Early days, lot's to learn

Our first days (actually weeks) on the boat are intense. We get up early, work all day, fall in bed exhausted. No time even to take many pictures. We check out every nook and cranny, I am making an inventory list of everything we find on board, and where it is stowed. After that, we, well, mostly Warren, figure out all our systems. Engine, generator, air-con, heat, water, plumbing, lighting, batteries, the list goes on and on. One of the big projects Warren wanted to tackle right of the bat, was the water maker. The boat came with a water maker, but it was listed as needing "assembly". Well, on our trip through all the lockers of the boat, we did find all the parts for it. Now the assembly part started. And went on, and on, and on. Almost 10 days of water maker installation hell. Meanwhile, the boat is in shambles, as all the floors are opened, and hoses, clamps, motors, filters, you name it, everywhere. That means that I can not move around the boat, I am disabled. What is a girl to do in such a situation? Off to Walmart!!!! Actually, I did go to Walmart, many times, because I have to provision the boat for our trip to the Bahamas. We want to take along as many provisions as possible, many items are hard to get down there, and often more money than Walmart. So while Warren was rolling around on his stomach and back, I had the fun job of shopping at Walmart.
After 10 days, the water maker was still not finished. It required countless trips to Home Depot and Lowe's, eating up a crazy amount of time. But those of you who know Warren will know, that he will not give up. But the project was temporarily put on hold, so we could take the boat out for a spin, up the Manatee River and into Tampa Bay. We had almost been on the boat for two weeks, and it was high time to give this "sailing thing" a try. Off we went, on our first excursion, I was so nervous, mostly about navigating through the buoys correctly, but also about getting in and out of our slip. But all went well, and once out in the bay, we even used our Jib and sailed! (the jib is the sail at the very front of the boat). (we decided to leave the main sail for another trip)
We were also excited to welcome our very first visitors on board. Willie and Brigitte from Germany, we know them from our trip to Southern Africa. We took them out up the river and into the bay, had a wonderful afternoon together. Once safely back in our slip, we celebrated with a nice bottle of bubbly and then had a cozy dinner together.
Next day, back to work. Warren had been mulling this water maker thing around, and figured out some solution. And sure enough, it's all good and working. We actually had a very big surprise, a fitting end to this saga. Water makers are reverse osmosis systems. They have a "membrane" to treat the salt water into drinking water. But membranes are fussy, and when they are not in use, have to get "pickled". We didn't even think that we had a membrane, so when we tested the water, we were really surprised to get "sweet" water, we expected salt water. (we were only testing the system to make sure there were no leaks in the system) Turns out, we had a pickled membrane, a $400.00 dollar saving, and the water tested perfectly fine, yay!!!
After a high, there is always a low. Next on the testing list was the generator. Should have been a rather straight forward thing, but not so. We just could not get it started. Actually, it started fine but would quit running as soon as you took your fingers off the start switch. Not very handy. Long story short, after 1 1/2 days of searching for the problem, Warren found a loose wire and voila, generator purrs like a kitten. Things were looking up and becoming a bit more easy, so we planned our first over night trip, more about that in my next post.

Checking out the dinghy.... all is well.

If you are too busy to sail the actual boat, you can always go for a spin in the dingy....

Our very first trip out, to test the motor, and test the chart plotter and navigator (me :))

Willie and Brigitte, our very first visitors, we had a wonderful time! Thanks guys for visiting!

A well deserved happy hour! A bottle of bubbly served by a pro!

Enjoying a lovely dinner together...

Warren investigating the plumbing ...

He is only smiling because I asked him to! Working on the engine, or water maker, or generator or some other darn thing. Access to all these items is impossible!!!

Thanks Warren, you are a trooper !

Finally, the adventure begins!

WELCOME TO MY BLOG! 

I am writing this blog for various reasons: to keep a record of the things we will be doing and to share it with my friends and family. Two years ago I wrote my first blog on a trip to Southern Africa, and it was very well received  (here is a link to my Southern Africa blog). So when people started to hear about this adventure, I was asked to write about it as well, so here it is. Please feel free to send comments and questions, it is nice to know that you are all "out" there and following along.


It is Friday, October 28th, the day we decided to start our adventure and leave Winnipeg for Florida. It is a very long awaited day, several years of planning and dreaming. So let me back up a bit and give you some background info....

We have a cottage at Betula Lake in the Whiteshell, and about 6 years ago we bought a small dinghy, a Laser 1. Warren took to sailing very quickly, and two years later we upgraded to a 16ft CL16. Things were going well, so we decided to take a proper sailing course down in Florida, and we both got our bareboat sailing certification. Bareboat means that you can charter a boat without a captain! We did do just that, first on Lake of the Woods and then, two years ago, in the Bahamas. 

This past January, things started to get a bit more intense. We had been looking at boats on the internet for some time, but really had no idea what they would look like in real life. So we went to Florida just to get an idea as to what we might like. We kept looking and around April, Crab Louie came up for sale. We hemmed and we hawed, but finally flew down  at the end of May to take a closer look. We quite liked what we saw, so we proceeded with the next step, survey and sea trial. For that we had to come back to Florida another time, so down we flew again. 


We bought Crab Louie, and she (boats are always female) is waiting for us at Regatta Point Marina. So here we are now, living on the boat and getting her ready for our cruising. More on that in my next post!

Two days before departure I decided to bake Christmas cookies, for Melanie and Justin (daughter and son-in-law), Kevin (son), and for ourselves to take along.... as if I wasn't busy enough with all the other stuff!!! 

All our stuff lined up in the fron hall, it's getting more real by the minute, will it all fit in the car?

Our adventure begins, October 27th, at 5:32 AM. We were so excited, we both slept lousy, so we got up and left earlier than planned...

....and three days later, we arrived at Regatta Point Marina. 

And this is the view out of my port "bedroom window". Not too shabby...