Another project we can mark off the list just got accomplished… We go the dinghy davits installed and now “More Better” is hanging off the back of the boat!
We spent the 1st weekend of the year doing what??? Pulling out all of the provisions to get them sorted and reorganzied. It was a tab bit overwhelming as I didn’t realize just how much we had on board. Now mind you, I haven’t gone grocery shopping at all for the boat or the RV for the past several months. So we sorted out what had expired (yes, we lost some food because it was expired); anything expiring in the next month or 2 got removed off the boat and taken to the RV so we can eat it.
We took another weekend and went down to West Palm Beach where we met up with Dave and Lisa on Dark Angel. It was so relaxing to get down to meet up with them for a long weekend. We took them a bunch of extra provisions we had as they are preparing to leave and head to the Bahamas. No point in throwing away food that I know they could probably use. It was a great time to go out and visit with them. Lots of laughs, food and good times were had. Even if the weather was crappy, we didn’t let it affect us.
Some really exciting progress happened this month. We were able to get the new windlass installed, connected and fully working. Super stoked about this finally happening. This is a critical system that was needed as we had tried to strong arm the anchor and there was no way that was happening so this again moves the needle forward for us.
We attended the St Pete Boat show as Elijah wanted to look at some boats and this allowed us to go and say hi to our sponsors until we can meet up with them again at the Annapolis show later this year. We enjoy taking a moment to say hello to them and thank them for all they have done for us as we couldn’t be this far ahead of our plan if we had to do it all on our own. So with the deepest and heartfelt thanks, we are grateful to our sponsors for the past year of blessings we have received.
We finished out the month with getting some more fire damage repair work completed. We had Brad from Paradise yachts come out and measure for our new spinnaker sail and replace the lines that we lost in the fire. The weather would just not cooperate with us and getting him out. It was either way to windy or way too cold but it finally got warn enough with little wind for this to get done. Now we can get sailing again. This was holding us back since Sept as we weren’t able to use the sails and you need those to move in the water and to get you going when the motor is not running.
Final big ticket items were also purchased and will be installed in the coming months. Our new to us Generator a Westerbee 7.6 kw and a brand new Ray Marine Auto Pilot. The generator will be installed professionally and has been slated for early march as that is the earliest that we can get them to come back out. He will also change out the alternator on Frankenstein (our engine) so we can use that to recharge the batteries without running the generator when we are sailing. The auto pilot will go in once the generator is in as well so that will also have to wait until early march. I do believe that Andy will be taking another “vacation” to work on the boat as we prepare to shift gears from preparing to be cruise ready to adding some comfort and finishing items in preparation of leaving.
Stay tuned for additional updates that will continue in the coming months as we prepare to leave in Oct/Nov and start our cruising adventures and next chapter of our lives.
