Our plans to play in the Buckskin Mountains on the southern Utah/northern Arizona border fizzled when, just a few days prior to departure, its 10-day weather forecast read like a broken record: rain-rain-rain-rain-rain. Plan B was Las Vegas and I was not very excited about it. Red Rocks Canyon, a [...]
Read More"We haven't seen a winter like this in over twenty years." Our next-door neighbors Forest and Gina didn't grow up in Wyoming, but they've been here long enough to be considered "natives". So when they tell us that this is just about the worst and longest Wyoming winter they've lived [...]
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As the larger projects have mostly been completed, we’ve been taking on smaller projects  Slocum 37 placard I’m not super stoked about how this one turned out- I think I should have left the cool, old, patina. I spent a lot of time trying to clean the patina off to get down to what I thought was brass. After […]
We are so happy to be in calm water and at a safe, solid anchorage at Morehead City, we think we’ll stay for a day.
Cape Lookout is amazing! But it’s time to get back to Sailcraft and get back to work on Free Range. The weather window for the next few days does not look great. Saturday shows a Small Craft Advisory with winds 20+ knots and seas 5-7 feet. We think – this could be good weather to practice sailing in bad weather! […]
In preparation for our trip to Cape Lookout, I reviewed the chart, looked up all the Local Notice to Mariners (these are published by the Coast Guard each week with items that boaters need to be aware of, such as bridge construction, waterway closures, etc.), and made sure we would fit under all of the bridges along our route. We […]
S&S and a few other guys at Sailcraft recommend that we go check out Cape Lookout. It’s about 30 miles from Oriental, six of which are in the ATLANTIC OCEAN! So we borrow an old chart, get some provisions, and take off. Most of the way is motoring / motor sailing on the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW). We had planned to […]
**WARNING** Heidi McCollum, DO NOT read any further as this post involves…feet. As Stephane and I laid on the warm pool-side cement after a short swim and a long day of projects, I noticed our feet. Feet, like hands, can tell a lot about a person. When I look at our feet, here’s what I see: -Distinctive tan lines Our flip-flops […]
Did you know that there’s another S&S out there? And did you know that they are fabulous? Well, now you do. Sally and Steve – a.k.a. “The Other S&S”, “The West Coast S&S” – are the previous (and original) owners of Free Range (Dimsan). Â We are so blessed to have purchased this boat because now we have these two in […]
And the projects continue… We needed to add a new switch to the electrical panel. There’s this thing in the bilge called a “float switch” (actually there are several float switches/bilge pumps in the bilge). When water gets to a certain level in the bilge, the water pushes the float switch up to a point where […]
Saturday afternoon, after much cleaning and stowing of things, we took Free Range out for our first sail. Mark, a master rigger who works at Sailcraft (local boat yard/marina where we are staying) came with us to make sure we got out of the channel without running aground and to teach the ropes. We were SO HAPPY to have him […]
Mami & Papi sent us some neat old photos of the boat they used to own along with some great words of encouragement. Stephane had a great teacher! Check this out:
Sunday, a few final projects: painting the boot stripe, lubing all the sea cocks and making sure they can open/close easily, loading all of our belongings from “the burrito” onto Free Range. Monday we splashed Free Range (dropped her in the water!). Paul loaded her up on his giant truck and drove her over to Sailcraft Marina. Stephane […]
This past Saturday we took a day off. And boy did it feel good 🙂 We drove back to Nofolk and got to spend the morning on the aircraft carrier on which Dan currently serves – the USS Harry S. Truman (The Buck Stops Here!). Later in the day, we met up with a guy selling […]
Yesterday I discovered a Slocum Owners Group on Yahoo Groups – awesome!!! Although most of the owners appear to own the Slocum 43, it is still a very helpful and knowledgeable group of which to be a part. I posted a question about chainplates last night and got a response an hour or so later – love it! A great […]
More projects this week… Chainplates We had Mark from SailCraft (local boatyard) come out to assess the chainplates. The chainplates themselves look good and so we are good to go to move forward with re-sealing them. Stephane did that today (took all day, but it’s DONE which means NO MORE LEAKING in our boat (at least no more leaking from […]
We’ve been brainstorming for a proper boat name since the day we bought her. Finally, we have one we love: FREE RANGE We see “open range” signs all over our neck of the woods in Colorado (ranchers let their cattle wander over the land, eating whatever wherever). We also see them on our way to Indian Creek. So, firstly, it […]
There’s a little star cut-out on the deck where you fill the water. All week we’ve been looking for “the star key” so we can open up and fill the water tanks. Finally, when we see the boatyard owner, Paul, we say to him, “We’d like to fill up our water tanks but we can’t find our star key […]
It’s been a work week like none other I have known before: manual labor from sunup to sundown. My body has grown soft and weak sitting in its office chair all day Monday through Friday, so this new routine has been hard on it but GOOD for it! Monday As the clock struck seven AM this past Monday morning, we […]
And on our second day of searching, we found our very own Four-Knot-Sh*t-Box (we learned this term from one of the boat owners we talked to yesterday – blue water boats are known for not going very fast  – thus the four-knots – and they hold all your stuff!). We were up early and on the road for the three […]
Since the windshield of The Rogue is so badly cracked, we decided to stay local and check out the nearby marinas. Not much for sale but we did meet Tim, who gave us some broker advice and invited us to come back to race on his sailboat on Friday evening. At the next marina, Little Creek, we saw several blue […]
It was as if all the forces of nature wanted to keep us from arriving in Virginia…
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. 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 – […]
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 […]