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