It was as if all the forces of nature wanted to keep us from arriving in Virginia…

Three hours into the drive – flat tire #1.

Twenty minutes after flat tire #1 was fixed, I run over a piece of metal that looks like Karen’s tibia. Flat tire #2. We have to pull EVERYTHING out of the back to get to the doughnut…

The perp.

Thank you to T.C. & Mike at Autosmith in Newton Falls, OH (home of the second oldest covered bridge in Ohio) for taking care of us!

The second oldest covered bridge in Ohio!

Practicing new climbing techniques for the Midwest.

Two fixed flat tires later, we JUST cross the state line into Virginia and a windstorm blows a giant branch into The Rogue – body and windshield damage…

We left Colorado on a Thursday morning after yet another goodbye get together (“Here we go again on our own / drinking all the bottle of wine we’ve ever owned” – Tom Chamberlain). You can only say goodbye so many times – it was definitely time to get on the road. We said our tearful farewells to Dan and Karen, Tom and Melisa. And Mighty Myra… Oh, my, that was hard. I know she will be the happiest of dogs with Dan and Karen but she won’t be with me anymore and that is the hard part.

We managed to get everything we own packed into The Rogue – including mom’s pretty large wicker trunk.

Goodbye for now! We’ll be back…

It was an easy twelve hour drive to somewhere in Kansas where we found a free camp spot for the night. Then on to Cory & Gina’s in Lafayette, IN the next day. Saturday, a short 4.5 hour drive to St. Clair Shores, MI, and HOME. We had a nice get together with family – ate too much, drank too much, played euchre ’til way too late.

Me & Grandma Wilma

Us and Grams

Selfie with Cousin Anthony; Stephane photobombing.

Me & mom

The boys made a batch of dad’s awesome beef jerky. Mmmmmmmmmm

Not all fun and games in Michigan – we found and filled out our Power of Attorney forms for health and finances (just in case – you never know and it’s always better to be prepared than not).

Tomorrow we head down to Virginia to start our boat search. One thing we have been researching lately and need to know more about is sales tax. For example, if we buy our boat in Delaware, we pay zero sales tax! In Florida, it’s 6% with a max sales tax of $18,000. North Carolina is 4.75% with max of only $1,500. Very different rules depending on what state you are in. Ideally we find a boat in DE…

Instead of tracking our potential boats on a spreadsheet, Stephane found this great little website that allows us to pin our boats to a map, adding a link and notes for each. Multiplottr is proving to be much more fun (and useful) than Excel.

Our friends came from near and not-so-near to spend time with us, wish us well, and send us off on our adventure. We spent the afternoon trying to chase the shade with Team Duck Tape: climbing at the Pool Wall in Ouray – being loud, talking more than climbing (Heidi & Lori 🙂 and enjoying each other’s company. Kirk and Lori made a surprise entrance – yeah!

That evening amidst burgers, Susan’s fruity cocktails, banjo/guitar tunes, stupid human tricks and prizes, we said goodbye to our friends. We are blessed in that we have the most generous, loving, interesting, silly, and overall excellent group of people to call our friends; our family. And even though we are here for another ten days or so, I am starting to miss them already. Greatly.

It was a bittersweet night. It is a bittersweet time.

Kirk, Lori and Lee. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but Kirk had on the best pants ever.

Jeff & Jess

Dancing! The prizes for Stupid Human Tricks in the background – who wants a half-full can of mosquito spray?

Rene & Belinda

Heidi & Vicki. Pretty sure Jeff is talking Jonno’s ear off in the background there 😉

There’s a good pant shot – check ’em out!

Lee with one of the prizes! Photobomb!

Our most excellent musicians for the evening – you played some GREAT tunes, boys!

The kiddie table. So great to see some old friends.

I got back from St-Thomas/Puerto Rico. Even though Nereia isn’t going to be our boat, the trip was super productive. Here is what happened.

The bones of the boat seemed bomber, but unfortunately it got broken in. Lots of equipment was stolen and the stuff that wasn’t stolen wasn’t functioning properly. Nereia still seems to be a good deal, but it’s just above our price range after including the cost of all the repairs.

I still got to learn a lot and help the owner with fixing up everything we could in just 4 days. I installed a brand new starter, but before doing that, we had to troubleshoot why even with all electrical switches off, the starter was still getting full power (great for making unwanted sparks when working on it thinking the electrical is off…). It turned out that one of the hot wires was connected on the wrong side of the on-off switch, resulting in power going to all systems at all times. The wind and solar panels where connected on the wrong side too.

We had gotten excited with this boat because it was setup with higher than average quality components throughout and that’s why we were ok with going a little above our initial budget, but the more stuff I tested, the more I found that they were not working. Here are a few examples: Nereia is equipped with a $5,000 autopilot, not the electric motor on the wheel, but a serious hydraulic piston that pushes and pulls the rudder. Unfortunately, the screen died. When I called the manufacturer to get a quote, it turned out that they don’t make that screen anymore. I could have bought the new screen, but the new screen doesn’t work with the old computer. Once all said and done, the fix was going to cost $3,000. The boat was equipped with the best high output alternator to charge the batteries more efficiently. Unfortunately it was putting zero power out. The radar screen got stolen, same thing as the autopilot, old screen not made anymore. The engine was refitted with a brand new cooling system 7 months ago. Unfortunately after running the engine for 5 hours, we found coolant in the bilge and saltwater on the drip pan. I estimated the fixes to be around $15-20,000 and the boat started out at the top of our budget.

On the plus side, I helped cleaning the hull with a hookah system, it’s an air tank on the boat with a 100ft hose connected to it delivering air to the diver through a regulator like the ones for normal diving. I spent a good couple of hours underwater scraping the whole hull but it was kind of fun with that system. It was incredible how much plancton, fish, crabs, mussels had found home on this hull… Speaking of learning, I learned to wear gloves while scraping the hull, I got some pretty deep cuts…

For the last couple of days we sailed from St-Thomas to Puerto Rico, with one night on the island of Culebra. We had to clear customs which wasn’t a big deal, but it was nice to see what to expect.

We’ve put the boat on the hard in Puerto Rico were it can safely weather the hurricane season.

Well, so once I got back home, Sara and I discussed the boat and accepted that this one would just be too much money for our budget. So we’re reverting to plan A, we both finish work on August 26th. After that we’ll start driving to Virginia to go pursue some boats that we’ve found online and spend some time with Dan, Sara’s brother. Hopefully Pete and Ryan and Debbie and Marty will be able to come visit before we set sail!

Stay tuned, the adventure is about to begin!!!

Before and after…

And…just like that, our trusty truck is ours no more. We sent it on its way this morning with new owners. One step closer to departure!

Stephane left for St. Thomas on Thursday afternoon. Believe it or not, he is there with the owner of a boat we are seriously considering purchasing – this *could* be our new home! Over the past few days Stephane and the owner have been working on the boat- getting her ready to sail to Puerto Rico where they’ll leave her on the hard in a marina there (for hurricane season). Stephane has been working on the engine, electrical systems, and cleaning barnacles off the hull. I know he is being a sponge and soaking up all of the knowledge that he can. Of the two of us, he is definitely the one to be there – he has so much knowledge of boat systems already that he is an amazing help to the owner and, on top of that, only adding to his working knowledge of all things boat.

I only wish I could be there too but as we near the end of our time here in Colorado and our jobs, it is more important than ever to maximize our savings potential until the very end. So, we work in our own ways – me at my job and, after work hours, putting our last remaining items on Craigslist, boxing items that are coming with us and items that are not, getting rid of more clothes, and generally prepping for our new adventure.

They are sailing RIGHT NOW as I type.

*sigh*

Captain Hefti!

Stephane is currently training Alan, a new pilot for CareFlight’s Durango base. Alan gave us this for luck on our new adventure. I’m not Catholic but I love the gesture and sentiment.

I think we might make some room for Saint C on the boat.

One evening, our good friend Patrick (an amazingly talented surgeon) taught us how to suture. He brought over the different-sized sutures and we practiced stitching up gashes in lemons.

Patrick teaching us the proper technique.

Sara stitching up the lemon.

That evening, Karen taught us how to give a proper shot (we practiced on a lemon as well). Just this past Wednesday, I gave Karen several of her weekly shots – good practice!

Last month when we were home visiting family in Michigan, Ryan taught us how to set up an IV. Can you believe we actually practiced on HER?! I got my needle in but then forgot to apply pressure up top and pulled out immediately after I saw the blood (oops!). Stephane gave Ryan an IV through a vein in her hand and did it perfectly!

Thank you to all of our super smart medical friends who are sharing their knowledge with us and making sure we have the skills we need to take care of each other in the boat!

I also learned that getting the cover off of the needle is an art in and of itself.

Notes:
– use suture size >=5 on the face
– inject latocaine on the inside/cut of the skin, then on the top of the skin along the edge of the cut
– after latocaine is injected, wait ~20 minutes before suturing
– do not use epinepherine on a digit
– use latocaine without epinephrine
– suture types:
– continuous
– non-continuous – these are better (and the kind we learned). Tie knot (6-8 knots) then first stitch – wrap 2x, then 1x each
– vertical sutures – for large gashes (far-far-near-near)

I just booked Stephane’s flights to St. Thomas! He will head down there next month to meet the owner of Nereia (latin for sea snail – LOVE it!), a Baba 35. This could be our boat.

Stay tuned…

It was a breezy Saturday evening around Tom and Melisa’s fire circle on their back patio. We were having dinner and drinks and decided it was the perfect time to tell our friends of our plans to get married this summer! Upon sharing the good news and everyone checking the calendar app on their iPhones, it was quickly determined that June 7th (the following Saturday) would be the only day this summer that everyone could be available. So we set the date for our wedding one week out, invited our closest friends via text that same night, and called our families the next day to share the good  news.

The following Saturday, I married my best friend, my faithful partner and my one true love at the Chamberlain Cabin up in the Cimarron Mountains. Brother Alan showed up around 9:30pm (after driving from Denver that afternoon) and married us by tiki torch-light. It was short, sweet, and perfect. We ate hobo meals, drank wine, and celebrated with our closest friends. We would have loved our families to be there but we are hoping that they will save their money and join us for a more extended vacation on the boat instead 🙂

Brother Alan

Eating hobos and waiting on Brother Alan – we can’t wait!!

The ceremony

LOVE these – such an awesome idea of Dan’s!

Group shot

We have been reading about and looking at photos of the Westsail 32 since the start. But words and photos are one thing and getting ON an actual WS 32 is something entirely different – we want to see what one is like for REAL!

While visiting family in Michigan this month, I posted a message on the Westail Owners Association page asking if there was anyone in the Detroit area that might have a WS 32 and be willing to show us. Later that evening, Tyler from Racine, WI extended an intivitation to us to come out and see his WS 32. While we were super grateful for the invite, Racine is a bit far for a day trip so we had to decline.

The next day, Bud Taplin emailed us with contact information for Charlie, a WS 32 owner in Michigan. And wouldn’t you believe it – his WS 32 was on the hard at Jefferson Beach Marina – a mile down the road from parents house! We got in touch with Charlie who garciously invited us to check out his WS 32, Antares. That morning we got the full tour and also got to watch Antares get put into the water for the season. Charlie invited us to join him as he motored Antares over to the marina next door.

Charlie is a super salty sailor! He has sailed all over the world and is so knowledgeable. Stephane asked him question after question and really took advantage of being able to pick his brain. This was almost as good, if not better, than being able to see a Westsail: being able to talk to someone who has been out there and done it and who can give us advice and tell us their thoughts. Charlie was so generous with his time and we are SO appreciative.

Impressions after seeing Antares:
1. We are still in love with the Westsail 32.

2. Our previous thoughts on how sturdy, solid, and safe of a boat she is have been further reinforced.

3. The galley was REALLY small but do-able.

4. I don’t think we’d go any smaller but I think the size would be just perfect for the two of us.

5. We have NO IDEA how to sail a cutter…well, add it to the list of things we’ll be learning as we go!

6. The cockpit was really small (which is what you want in a bluewater boat, but we like the idea of being able to stretch out and sleep in it and not sure we’d be able to do that in a Westsail).

Charlie showing us the manual windlass.

View of the cockpit – notice how the cockpit sole flips up allowing great access to the engine.

The v-berth.

Lots of storage and the port lights are solid – brass not plastic like we’ve seen on some boats.

The galley. We could work with this.

Charlie & Stephane

It’s a tank.

Yeah!

We took advantage of our trip visiting family in Michigan to complete our first sailing classes: Basic Keelboat Sailing and Coastal cruising on a Catalina 25. Before the actual class, the sailing school sent us a couple of textbooks to study. To get the most out of our classes we reviewed the 2 books and quizzed each other the whole week prior to the classes. We’ve learned a lot from the books and the classes helped apply all of that book knowledge.

The weather was still a bit crisp in Michigan. We got lucky though, we got a glimpse of the real deal with winds blowing at 20-25 knots that day. It was perfect for practice and a little bit of exposure.

Sara at the helm. Our fellow classmate Margaret and instructor Brett.

First round completed. We just went to the Montrose Health services to get all the shots needed for the first part of our trip. So far so good, other than feeling tired and walking around looking like we have T-Rex arms we didn’t have any other symptoms.
Sara got 6 shots (the max that they will give at once), I got 4…
Round 2 is scheduled in 1 month and the last round in 6 months from now! Hopefully the insurance will cover this or we’ll have to pay roughly $600…

[May 16th UPDATE]

Second round went fine, minimal arm pain, yay 🙂

Also, Sara’s insurance picked up most of the bill with only $68 deductible. I’m still waiting to see if mine will pick up the bill.

The Little House has been my home for a while now – it’s been perfect for me and Myra: plenty of room for this girl and her dog. The Little House is actually Dan and Karen’s guesthouse and is located in what we lovingly call The Village: a community of friends and homes up on Spring Creek Mesa outside of town. With Dan and Karen next door and Tom and Melisa across the street, I am only ever a few steps away from movie night, wine on the veranda, or a jam session.

So this place has been my little haven, just mine. But now I am ready to open my home up to Stephane!

With Stephane’s house closing in less than a week, we are taking another big step toward our dream! The ideal buyer fell into our laps and the selling process has gone smoothly so far. Over the course of one weekend – with advertising on Craigslist and lots of signs posted all over town – we were able to sell a majority of the items from The Medium House (a.k.a Stephane’s); the rest we sold on Craigslist. Another big step taken towards the dream – getting RID of stuff. It is amazing to me the amount of things that one amasses over the years. I thought I didn’t have much in the way of stuff but as I cleaned out my closet to make room for Stephane, I was astonished at the number of bags I was able to fill with unnecessary clothing.

With both Stephane and I living here we will be able to save even more and keep moving in the right direction (faster!) towards our goal.

Since we still live in beautiful but landlocked Colorado, books are our main way of fueling our dream.

Here is the list of the books we’ve read so far:

Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual – Nigel Calder
The Cruiser’s Handbook of Fishing – Scott and Wendy Bannerot
The Voyoger’s Handbook – Beth A. Leonard
The Cruising Life – Jim Trefenthen
The Cost Conscious Cruiser – Lin and Larry Pardey
Offshore Sailing – Bill Seifert with Daniel Spurr
Sailing the Basics, the book that launched thousands – Dave Franzel
The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat – John Vigor
Coastal and Offshore Navigation – Tom Cunliffe
Twenty Affordable Sailboats to take you Anywhere – Gregg Nestor
Your First Sailboat – Daniel Spurr
Emergency Navigation – David Burch
Why didn’t I think of that – John and Susan Roberts
The Essentials of Living aboard a Boat – Mark Nicholas
Coming About, a Family Passage at Sea – Susan Tyler Hitchcock
The Race – Tim Zimmermann
Galley Book – by Good Old Boat Magazine

We also subscribed to Good Old Boat magazine and we are members of Seven Seas Cruising Association.

We’ve subscribed to the www.waterwayguide.com newsletter since there is a good chance we’ll navigate the Intracoastal waterway.

We have also downloaded videos from www.thesailingchannel.tv

And of course searching for sailing videos on youtube has provided us with many hours of entertainment.

We have been looking at and reading about sailboats for over a year now. From all of our research, we have narrowed it down to several blue water boats: Fantasia 35, WestSail 32, Tayana 37, and Hans Christian 33T.

Fantasia 35: Lost our Hearts to Viking

We love love love the Fantasia 35. Like all the boats we are considering, it is a beefy, full-keel, solid bluewater sailboat. It has a center cockpit- this means you stay drier on the water; having the cockpit more forward on the boat leaves room in the back for a roomy aft cabin. It also boasts a feature we’ve not seen on any other boats we have looked at – a small utility/storage/work room.

We gave our hearts to Viking earlier this year – a beautiful, CHEAP (as far as Fantasias go) F35 for sale in Oxnard, California. We talked like she was our boat and we just needed to go scoop her up come September. But, alas, she was sold last month. She is on the Left Coast and we are planning on starting our adventure on the Right- so we tell ourselves it was just not meant to be, us and Viking.





Westsail 32: The Wet Snail

The Westail 32 is the smallest of all the boats we are considering at the moment. AKA “The Wet Snail”, Westsails are slow (because they are a super heavy displacement boat at 20,000 pounds) and wet- aft cockpit. So, we will get wherever we want to go safely but it may take a while (no big deal for us) and we might get wet along the way (well, we are surrounded by water, aren’t we?). There seem to be more W32s out there at a more affordable range than the Fantasias so we may have better luck with these boats in our search come September.

We were looking forward to checking out Gitana Del Mar (Sea Gypsy – love the name) when we go home to Detroit this April/May but she was sold earlier this year. Sigh.



The Tayana 37

Is the biggest of the boats we love right now. Tayanas have an aft cockpit, roomy v-berth, a quarterberth, u-shaped kitchen; lots of storage. A downside (in many peoples’ opinions) is that many of them are made with a lot of teak (teak = maintenance). I don’t think that’s necessarily a negative for us – we will have all the time in the world to take care of our boat, so teak TLC sessions are not a dealbreaker.





The Hans Christian 33T: layout, layout layout

I think if Stephane were to have his way and price were not an issue, we’d be sailing one of these babies. A unique feature of the HC-33T is the Pullman Berth- a bed situated on the side of your sleeping quarters and gives you standing room on the other side (see pic). In some HC-33Ts, there is also a cut-out at the foot of the bed (think if we are both sleeping in the berth and I have to get up at night- I go through the hole not over Stephane). These boats also have a double berth starboard-aft where most boats have either nothing or a single berth. The very roomy head is forward towards the bow of the boat.



We know our boat is out there just waiting for us! What’s her name? What kind is she? Where is she? Will she keep us safe? What kind of amazing adventures are in store for us with her?

Why eeeeeep.com

Well, it’s a good story.

Our friend Tom introduced us to a funny video. It’s the video of a Desert Rain Frog that puffs up and makes this funny noise when threatened.

Next thing, as we were climbing, Sara got in a spot where she was pretty uncomfortable (scared to death), and reproduced the sound of that tiny frog, which you guessed it, on paper translates into eeeeeep…

It’s been our little noise ever since.

So we spent a whole evening brainstorming for a website name but couldn’t come up with anything that we both really liked. We decided to call it a night and get ready for bed. I reminded Sara that there was nothing holding us back anymore now that we sold the house, to which she replied: Eeeeeep, and there it was! Eeeeeep.com

The house was the number one thing that kept us fom sailing but at the same time, after it sold, it turned out to be the number one thing that will allow us to go sailing.

Sara and I worked hard at improving it. Some of he major things that we did was painting the whole inside together, I replaced the old carpet and put in a nice wood floor (laminate) and I also replaced the main windows. We didn’t use any contractors so we saved a lot of money but these few things changed the entire feel of the house and we gained a lot of equity. It wasn’t all easy but really worth it in the end.

Once we found out that we had a serious buyer, it was time to get rid of almost everything. Anything that we won’t need on the boat or for work (we’re still working until september) has to go because I’m moving into the little house (there is another blog about The Little House).

Cruisers call their savings “the cruising kitty”, and selling the house was a necessary step for us to build ours.

My journal entry…

Boat show was amazing…Mrs. Westcott…private quarters…crazy cat with dialated pupils…breakfast is ready when you hear the music…butter croissants…cornbread muffins…strawberry waffles…R-A-I-N…Painkillers(2-4?)…Beneateau, Jenneau, Bavaria, Hunter, Oyster (yeah, right)…Dufour – so many!

Beers @ Irish pub with Erica & Greg…seafood dinner…Mr. + Mrs. Smith…downpour!…

Annapolis Day 2

Marine diesel seminar…rigging seminar…back on boats…30 feet feels big enough – maybe?..center cockpit rocks…we need a bluewater boat not an “entertainer” boat…Dinner @ Cantlers – CRAB! Bottle of wine @ the store + paper cups = late night wine party @ Mrs. Westscotts (shhh!)…pouring over sailing magazines and dreaming about our time…and the rain keeps pouring down…

Day 3 in Annapolis

Liberty Marina open house and we get to walk around and look at “real” boats (i.e., ones we can afford)…Halburg-Rassey, Pearson = beautiful! Guy who just bought a Pearson 30- good luck! Four o’clock flight gets us home by eight that night. Ah…Oh! And it was our one year anniversary! 10-11-12 x1!