We are underway...

We have cut the lines and are now under-way. My excuses for not posting sooner…it’s been so busy with selling the home, packing up a house after 20 years with 3 teenage boys and the boat had a few things to do (more on this a little further down). See our departure video here. (Ryan did a great job of capturing the moment)…I had a huge smile, until we turned the corner. ;^)

We left pretty much on schedule – mid-July (July 16^th at 4:25pm). We would like to thank everyone who came out to say good-bye and to wish us well…much appreciated; but just couldn't get any work done. J So the day after the final farewell, the boys came to help me build the horses (cradles) that will hold the mast on deck when we transit the Erie Canal. The Mast (the tall stick in the middle of a sailboat) has to come down since the bridge clearance on the canal are only about 20ft above the water. Our mast is 50ft long, then add the height from the deck to the water (another 5’) plus antennas on top of the mast which makes bridge clearance with mast up about 58ft above water level. Anyway, the horses are a custom fit for each boat and by the time that was completed along with a few other last minute items, we left between rain clouds even only to make it to Ashbridges Bay Yacht Club, 1.5 hours away….but hey, we had to shove off!!! Many people have excuse after excuse, year after year, then become too old and never leave. It is a big change of life…exciting and scary. For us, it’s a 3 year plan to visit the Caribbean and the Mediterranean…there is the unknown, but we do know the possibility exists that we can turn around and come back within months…one just never knows with such a change of life.

Additional projects needed to prepare the boat were to have the fuel injectors rebuilt for both diesel engines, assess and repair the stiff steering, install a water maker (desalination unit), replace the windlass (motor the lowers and raises the anchor and chain), convert two water tanks to fuel tanks (not started and may not be done), install the AIS600 (Automatic Identification System), finish the radar install (allows us to see at night and in fog), replace the dinghy motor with a 9.9hp 4 stroke. A few additional last minute jobs were to replace the forward waste tank (we replaced the aft tank last year), install a SuperWind wind generator, replace the refrigerator compressor, replace all 8 batteries (my brother Rick helped reconfigure them for greater redundancy). Now we have most of our charts (maps) and a long list of other tasks to work on along the way.

Like many before us, we could have made several excuses why not to leave the dock when we did, but we tossed everything remaining on the boat or in the garbage bin and with the wood for the horses laying on the deck and the boat in a shambles, we left and made a commitment to clean it up that night.

So the journey begins...