Christmas in Florida

Hi Everyone,

Its in the 70's here and cloudy . It sure doesn't feel like Christmas. As there is nothing open or happening here, we are going to take a drive to the beach. How kwel is that! No snow !!!!!!! And we thank God for all the blessings in our life. So far all the projects on the boat are taking a little longer then we thought they would. My new phrase is "Nothing is ever easy, one step forward, three steps back!" We finally got the name and our hailing port on the boat the other day. Had to put it on while bobbing up and down in the dingy with Kathy holding on to the painter through a port hole so I wouldn't float away. Good thing everything went smooth because if I took any steps backwards, I would've been swimming with the manatees.

We do want to wish all of our friends and family following this blog a "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."

Fall colours!

Hello all,

The other day I was coming back from buying stuff and upon entering the boat I forgot a cardnal rule. "One hand for yourself, one hand for the boat." So, as I started down into the boat, my foot slipped off the step. My decent was starting out to be considerably faster than I wanted. First, my butt hit the top step, my leg hit.....something and my elbow hit another step. All this somewhere around, oh say, a million miles an hour. Next thing I know I'm at the bottom of the steps on the sole, (floor) a HUGE, HUGE charley horse in my top left butt cheek, my left shin burning like the dickens and my elbow tingling like there is no tomorrow. And as you can see, the picture doesn't do the real thing justice. AND I'm not I'm not going to show you a picture of the bruise on my boo boo. But I will heal. And as painful as all that was, the damage to the can of mineral spirits was nearly fatal and has no chance of healing.



The galley is coming along. The new stove is in and working and the new corian counter tops are almost completly installed. I figure that as I was redoing it I would do it all. I took out all the old dark wood in the dishes cabinet and redid it with white formica and the dish rack with a type of plastic that they call expanded foam. (the name starts with a K but I forget.) It cuts like butter, glues sweet, can sand it, use screws on it and paint it. Its great stuff. When its finished, I'll take pictures and post it. There is a dirth of projects to complete before we are off but hopefully the important ones will be done in a couple of months and we can be off.

Getting Wet

One step forward

We are continuing getting the boat ready for sailing. We didn't realize how big this boat was until we viewed it in the lift being moved into position to put it into the water. The yard workers set her into the water as gentle as a feather. After getting her into the water and still in the slings, we started looking into making sure that none of the wet stuff on the outside was getting inside. I had checked all the seacocks that I had replaced or worked on, 3 times. As I looked into the kitchen through the top hatch I noticed that the floor was covered in about an inch of water. It was then and there that I discovered that the one and only seacock that I didn't check was the one I didn't work on. Ahhhh, "Danger, danger Will Robertson", wet stuff inside! After closing the sink through hull, the bilge pumps took care of the little water that had made it inside. We continued checking the bilge every half hour for incoming water. None was found. That night on the boat I had a hard time sleeping, I kept checking the bilge for water every hour. Warren slept like a log going out to sea.
Now we have to do a few things to get the engine going. I hope we get to take a few steps forward and none back. So far when we work on something we find two more things we have to do before the project is done.

We are finally in Florida

Hi Friends,
Sorry it’s taken a while to post our comings and goings but now I’ve got a little time to do so, so hear I go.
Ok, we left Wasilla on the 5th of October headed for the great outside where all of the fruits and nuts live. We figured that by leaving at the beginning of October we would miss the snow. NOT! By the time we got to Glenn Allen the clouds started moving in. When we passed Beaver Creak (the Canadian Border) it was snowing. Not the little dry flakes that we so love, but the larger soggy ones. Nothing but slush heavy with water. The next day it snowed off and on. Of course the hard part came just when we passed the end of Kluani Lake and headed for the mountains. When we were coming off of Pink Mountain, it was snowing so hard that the snow packed up on the headlights and I had to get out and wipe them clean. It was so dark and snowing so hard, Warren had to put the front left tire on the yellow no passing line and follow it down the mountain. Real lousy 2nd day. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful……right up to the time we ran over a dead deer. The car tow dolly was so low that it pretty much exploded the carcass and sprayed deer spooge up under the car and left a hanging piece of meat off the muffler. Yech! We carried that meat all the way to my parents place in Washington. When the customs agent at the border asked if we had any “meat products?” I almost said “does dead deer meat that is stuck and frozen on the muffler count?” But I didn’t and he did not go behind the car to inspect, so we made it through the border ok. After arriving at my parents place, we stayed there for almost 3 weeks before leaving with them heading for Southern California to pick up my Aunt and Uncle for the trip down. It was nice in the Santa Ana area. 85 degree weather and not a snow flake to be found. Now, we’ve had the truck for 10 years and never used the air conditioner. But we had to use it on the day we left for Florida, and it worked! It was hot on the freeways and didn’t cool down until we climbed up into the hills where the temperature dropped off. So to make a long story longer, we made it to St. Petersburg on the evening of the 3rd of November and started working on the boat the 4th. We first worked on all the safety items that would let the wet stuff into the boat. Then we moved on to replacing the cutlass bearing that had a lot of slop in it and the stuffing box. We removed the propeller, which was a chore in itself. Then removed the prop shaft, and the cutlass bearing. We then made a tool to reinstall and replace the cutlass bearing with no problems, NEXT time. Had the Rigger come out and fix a stuck halyard that would not let the jib down and install a new halyard that will be needed later. We also removed the boom and took it in to be refurbished due to corrosion. On Monday the 30th we will be picking up the Courian for the counter tops and installing the new stove. We will be putting the boat into the water on Monday the 30th of Nov. Stay tuned for more fun in getting a boat (read as “Break Out Another Thousand) ready to cruise.

The beginning

Hi All,

This is the beginning of our adventures on Sea Notes. And the beginning of learning how to blog. So check back and see how it turns out.