Lynne | 
11 30th, 2008| 
So we set off yesterday afternoon, amidst a flurry of loading up, and lots of good wishes from family and friends, who stood on the docks and waved farewell to us. About 45 minutes into the trip (under motor) we encountered a hiccup. It seems that in the thrashing that we took on Tuesday, something worked itself loose in the coolant system for the engine, and uh oh, we had to shut the engine down while we tried to sort the issue out. On the good news front… an excuse to sail! so up went all three of our sails, and we were off finally underway in the way that a sailboat should be!! A beautiful and quiet sight!
We made good time in a nice beam reach almost all the way down to the Cape Cod bay. Mark took the first shift at the helm, relieved by Lynne, while Brian worked on sorting out the engine issue. As we came into the bay, we ultimately made the decision that the engine repair was going to require more than a quick fix, we needed to replace two bolts in the coolant system and that we really should minimize running our engine (which is required to go through the CC Canal). That said, we decided to hunker down for the evening off of Sconnset Beach (I’ll double check the name in the AM), and dropped our shiny new Bruce anchor. We all kicked back and tucked in for the night for some shut eye, snug as snug can be with all of our blankets!
We woke up in the AM to sleet (yuck) and sludge on the deck. After a little more fiddling with the engine, we decided that we had to put in and get some parts. A phone call to my good friend (and our savior) Bill H. who was willing to drive down from his place in Kingston and shuttle us around to the hardware store and all the way to Hyannis to the marine supply store. The stop and quick meal at IHOP doesn’t even begin to repay Bill for all of his help. (I owe you one!)
Upon our (very damp) return to the boat, and speedy fairwells and hearty thanks to Bill at docksides since it was pouring buckets, Mark went to work on repairing the coolant system, while Brian worked on the computer system and the VHF and I worked on continuing to find homes for all of the stuff we’d brought aboard in the last 36 hours.
Success! Mark has fixed the engine system! and it’s now running smoothly and without leaks! Brian’s gotten rid of the kink in the VHF, and I’ve managed to seal up the leaky window (thanks to Jay’s Silly Putty solution) and managed to stow away much more of our posessions.
Now it’s off to bed for the night, as we’ll likely be leaving around noon tomorrow with the tide, however Mark is going to get up and check to see how the weather and wind is looking for the potential window at 2 AM tonight…. to try to make some time out of this cold weather.
More in the next few days, when we have access again to update.
Leaving the house, departing in a few hours.
We’ll miss you all very much!!!!
Well, we haven’t yet departed. We lost some time to the last storm… a day of work lost, and some extra effort to repair [minor] damage.
It looks like we want to leave by 2pm on Saturday, to hit 11pm tide change for Cape Cod Canal.
Our weather window isn’t as good as we’d like, but we’re also feeling like we better leave soon. Sunday/Monday is looking to be pretty rough, and we may be going through long island sound for protection. We may have to wait up for good weather to make the passage south from New York.
So we got a call from the marina yesterday afternoon reporting that they had had to go out and resecure our boat, and that we’d lost a few items, our fenders, our anchor had gone overboard… They were able to retrieve our anchor (since it was on the windlass and attached to 200′ of chain, don’t know if it just ended up on the dock or what had gone awry there), and they tied the boat down more securely.
The good news is, although we sustained some damage (which I have yet to see but Brian reported isn’t too bad) to the bow, most of our damage seems to have been cosmetic. We do in fact still have our fenders, which were on the Starboard side only, and miraculously, it appears that the Portabote seats also remained on board! Despite having tied them down when we left on Monday, I wasn’t confident that my quick tie down job would have been sufficient to have kept them on the boat. Also in the good news category, the solar panels and wind generator are all still upright, intact and seem to have survived this toss about just fine.
Brian says that the inside is totally tossed about, but that’s to be expected. So clean up is on my agenda today, which it kind of was anyway. I think we’ll be in a push to try to make it out of here for tomorrow, but I think that Friday at noon is absolutely doable! Just have to keep an eye on the weather window.
Off to the boat for me now that Brian’s reported there’s nothing he needs me to bring or pick up on my way. More updates later after a full on visual and assessment.
We’re setting sail around noontime on Thursday, with good confidence at this point.
We’ll be attempting to hit the 9:30pm tide change Thursday night for the Cape Cod Canal, and will be cruising along the outside of Long Island into Friday and Saturday while trying to make fastest time to Delaware Bay or better, depending on how we’re holding up.
We’ve got what appears to be a great weather window, too [after the current storm subsides]! Docile weather for the length of the forecasts, through the weekend at least.
Edit: Tuesday 2pm. Current weather seems to be upsetting our plans. We may be home for Thanksgiving afterall. The boat is getting pounded right now, so much that we’re unable to go out on the dock to get to her. Will have to assess damage tomorrow and see where it leaves us.
Gotta love New England. A place where you can ice-skate outdoors and sail in the same day! [well, only if you like sailing at below freezing temperatures :)]
We’re in the home stretch, hoping to depart real soon.
Well, we had hoped to leave today (Tues Nov 18), but we’re not quite ready. Seems we have 1-2 days of work/repairs and 1-2 days of packing/preparation.. I’d hope to be off by Friday, maybe sooner.
Lynne had some amazing luck yesterday, something we’re very excited about. We’ve really disliked the condition of the portlight/windows on the boat, but have been reluctant to put too much money/time into fixing them. A number of windows are translucent at best and you cannot see anything through them. UV light has damaged the plastic windows over the nearly 30 years of the boat’s life. A couple of them leak pretty bad, too. New windows can be something like 150$ each.
Yesterday, Lynne stopped by West Marine in Danvers and saw 2 windows on the shelves. The price was not marked. The nice fellow at the store decided that the 2 windows ought to be worth about 30$ each. Lynne managed to hold back the excitement and keep her composure until paying for the items and leaving the store. I got a VERY excited phone call a moment after she left the store!
Mostly things take longer and cost more than expected. It’s great to have a happy surprise every once in a while when things are the other way around.
Hopefully a more-or-less final list of things before we leave. Hoping to wrap up this week (,but everything always takes longer than expected).
- engine: install new tach, new water temp guage, hook up oil pressure, fix muffler
- mast: climb mast to fix a few issues
- install new front hatch cover
- kitchen: finish icebox, fix kitchen counter, finalize plumbing to sink, Install propane stove
- SSB/digital: Troubleshoot
- Install 2 new eye holes for drogue
- Mount outboard stern rail
- Upgrade nav lights
- SCUBA: decide on equipment, esp. air supply
- Charts: order paper charts
- computer: get cabling for 2nd monitor, wire audio out to stereo, install ext. USB hard drive (1 TB, woot!)
- Anchoring: chain hooks, organize spare chain/line
- Misc gear: Ebook readers?, new handheld VHF?, ….
I am not nearly as good about doing daily updates or posts as Brian is, and the last couple of days have been a heady whirlwind! I’m beyond thrilled that Brian and I are engaged, I am SO lucky to be with him! And the ring, well stunning doesn’t begin to describe it!!! I am so happy I feel like I am walking through the clouds!
Boat wise, we’re making progress! My folks came up yesterday for the day, and got the tour of the boat. We’ve still got a bunch to do, but every day we’re getting closer and closer. It’s finally starting to really feel REAL that we’re going to do this trip, and it’s going to be amazing!
Off to do a little more prep work around the house before I head to the boat. Today our friend Starbuck is moving in (? at least partially) as she’ll be living here while we’re away, so I need to get things cleared out for her. She’s also going to go up the mast for us today to resnake the halyards and perhaps also to put the deck light lamp back in, we lost that at some point, but it would be really nice to have that working - well to have a bulb in it, since it does work when there’s a bulb in it!
Last night, Nov. 6, I proposed to Lynne at the restaurant which we first met. She said yes!
We’re very excited about our future together.
Here’s a closeup of Lynne’s ring, as beautiful as she:
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