus side - the hotel we booked was great!!

And, I also sawed two jack-lines, again another safety device to put along the boat, that allowed us to connect to it when moving around the boat in not-so-good weather. The not so good news from doing it, is that my sawing machine needs fixing. I ordered the parts, they arrived today and ... I plan working on it tomorrow.

And the icing on the cake was going sailing on Sunday with friends on their boat in Tampa bay. It was great. Great weather, strong winds, and good sailing for over 4 hours in the afternoon.

Overall, OK 10 days. Stay tune for more updates.

 

Three weeks later

Three weeks after the last post - OK I am sorry, I should have wrote before.
The reality is that we have been working hard for the last weeks. We are doing our best learning the boat (no much progress there), fixing things that we find not working, fixing thing we break, learning (the hard way) not to drill holes below the waterline, and learning how to fix those errors.
We also continue to work on our engines, and learning to develop new understanding that every thing takes 4 times longer and cost 6 times more that what is promised, committed and  ....

so, were are we -
We bought new oven, a Force 10 two burners, it is in the boat, and hopefully will be installed next week or the week after.
We ordered new sail (was not planned). we did it after our sail-maker inspected the sails (we were planning just to fix them and basically told us that if we really want to sail across the Atlantic we need new ones.
We are working on new shelves  - will be done next week
We installed support for jerrycans
We continuously cleaning
Learning how to use the Iridium Go
We sawed some door pockets and fixed current canvas
Ordered SSB, more solar panels and new batteries

As you can see - plenty is done, and much more to do..
Oh and I forgot - we are ordering new running gear... fun fun fun

And one of the best things is watching sunrise and sunset; they are amazing.

 It is not all work - we do take break from time to time. We go to Chabad Synagogue on Saturdays, we walk to town, and we meet and make friends with other boaters on the dock. Actually yesterday we introduce them to good Rum drinking :-).
It was fun.
Stay tuned

In the water....

It is Saturday night in St Petersburg, Florida and we are in Harborage Marina for our first night on the boat.

So yes!! the boat is finally in the water. The boat was splashed on Thursday afternoon, with some short delay.

I hope we will never need to go to this yard again. At the end, it took over two months to complete what was estimated to be a three weeks job, and almost 3 times the cost.

On the other hand - our agents are magic.

Our agents came along, and again as I said before, I have to say that having a good agent worth everything.

Jeff and Jean from Two Can Sail (twocansail.com) are amazing. They helped us buying the boat, and they continue to help us in every step of the process.

We splashed the boat, and Jean and Jeff worked with us, showing us how to operate the boat, helped us with the docking process, and then helped us (or actually, they did the work and we helped them) taking the sails down for future work. 

Than - cleaning. For the last two days, we are cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and... you are correct - cleaning.

We also had our engine mechanic coming as we would like to update, replace and correct every hose on our engines, and bring all three of them to like new status.

He will be again next week, which mean that I will spend quality time learning all that I can about how to fix, correct and trouble shoot (in reverse order) the engines on the boat.

Tonight, after bringing some (very few things from our storage unit), we are finally staying on the boat.

We learned how to operate the galley (kitchen), the water system, t fridge and freezer, the air condition (!!) and the lights.

It is after 8 PM, and Hani is working hard to find the places on the boat. Where to hang cloths, where to put the food, and all the other small things that makes life possible.

And the weather - it is not Minnesota, but we are expecting strong winds tonight, so we put extra lines to make sure that we stay connected to the dock in 30 to 40 knots.

That's all for today - stay tune to work progress.