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.