Category Archives: Travel

Medical Check Up time

by

A few days ago JoAnne and I left behind our boat, and headed for Colorado, on our way for blood work and Oncology checkups.

Across the country, we stopped in Kentucky to visit some of my relatives on my Mom’s side of the Family.  The Martins.  We ran into a lot of cousin, uncles and aunts, saw my Granny’s old house, which is still standing in the midst of chaos in the countryside.  I don’t expect the house to be there much longer as there’s a big fight over it between the family and some local doctor buying up all the land to develop it.

Long ago, that was a few acres of land that belonged to my Granny and Grandpa but it’s almost all gone now, as is the “quaintness” of the Appalachian upbringing I experienced as a child for a few years.  I used to wander in the woods down there, and cross the “New Road” (which is an OLD road now) to get the creek to fish or swim, and regularly get my butt whipped for going there. (We weren’t supposed to, but it never stopped us from going.)

Today, a Walmart stands near by, schools are bigger (and no longer a two-story brick building that I went to in 2nd and 3rd grade), town is a bit bigger, and there are housing developments around.  A lot of the old houses that were there when I was a child are gone.  The “woods” is much smaller than it used to be now, and of course, the hills are mountains to me any more after living for 25 years in Colorado – where mountains are massive, but still not as large as the Himalayas are (where I’ve visited and climbed).

In fact, the whole world has become smaller, more compact and familiar whereas Kentucky has become a less-than-familiar place for me.  But it was wonderful seeing relatives I’ve not seen in years.  I even managed to see my Uncle Rudy and Aunt Jenny (Rudy is my father’s older brother, and is at least 83 years old now).  He reminds me of my Dad in many ways.  Dad is gone now, for a few years, as is mom, so it was nice to reconnect to the rest of the family.

After the Reunion, we made our way to Colorado, stopping one night in Missouri at a dumpy hotel off the beaten path.  Then, next day into Fountain, Colorado and my son’s place.  We’ve managed to see all our children but one who is in Denver, most of the grandkids and visit with old neighbors.  The day after we arrived we went in for JoAnne’s blood work to be accomplished, and of course had issues with the doctor’s office.

They (CSHP) have decided that if you don’t see a doctor there in one year, you’re no longer a patient.  I guess that poses a problem for everyone who is healthy and sees a physician once a year for a checkup and physical.  After a bit of argument, and a request to talk to our regular doctor, they conceded the issue was theirs and wrote the paperwork out for the blood work (which had already, previously been arranged, but they didn’t appear to want to do it).  Dr. R. did the orders, and blood was drawn.  Then we had to wait a week for the oncologist to get it.

Yesterday the week was up, we appeared at the appointed time to see her Oncologist.  We saw the PA, and not the surgeon, but that was fine.

JoAnne’s numbers for her blood work were fine.  Maybe 2 points higher than last time.  Nothing significant.  No physical issues.  JoAnne got a clean bill of health from the doctor’s office, and we set up an appointment for next year.  Another milestone is past us!!

We head back shortly for our ship, after laundry, some more visiting and some celebration.

October-November time frame is our planned Bahamas departure time.  We hope to go there for 4-6 months, and then back to our slip in Cape Fear.  Lots of planning and lots of work to do before then!

Adventure awaits!

S/V Adventure Video Tour

by

I think I posted this before, but because it’s one of Kurt’s most watched videos, I’m going to post it again… with comments.


This video was shot by Kurt A. Seastead of s/v Lo-Kee.  He is currently doing a refit of his boat.

Adventure was purchased in January of 2015 by Rick and JoAnne Donaldson (that’s us) for a long term cruise and travel.  The boat had a few things wrong with it, but over all, she floated.  The equipment was old (and mostly still is), but it all worked.

Some of the comments on the Youtube video included comments about how “sloppy” I am. 🙂  Another comment was about how dangerous in mast furling is (or perhaps could be?) and that the person writing the comment would NEVER use it.

I’ll make a few of my own comments.

I’m currently working part time in a marina.  I’m handling boats coming through from the Caribbean and Bahamas headed north.  I count the number of in-mast furling rigs I see daily.  I see no less than 5-6 out of 7-10 sail boats.  I find it interesting that there are so many who’ve traveled oceans with these rigs so far.  I have traveled IN the ocean but not crossed it yet.  But so far, the only issues I’ve had with the rigging was having to replace all the halyards and make sure the proper maintenance was performed on the rig.

The boat came with the rigging installed.  I’m not going to undo everything just to make a couple of people happy so they can assume they are right.  The truth is, if the rig gets jammed, the sail can be lowered and treated like any other main sail.

I wonder how many people who make claims about how “bad” something is, have actually used those pieces of equipment.  I venture to say “Almost ZERO”.

As to my “sloppiness”… We had not cruised before we bought the boat, except on bare boat charters and a smaller boat in lakes using our trailer to get there.  Out of necessity we packed lightly, moved the boat and sailed, but generally for 2-3 days at a time.  We couldn’t get enough stuff on the boat to support us.  That included food and water (rather important items).

We also LIVE on this boat, full time.  We don’t have a house, don’t want to waste money on “storage units” we will never visit.  Have no place close by to store things with friends and honestly, don’t want to do so.  There is certainly only so much room on a boat.  We have spare parts for a lot of things.  We have tools to do repairs (and tools take up a lot of space, but without them, we’d be lost).  Tools also can keep me working when necessary to earn some money, because, I know how to do a LOT of jobs.

So one person’s sloppy, is another person’s “organized chaos”.

Also note that we had been on the boat LESS than three months when that video was shot.  We’d owned the boat less than a year and moved aboard in August 2015.  We were still learning how and where to store things.  It was somewhat haphazard at the beginning.

Truth is, we have gotten rid of a lot of things, BUT, we still have clutter and things we can’t yet part with, and until we can find smaller, like items to replace things we use we won’t be doing that just yet.  We have significantly reduced the weight of several items though and we now have a car at our “new marina home port” so we use it to store extra tools I won’t need when cruising.

There are things on this boat a lot of people wouldn’t want.  I’ll give you a little idea.  Composting toilet (a lot of people HATE them, but have never used one.  A lot of people swear by them. I’m still in the middle on this).  OLD electronics.  I have very old radio, doesn’t do AIS.  Broken radar, I’m not paying 2 grand for a new one.  Old, but functional chart plotter (old…. is 1990s, updated firmware for 2009 and no more support).  But it has brand new charts (days old now).   We have no microwave.  We have no freezer.  We DO have a working refrigeration unit (I repaired the ancient one and it works fine).  We have a gas generator (Honda 2000eu version) which people hate because it uses gasoline.  (A lot of people have a gas motor for their dink…../shrug).  We have a propane engine for the dinghy (hard to get propane I hear…. so far, so good, no problem with that).  We have a NEW stove and oven (ok a year or so old now) but my wife loves it.

And so on.  I’m absolutely CERTAIN that if you’ve ever been on and sailed a sailboat something in that list will make you cringe.  And some of you will think “Cool, I use one of those!”

Here’s my point, and the point of re-posting the video once more.

Everyone has their way of doing things.  We each have an idea of what we like, don’t like, and how we would do it, and how we would NOT do it.  You, me, him, her, doesn’t matter.  There are people who wouldn’t GO in a sailboat, because they are power boaters.  We have some who pick at us calling us “Blow Boaters”.  I take it as a compliment, and point out the price of fuel, and the wind is free….

We’re on this journey because my wife wanted to travel.  We think it is a neat way to see things.  We love meeting people.

We’re not on this journey to please ANYONE other than ourselves.  Perhaps that’s selfish, but after 60 years on this planet, doing everything for everyone else, I’m a little peeved at armchair sailors and snobs who nit pick everything anyone else does “because it’s not how *I* would do it”.

A few years ago, I stopped visiting Cruisers Forums, and Sail Net (and I HELPED form sail net!) because of the armchair sailors who would denigrate others for what they considered “dumb questions”.  There is a large group of people out there that are at work every day, getting up, going to work, going home, and logging into the computer – and on weekends they go out to their marina where they store their boat, they climb aboard and drink “sundowners” and wake up with hangovers.  On Monday they go back to work.  During the week they call some company to go polish their boat or wash it, and pay through the nose for the privilege of sitting on the dock on weekends drinking their Bud Lites – but during the week, they bitch and complain about all of us who actually live on the boat, go places, and make due with significantly less space than they have, no or low income, squeeze Lincoln until he screams and buy our cheap beer at the grocery store, and our liquor from the local markets.

They do this because they feel as if they are better than the rest of the cruisers out there.

I’ve yet to meet a long distance cruiser who has a perfectly clean, perfectly cared for boat, that isn’t somewhat cluttered, full of extra “stuff” they “need” (hoses, extra lines, pieces of “small stuff” – that’s bits of twine and line for those of you who might not know that), tools, the odd “silver tea service” or plastic wine goblets.

You know why?  Because they are out there doing their thing, being happy and not complaining about how the other half lives.

Kurt and I are discussing a remake at some point.  A follow up video to this one.  It will address some of the questions you all have, assuming we find the time and can connect somewhere to do it.  But, it will also be real, personal and it shows the truth.

The fact is, I write this blog on the same basis.  I tell it like it is.  Not how you want it to be.  There’s no such thing as a perfect boat, day, trip, travel, or location.  There’s rarely a perfect day of sailing (it happens, but it’s not often).  Extended cruisers sometimes pick up jobs.  They sometimes have to stop and work for a living.  Sometimes they travel and are out of contact for weeks at a time.  Sometimes they even catch fish.  Sometimes they get hurt.  Sometimes, unfortunately, they can die.

I write about everything.  Good. Bad. Ugly. Fun.  Doesn’t matter.  I enjoy writing about our Adventure(s) and what we go through.  I was beat up by a once-friend on Facebook because she disagreed about how I presented my store about a marina.  We had a ROUGH time there.  We had a lot of things go wrong.  Most of them happened when we were not even at the boat.  And yet somehow having these bad things happen and writing about them upset this lady to the point she de-friended me.  I was, in her eyes “putting down her marina”. /Shrug

As I said, I’m not here to please anyone else.

Kurt wanted to do the interview above.  It was impromptu, we had not really cleaned up the boat after having been traveling for a few weeks. The wife was off doing laundry.  I was going Kurt the tour.

So, sometimes, sloppiness is a perceived thing (mostly to OCD people who have a penchant for correcting where someone sits their coffee cup) and equipment issues are almost ALWAYS, ALWAYS based on 3rd hand, biased reporting by people who have zero personal experience with them.  I’m sure that a lack of spit and polish on the bronze pisses people off to no end. 🙂

When it all comes out in the end…. If we have a good time doing what we’re doing, why would anyone be upset?  Except for the people in Florida that don’t want over night anchoring because, well, they are armchair sailors and boaters and honestly don’t know anything about how the other half lives.  They just don’t want to see us in the waterways.

If we all had to please everyone around us, all the time the task would be to ensure everyone is happy.  And you’re not.

That is not the way to live your life, friends.

Go out and be happy.  If you’re going to sail a boat, do it.  Don’t complain about how others do it, how they live, that their equipment isn’t like yours…. be happy we’re different.

 

 

 

Safe At Fishing Bay – Part Two

by

I sort of ended on a half thought out “thought” yesterday.

When we headed into the bay here yesterday, the wind was almost dead on the nose.  Once we cleared Windmill Point it slackened a bit, but not much.

Haul out:  Today… we got our haul out and clean.  The bottom was covered in barnacles and stuff.  Not too much slime as I think we peeled it off on the run down the Potomac River a couple days ago.  We managed almost, but not quite 7 knots under sail alone for most of that trip.  I was pretty impressed with the boat, even as dirty as her bottom turned out to be.  I think some of our speed issue yesterday was the prop being covered in barnacles as well.

They cleaned it, removed the wildlife, and some of the paint in the process.  Replaced a zinc on the prop (which was simply GONE. No idea when it came off, or where it might have gone to).  Rudder and prop looked good.  I checked all the through hulls for any damages, problems or barnacles in them, all were ok.

I was able to easily bring the boat from the dock we were on, diagonally across the channel to the lift slip, the guys grabbed the bow and held her while the wind shove the stern around, and they pulled me in backward.  Killed the engine climbed off and watch the lift, and even took pictures.

I just wish we were going to have paint put on before we leave but, not happening.  I’ll be doing the next cleaning myself when I dive the boat in the Bahamas I hope.

Tomorrow our mail should arrive, we’ll hit “town” once (I need a couple of things from West Marine and we need to hit the grocery store for small things), mail in our ballots, I’ll prep the boat for depature tomorrow afternoon after we do our running around, and we’ll back out of this slip early, round the bay, raise the sails and try to look competent for once. lol  (Can’t get stuck here except in two places, and I KNOW where they are.  I’ll avoid those at all costs).

Engine:  Had an electrical guy come in to help me trouble shoot what I thought was a problem.  The Alternator.

There was no problem with the Alternator.  My batteries… not so sure of them, but we’re going to watch them closely and see how they do.  They appeared properly charged, the alternator appeared to be sending voltage properly.

Alternator Belt:  Not so good. Over heated somehow.  Neither the mechanic, me, or the guy at NAPA could figure it out.  Probably too loose was the diagnosis.  I replaced the belt, bought a spare to replace the one I used (I’ve got three spares right now, might get a couple more though).  I did buy extra bolts to replace the one.  I need someone with a laser checker to determine of that stuff is out of kilter, but no one seems to have one, or know what I’m talking about.
Cleaned up the deck, coiled some lines I’d left hanging from the dinghy davits (I was in a hurry to escape from Reedville and didn’t take the time to mess with it, and fortunately, it wasn’t in my way, and I ignored it, otherwise we’d have missed the time yesterday to get in here before the place closed shop for the evening).

Cruising and Pretending to Be Cruisers:  I have begun to suspect the other cruisers out there.  So many talk about minor issues, going from place to place like they are teleporting down from the USS Enterprise on an Away Mission, and going back to the ship with no problems.  Rarely do I see real “problems”.  Although, a few do write up their problems, I’ve also noted a distinct and at times ridiculous ability of others to put down those actually “doing it”.

Basically, the reason I write this blog is to document (for our family) the trials and tribulations we go through just to move the boat from one place to the next.  I’ve figured out that EVERYTHING is difficult, and sometimes impossible to do – but we’re here to do the “impossible”.  My wife and I have performed the impossible in our jobs, our lives, our daily existence and we’ll continue, I suppose to do so until we can’t any more.

But I guess what I don’t like in the cruising community isn’t the cruisers.  It’s not the boats.  It’s not the travel.  It’s not the places we go, people we meet, or the stuff we get to do. Instead it’s the online Forums.  I used to frequent several of them as we were learning.  I thought in my naivety that people were helpful (and indeed PEOPLE are helpful, outside, in person, on other boats, in marinas, walking by, standing on docks).  The people who are unhelpful are those who also frequent those same forums I was frequenting.

I have yet to meet ONE of the people (who sometimes came off as obnoxious assholes on the forum) in person.  I wonder then where these “cruisers” are?  At home?  In a nice warm home, sitting by the fireplace with their tablets talking down to the people who are actually out there?  Probably.

Now, a few months ago I wrote up our problems in a marina in Norfolk.  I even clearly stated I didn’t have any problems with the PEOPLE there, and they were wonderful, but the problems we encountered were inside that marina, most all of them were the result of others’ actions.  With the except of my wife falling off a dock (which they had placed a boat on we were going to visit, the dock being partially disassembled and probably too dangerous anyway, but we CHOSE to walk there… but I digress).  Asking them to do things, expecting a good job and then paying for the services performed is normal in ALL walks of life and a marina is NO different.

I made a couple of enemies over that blog post and it’s still bugging me a bit.  The REASON it bugs me is the one lady is a cruiser, an accomplished cruiser, smart lady but she took my blog post as an attack.

I’m making it clear here and today, my blog, my posts, my words are mine.  This blog is about what happens to JoAnne and I and our boat, Adventure.  It’s NOT about anyone else’s experiences.  It’s NOT about putting down or ridiculing others.  It’s about making SURE that anyone that reads this blog can see what experience WE had.

Take it as you wish, a story, a warning, or simply a blog post.  But, I don’t accept rude comments in the comment section, and I’ll block you on Facebook if you attack me in that mode over something I’ve posted here.  I tell the truth about what we have had happen to us.  Period.

Don’t like it, don’t read it.

The header says “Cruisers and Pretending to be Cruisers” for a reason.  There are people who I know sit at home and post insulting messages all the time on some of the more “popular forums” online.  That is the reason I walked away from them.  I still check from time to time for information, but even on Facebook now, I’ve stopped offering help.  I’m a radio guy.  Electronics tech and later engineer.  My expertise is in building, maintaining and repairing systems – complex systems.  And yet, one guy told me how “stupid” I was about radio antennas. I just laughed and moved on (I’ve designed and built a dozen different antennas, I’m an Amateur Extra Class ham operator, I held a Third, Second and First Class Radio Telephone license over the years, I spent eight years as a Senior Radio Tech for the White House.  I know my stuff, I don’t tolerate people calling me stupid when it comes to radio and electronic theory).  But that incident occurred not ONCE, but three or four times over the years on similar subjects because people are NOT educated in electronics and claim they are.  But they continue to pass on “Myths” as truths.

Therefore, I no longer assist people when they spout this kind of stuff.  If they want to listen to “Free Advice” from the local yokel on the forum who is spouting nonsense or the “Free Advice” from a profession (I’m not asking anyone to pay for the information I provide), so be it.  Good luck not getting electrocuted, or RF burns.

A lot of the issues we run into daily are things no one really mentioned (some cruisers write books and I do see where we ALL go through the same learning curves).  But there are a LOT of people who go out on weekends, travel down the Bay, turn around and go home and that is certainly “cruising”.  But, they go back home to their home, their job, the rat race and sit down at their computer and pooh pooh things some of us have to ask about.  It’s insulting for them to do it.

Lately, Facebook and some of the forums there have degenerated to the same degree.  I’m sincerely saddened by the people who feel it more fun to attack others for “being stupid”, insult them by calling them names, tell them how dumb they were to “do this or that”, and never give an honest opinion of what THEY did to get around similar problems.

Ok… I guess that’s enough for my rant.   I guess I needed to vent.  Now, WHY did I write all that?

An insulting comment I deleted without even reading the whole thing.  It started, “Smart people wouldn’t have gotten stuck…” and went on from there about my blog post yesterday.

All I can say is some people are assholes and really, honestly, need to get a life.

Presidential Yacht:  As I mentioned, I spent eight years at the White House doing communications for President Reagan and George H.W. Bush.  During that time I flew on Marine One, Air Force One, Air Force Two and was even on a couple of boats in Kennebunkport, ME with Bush Sr. doing my job.  In all that time I never saw the Presidential Yacht.  As it turns out, I saw it last year when we passed through here and didn’t realize it.

Yesterday I happened to look again, and thought I was looking at a house being built.  Turns out, it’s the USS Sequoia, sitting on a rail ramp and she’s been sitting here for a couple of years.  JoAnne spent some time looking up the boat and found out some fascinating information about the boat.  Hoover bought it, Kennedy and other Presidents rode on it, met heads of states, and Carter sold it.  A lot of other Presidents have been on it since it was sold.  It’s currently the object of a lawsuit and fight over ownership.  It’s also a National Monument.  Hope they get it worked out someday.

This is a plaque on the starboard side on a door.  It was too high up for me to read it.

The stern, you can see she is made from wood, and is dire need of work.

Name plate on the stern

The smoke stack on the top, Presidential Seal, name (USS Sequoia).  Sorry for the poor image quality, but that’s my phone.  My real camera is on the blink.

Here’s a shot of the starboard side.  She’s 105′ long according to the research we did today.  The US Navy used to station sailors on this ship to run her.  Carter sold her off under some “saving money” pretense apparently.  It appears that never happened with the government. 🙂

Fishing Bay Marina:  This is a WONDERFUL marina.  It is unlike any we’ve been in so far, with the possible exception of the Kona Kai on Shelter Island, San Diego.  The people are helpful, FAST, accurate, do what they say, and it’s not horribly expensive.  And we don’t have a lot of experience getting things fixed at Kona Kai. lol

They were prompt and efficient here, answered all my questions, sent a mechanic and electrician immediately this morning, pulled my boat, cleaned it and put her back with no issues.  I’ll HIGHLY recommend this place.  However, be aware coming in, it’s quite a distance in from Chesapeake Bay, and there’s a rather circuitous route to get here.

Fishing Bay is large and you can put a large number of boats at anchor.  There were at least seven or eight out there today, some as large as us.  One catamaran was considerably larger than us in all directions.  The fuel dock is easy to access, and is a long, fixed dock so you can roll right up and tie off.  All the posts and pilings have plastic built-in fenders.  In fact putting out fenders just gets in the way here.  All of the docks I’ve seen are fixed.

The bathrooms are large, clean and have showers (3 in women’s, 2 in men’s). Ladies get a hair dryer, most of the guys seem bald that I’ve met lately…haha.  There’s a “Captain’s Lounge” with radio, TV, CD player, books and games, Laundry (one dryer, one washer), Pool (closed now), grill (propane), covered patio.  Next door is the boat yard.  Courtesy bicycles and car.  The BEST part are the people.  The owner (I think) is Jon Farinholt, the folks in the office, were awesome, helpful and nice.  The boat yard is run by Jon’s brother, Lee.  The mechanic was great, the electrician was named Rick and was helpful. (Side note, in the space of thirty minutes today, I met no less than FIVE “Ricks” around the place, and heard at least one other guy from a boat called “Rick” besides me.  RICK is a pretty cool name, if I say so myself).

So – there’s my answer to “Cobb’s Marina” in Norfolk.  It wasn’t a BAD place, but the showers sucked, it’s a working yard, dirty, noisy and if you like that sort of thing, great.  No pool, the folks were ok, but they rarely had a smile for you, didn’t really want to talk to you and I stand by my original report of the place.

By the way…. if you’ve not run aground while cruising… either you’re really new at it, you’ve gotten lucky, or you’re lying.  Even very smart people do it.  It happens.  Especially when you look at the charts and it’s not marked as shallow.  Good luck

Back!

by

First, I want to apologize to every one who has asked about blog entries.  We have NOT been on the boat for almost a month.

We left last month on the 12th to travel across county.  I’m sure some of you get the “security” idea.  JoAnne and I have always been “security conscious” but more so now that we live on a boat.  Having both worked in the government, and me in particular in the military, and with security for the Missile Defense Agency for many years, we tend to look over our shoulders a lot.  So, we try hard not to advertise EXACTLY where we are, where we’re headed, where we’re anchored, but we still do it to some extent.

Half the fun of doing this is changing locations and seeing new things and sharing that information with others.  Both the good and bad of it….whether it’s a bad or good experience in a marina, getting our boat damaged by someone else or rain (constant rain sometimes), we’ll share.  We won’t share the dates and times we’re leaving exactly, or exactly where we are located except with family members so they know to look for us if we “vanish”.

With that said, again, sorry for no entries lately.  I’ll make up for that though now.

We left for Colorado on the 12th headed back for doctors’ checkups.  I had a physical.  JoAnne had a “two years after chemo” checkup.

We arrived and stayed with my daughter, Kristy…. but on the way we stopped to rescue a grandson who had been abandoned by his mother, our ex-daughter-in-law and return him back to the family in Colorado.  He is safe with his Uncle Nick and his Dad is working to get a job and support the young man now.  Gage was doing well when we left him.  Hopefully someone remembers to feed and water him occasionally (he’s 16, I think he can help himself a lot now :))

On the 20th I went in and had a blood draw, and a physical.  Apparently, I’m not going to die any time soon.  My heart is doing fine, though I now have an anomaly due to the heart surgery called a Left Bundle Branch… what ever that is.  It looks weird on the ekg.

JoAnne went in for a blood draw as well, the CA-125, which is an indicator of tumor growth.  Her numbers have been low since the surgery, in the 10-16 range.  We never got a pre-surgery baseline, so no idea what it might have been before the tumor was removed.  The numbers peaked at 18.  The PA said we could do another test in a month to see if it were a glitch or a CT scan.  We instantly asked for the CT scan.  Her examination was fine.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  It was just that darned blood test that scared us.

A couple of days later she had the CT scan, and then we had to go back on Thursday to see the doctor.  We ended up sitting for over 2 HOURS waiting for him, because he was running behind.  They placed us in the conference room for an hour and a half and we were nervous by the time he walked in.  He was flanked by a nurse and the “social worker” or psychologist or whatever she was.  We BOTH almost lost it right there.  We KNEW it was going to be bad news.

But he asked JoAnne how she was.  She said she was fine.  He said “Your exam was fine, and the CT scan came back clear.  There is no sign of cancer”.  I wanted to throttle him for making us wait for 2.5 hours for that.  He could have kicked us out of the office in 2 minutes and simply said “You’re fine, no sign of cancer, go sailing”…. ack.

We had already packed so we headed home, collected our bags and packed the car.  We’d mostly said good bye to everyone but got a few more in and got on the road.

Stopped in Hays, Ks.  Then we traveled on Friday to Mike and Cindy’s home in Richmond, MO and visited over the weekend.  On Monday we went to Branson.

In Branson we saw the “Legends” show on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we went on the Branson Belle Showboat and saw a cool show on the river cruise.  The ship was HUGE…. and probably could have held Adventure inside the auditorium!  They probably had almost 1000 people in attendance and not all the seats were filled.  Both shows were very good.

We made it back here on Saturday afternoon.  Adventure was fine, our new solar charging system is working wonderfully and there was nothing out of place.  Unfortunately, JoAnne’s lavender plant didn’t do too well in the care of the marina office.  I’m trying to nurse it back to health now.  Not sure I can do it though.

So in the middle of retirement, we took a month vacation.

I did laundry yesterday, today we go grocery shopping so we can actually use our refrigeration unit haha, and I’ve got a bunch of stuff to put away.

We added one item to the inventory, a manual water maker, which is a reverse osmosis filtration system.  It is a hand pumped device.  I have yet to read all the instructions, but it will go with our ditch bag.  Hopefully we will never have a need to use it.

On the 12th I go in to see an eye surgeon.  My left eye is getting bad with cataracts.  I’m going to have to have surgery soon.  I hope it very soon so we can plan our trip to the Bahamas next.

All my best to everyone.
Fair Winds!

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea to see what he could see….

by

We have just traveled pretty close to 3000 miles by car from Colorado back to the ship. If you want to count the trip back in December, add another nearly 2000 miles to that.  Starting in Colorado in the Fountain area, we traveled east to Missouri, visiting Mike and Cindy Sause and their three children, Sean, Niall and Maggie for a few days.  Then it was on to see our grandson, Gage who is in the area of St. Roberts, Missouri.  From there we went to Nashville and a tour of the Grand Ole Opry.  The picture below is the official Opry photo of us standing on the old circle from the original theater from long ago.  Thousands of performers have stood there, signing songs, including Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash and many, many more.  It was an honor to stand in that very spot.

Yeah, sorry, they forgot to say “Cheese” or something. LOL

JoAnne in front of the carousel in Opry Mills (mall) across from the Grand Ole Opry

After Nashville, we headed toward Florida to see JoAnne’s brother, Paul Gray and his wife Cathy.  We had a great visit with them in the Tampa Bay area.  Further down the road we went to Fort Meyers and met up with Ray and his wife Amanda.  They have just purchased a large cabin cruiser.  We didn’t get the chance to see it this time around due to time constraints on our part. I didn’t get any pictures there!  Ack!

We needed to leave pretty early the next day and make it to Daytona to meet up with A’lice and her husband Larry.  A’lice and JoAnne have been friends since the 1980s.

View from the Condo

A’lice and JoAnne

A’lice and Larry

We hit St. Augustine to visit with Stephen and Judy of Bentana at their marina, where we joined in for a pot luck dinner at the marina, a couple of cold beers and some great food dishes

After that we headed north and stopped a couple of nights mostly due to being tired.  Apparently I have arthritis in my hips now and when we sit for long periods of time it hurts like the dickens.  She is still having trouble with her back on and off and sitting doesn’t help, neither does walking.  Neither does lying down.  I’m not sure what’s good for it except a hot tub and a swimming pool. lol

We also stopped in Myrtle Beach to walk there.  JoAnne’s Uncle Joe died in World War II off the coast of the US in a plane crash. She was named after him and his fiancee (Anne).   We have the location and coordinates where the plane went down some where, and some day while passing by, we’ll drop a wreath there.

Rick and JoAnne at Myrtle Beach

On the trip from Florida we stopped in several places just to sleep and eat.  One of them was a Hampton Inn in Georgetown, SC and ate in the restaurant near by, in a marina.

JoAnne at Dinner

The marina outside

We arrived back at the boat today about 11:00.  She was pretty much as we left her.  There is a bit of water damage in the galley area, but where it came in we’re not sure yet.  It’s supposed to rain pretty hard tomorrow, I guess I’ll get the chance to figure it out!  Basically, the boat is fine.  I’m considering the growth below and will probably do a haul out if there are issues and a pressure wash, otherwise, we’ll save that for the new Marina up the road.

Tomorrow, we’ll try to put all our pieces back in place, rearrange things, empty the car, figure out where to store my bicycle on the boat, and clean up as much as we can, perhaps get some laundry done and then we’re planning at the moment to make the trek north to the new marina and look it over before we commit to moving there.  Tonight, I’m thinking about washing up and hitting the hay early.  I’m beat.

Anyway, that’s all for tonight.  JoAnne is tired from unpacking and I’m tired from bringing some of our stuff down in the heat.  I’ve had to do this and that to get the internet up, things unpacked, moved and water put in the boat.  Tomorrow, I’ll check into starting the engine.

 

Gonna Sail Right Out of Colorado!

by

Well, it finally happened.  Winter came to Colorado.  I understand there was about 17″ of snow in places.

But fortunately, on the 13th of April, JoAnne and I were well on our way out of Colorado watching the blizzard conditions move into the state via radar.  In fact,  we were sitting in Richmond Missouri with our friends, Mike and Cindy, drinking wine and watching the weather on the computer screens.

We visited with them over the weekend and saw a kids play down in Higginsville, a production of Peter Pan.  Interesting, but it could have had a bit more practice. 🙂  After that, the plan was to head south in Missouri to see our Grandson, Gage, who is somewhere around the St. Robert’s area of the state (where his mother has apparently abandoned him, and yes, to all my family, I said it).  Neither the mother or father are currently fit to keep children or help them… but I’ll not air all the dirty laundry on my blog.  Suffice it to say, Gage should have come with us, but he’s with a temporary foster family whom we checked out a bit and they seem to be pretty OK people.  Gage has the ability to call us or his aunts and uncles at any time and we will come get him if he so wishes.

We stayed one night, visited with him and took him to dinner then dropped him back off before dark (mostly because the area he lives is sort of in the back woods and I wanted to be back to the hotel before it was too dark, as the GPS didn’t work very well in the area).

The next morning, Tuesday, we headed for Nashville.  Actually, the original plan was to head for New Orleans, but we found we were far enough east that there was no easy roads to take us to New Orleans.  We’d have been driving 2 lane roads for the next two days.  So, instead, we decided that Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry was the target.

Tuesday evening we wound up in Clarkesville and stayed there for the night, next morning we extended our stay an extra night so we could drive to Nashville and visit the town.  We went through Opryland and a backstage tour, took pictures and had dinner at the Opry Mills mall.  Then downtown for a visit to Broadway where we walked through some stores and had a couple beers in Margaritaville.

On Thursday morning we headed for Tampa Bay area to see JoAnne’s brother, Paul.  We made it to Lake City and made sure to leave us only 3 hours drive so we could arrive early in the day on Friday.  The hotel in Lake City (a Hampton) was wonderful, a very nice one, and likely the nicest one we’ve stayed in on the trip.  We arrived at Paul and Cathy’s in Largo at about 12:30 pm.  It has been a nice trip, warm almost all the way, one day of rain (which caught us the morning we left Richmond and chased us on and off) but sunny, and almost no clouds for most of the trip.  We did have some rain move through while we were in Clarksville but nothing significant, at least not like Houston was getting!

We’re currently visiting with Paul and had hoped to catch up to some friends in Ft. Meyers area, but so far no one has responded to the messages on Facebook.  Perhaps they forgot, are too busy or just don’t want to see us.  🙂

We’re here, at least through Monday (tomorrow) into Tuesday morning.  Then we will make our plans to go east to Green Cove Springs.

Update for March

by

I know that I’ve not written much of late, but we’re not really doing much.

JoAnne continues her doctor’s appointments, and physical therapy for her back and she’s healing well.  We are ready to go back to the boat now, but she isn’t finished with her appointments.

A big one is coming up at the end of March, where she sees both the back doctor and the oncologist.  She’s having her chemo port removed at the end of the month and we’re planning to be leaving sometime in the beginning of April.

With luck everything will go well and her last checkup left us smiling.  No sign of cancer, her blood work came back good and she’s feeling great.  Except the back.  Which is significantly better than the day she fell.

We have located, thanks to our friend Kurt Seastead (S/V LoKee) a marina along the Potomac River up about 8 NM from the mouth of the river/Chesapeake Bay where we will bring the boat in late April to accomplish some major refit we need done.

Included will be replacement of at least one of the electric heads with a composting toilet.  We will install a wind generator.  We will repair or replace the refrigeration unit as necessary and I’ll put in at least one small solar panel (and hope to get our permanent panels put in though).  One other small job I need to do is to get the bow thruster working again.  It would be really nice to have it working before I head up to the marina from Norfolk because it appears tight in the slips and it would help significantly to back the boat into the slip.  The full keel and prop walks makes it very difficult to back in a straight line anyway.

Our trip from here will start in Fountain Colorado and we’ll make stops along the way back, detouring to various places.  We have a grandson we want to visit in Missouri as well as our friends Mike and Cindy, JoAnne’s brother Paul who lives in the Tampa Bay area, and JoAnne wants to swing through New Orleans as well.  Plus there are a few friends in the Ft. Meyers area who we’re looking forward to seeing one afternoon as well.

I have one marina to visit in Florida to check out – though at this point we’re considering NOT using Florida as a home base any more due to the recent laws of “no anchoring”.  How in the world a state that is surrounded by waters thinks that this is a good idea to run off the thousands of cruisers who spend several million dollars in a year, I have no idea.

I won’t wax politically on this blog but suffice it to say that government is getting too big for it’s britches and I don’t care which side of the equation on which you find yourself, it’s BAD for us all.  And these decisions by the Florida state legislature are going to kill the tourist industry until they reverse this law.  Except for the small group I have seen in Florida who actually live in the state who somehow believe this won’t affect them, almost every cruiser I’ve spoken too in the past few months have decided to cross Florida off their list of places to visit now.

Today in Colorado it is supposed to be in the 70s, and my son-in-law Carlos is throwing a BBQ and the smoking of the meats has begun.  I’m headed off to the store for some bread and beer….

 

Sandy Hook and Atlantic Highlands

by

JoAnne and I came in, under tow to this area last Saturday. We were at Coney Island and the engine shredded the belt. We didn’t get the engine repaired until Tuesday, late. The Mechanic was Bill Lloyd of Lloyd’s Repair. He does “house calls”, as a mobile mechanic.

Bill was helpful, showed me a lot of things, gave us some advice and did the repairs – finding the correct parts. The adjustment bracket had broken before. Was the wrong size. The belt shredded, it was too long. The pulley on the alternator was too small. The engine stop was broken as well because was previously repaired by a couple of guys with duct tape…. no more comments there.

Anyway, Bill helped to repair all of that for us. His rates were very reasonable and he was very helpful. I STRONGLY recommend him if you’re in the area and need help.

The moorings here are $50.00 a night and there are showers, a launch to pick you up and drop you off.

The launch drivers are all very nice, helpful and give you directions and advice if you need it.

We have spent the time here moving stuff around, rearranging things to be more logical and I cleaned some of the deck finally. We added more water, I’ve rowed in and out a few times to collect water and gas for the generator. I needed the upper body exercise too. Speaking of which, they were really “worried” about me at the cardiac care and rehab place. Wanted me to stay on a “few weeks”. I laughed and said I’d be getting more exercise than just walking. While I am not getting as much cardio as I’d like, I’m damned sure getting plenty of exercise now. More than I could have hoped for.

I’ve not put on a lot of weight, but I’ve put on muscles. I’m almost back to 100% of where I was prior to the heart attack. By the way, I feel good – except the aches and pains from cracking my skull, shins, elbows, knees, chin, nose, back, front, bottom and top…. lol

Last night it rained pretty good. We had left the boat opened up and went up for a beer and met with Judy and Ron of Spartina, a pretty little trimaran, sitting in the harbor here. They are leaving tomorrow morning as well and heading south. We took their advice and waited through today because of the wind shifts. It did shift out of the north last evening though and is either North or North East right now (so it’s shifting still).

We’re hoping for a good run down the coast and hope to make 5-6 knots under sail… we’ll see. Wish us luck. This will probably be my last entry for a few days until we get back in close enough for cell coverage or Wifi someplace.

For those asking… Yes we’re hams. I’m N0NJY and JoAnne is KB0IRW. We do NOT have either VHF/UHF or HF up at the moment, those were not high priorities which prepping to get the boat out of Stony Point and right now it’s not too high of a priority (though it is coming up the list of things to do pretty rapidly) so we won’t have it up unless we get into trouble, then I’ll slap something together fast (it is what I used to do for a living, emergency communications and military tactical stuff….) so not to worried at the moment.

Sometime in the very near future though, both HF will be online as will the 2meter and 440 rig.

Atlantic City is our stop in point if we can’t make Cape May. Cape May is our current destination. Delaware Bay and the C&D canal is out tentative destination on the way to Chesapeake Bay. Once in Chessie we’ll look for a place we can anchor and explore a bit. We have to get in touch with our friend Phil and get him to meet us someplace.

Also, we’ll try to meet up with Bill, the broker to helped us purchase the boat (and sell for the former owner). Hopefully we can do all of this without any more giant issues. Then, from that point on, we’re aiming for Florida to go see JoAnne’s Brother, Paul. He lives in Tampa area and whether we drive across by boat in the ICW, or by car, or have them come get us is currently up in the air.

If we have to go across by car, we’ll look for a place to store the boat for a few days and maybe get some minor work accomplished. Otherwise, we’ll try to cross the ICW through Okeechobee – which we’ve had opinions about from several people, all of which are divergent… some saying ” no problems” and others saying “don’t do it”…..

The trip across country

by

JoAnne and I have travelled several times across country in the last 38 years. But this time we’re doing it to get to our last, new home. The ship.

As of today, starting in Colorado Springs and ending in a place called Reynoldsburg OH, we’ve travelled 1611.3 miles. That includes some side trips to Hermann, MO, a trip to Liberty, MO and some side trips around Cincinnati, OH.

We picked up some salmon over in Liberty at the Sprouts, and brought it to the Sause family for dinner one night, a side trip to a winery in Hermann to add some bottles to our collection for the boat and we had to travel back and forth in Cincy to meet up with Ryan, go to dinner, find out hotel (a couple of different times) and so forth. So the mileage isn’t all straight travel.

Tomorrow we meet up with Bob, our friend from WAYYYYY back in the White House days and his wife for dinner.

On Monday evening we hope to be in Woodbridge, VA to meet with another friend of the family, Phil at his place.

We are hoping to leave Wednesday and likely be in Stony Point NY around Thursday or Friday (taking our time, pulling a trailer, and then finding a hotel in the area… the latter being mostly likely the most difficult thing we have to accomplish, other than paying for the boat storage, painting and maintenance).

I did create a new photo storage area… if I can remember where it is, so we’ll post some images.

We have NOT taken any photos with friends. Most of them we aren’t going to post images of. Some, like me are rather reluctant to place images up, and for the protection of my friends I won’t do that 🙂 — There’s a good reason for this, which I will not explain on this blog, but suffice it to say the lot of us have had government jobs, held positions we would rather not go into details about or don’t want to have our faces all over the Internet.

Fortunately for those of you reading the blog, I’m one of those free spirits who simply doesn’t care all that much and my “enemies” know how to find me anyway 🙂

LOL

Ok, back to the regularly scheduled blogging.

Tomorrow we get to see Bob for dinner. We have not, to the best of my recollection seen him in 25 years, and JoAnne seems to think it was when we travelled from DC in 1989 moving to Colorado. That means that every time we move to a new home, we get to see Bob I think. Perhaps he and his wife will come see us on the boat next time? We shall see 🙂

The good old Ford F150 is hanging in there with 206467 miles as of tonight. The trailer is handling the trip well. I’m not so sure about my guitar which keeps getting shoved into the truck bed under the shell. It’s pretty hot so, I’m hoping it’s doing ok. I tuned it a couple of days ago and it was off a bit, but was holding it’s notes pretty decently.

Ryan – my friend Ryan whom I had never met until a couple of days ago, is an awesome young man. (I say that because I’m turning 58 in a few days and he’s significantly younger than me), He is, like we are, beer aficionados. While JoAnne and I like to make beer, Ryan likes to buy various types of beers, taste test them, and even post some reviews of various beers.

Before we left, he basically loaded us up with several bottles of various types of beers that he recommended to us. I’m currently enjoying a Bell’s Oberon, from Comstock Michigan. It’s a wheat ale, rather fruity, a little hoppy and a little spicy. Very good stuff!

JoAnne happened to run into a six pack of Root Beer…. ok, well, not really Root Beer. It’s “Not your father’s root beer” – a hard root beer, 5.9% alcohol by volume. I am NOT a fan of Root Beer, however, I tasted it and it was… very wonderful. I can see me making a hard root beet float with it, lol.

The weather, with the exception of a few night time thunderstorms through the travelling has been pretty hot. We’ve had a couple of 100 degree F days. We did have quite a storm come through in Kansas on the way to Missouri, but nothing too bad.

Let me see, what else. Wifi has been a bit of a pain in the behind a few times. We couldn’t get it on our phones more than once and even had to reset our phones a couple of times due to lack of data connections. T-Mobile said they weren’t sure what was happening, but helped me fix things. The idea of our phones is to be able to use them as a hot spot when nothing else is available.

We can’t stay in hotels forever – and we’re hoping to be to the boat by this coming weekend if not sooner.

I’ll write more in a few days.

On the Road Again….

by

On Thursday evening last week we received several calls about the Jeep.  The first person to show up with the money got it.

We got the full asking price we wanted from a very nice man who was an Air Force Retiree like myself.  He loved the Jeep and came in early Friday morning with the cash in hand (Friday the banks had already closed when he looked it over).

JoAnne and I had finished our packing and hooked up the trailer, and were ready to leave when he arrived.  All that remained was to give him the title, collect the cash, load our cooler and grab ice and snacks for the road – which we did.

We were finally on the road at 11:15, on 17 July.  We stopped in Salina Kansas at a Day’s Inn when we got tired.  We’d stayed in that Day’s Inn many times on the way to our normal destination (Mike and Cindy’s home in Richmond) but this was the last time we will stay there.  The clerk was rude, the place was a mess, the rooms smelled bad and the lights didn’t work in the room (most were out).  We complained but no one would listen either that night or the next morning.  They simply made excuses.  So… never again.

We arrive at Mike’s house on Saturday afternoon around 1pm.  We’ll stay here until Friday morning, when we will head out and drive to Cincinnati Ohio to visit Ryan from the Transasian Axis web site.  Ryan and I have never met, but have been friends for many years from the days when I helped run the Anomalies Network.  Ryan is the owner of http://www.transasianaxis.com site.  Yesterday he was grilling and a tornado passed right by him.  He posted a Youtube video of it.

After we depart Cincinnati we’ll head for Columbus Ohio to visit Bob (Another friend, like Mike, from our White House days in the 1980s).  Finally, we’ll stop in Virginia to visit Phil.  Another friend from the Anomalies and TAA web sites.  He’s agreed to hold on to some equipment we’ll be delivering until I can bring the ship down to Chesapeake Bay a few weeks later.

Tomorrow we drive back through Kansas City to the west side and down on 435 to visit a friend who owns a paddle wheel boat we’ll tour.  If I can, I’ll get pictures of the boat and post them here.

That’s all for now.  I’ll update in a few days.

Oh yeah, this little guy was waiting for me in the yard this morning to get his picture taken when I walked outside to go get gas in the truck.  If anyone is missing their pet bunny….. Probably not. LOL

20150720_103707
Rick

Departure

by

I’m hesitant to state dates and times and things like that, but my last day at work is this Friday the 10th.  JoAnne should be resigning effective that date as well.

During the next few days after we are through with work, we’ve got a few things left to accomplish like getting new tires, I’m having a problem with the truck that need’s fixing, and we’ve got to set up our medical insurance as well.

The trailer has been packed, unpacked, repacked, unpacked and repacked again.  Several times.  We keep eliminating things hoping to cut down what we’re taking.

We’re down to a few tubs of items for the galley, some navigation tools (like rulers, compasses, pens, pencils, some starting charts and cruising guides), some books and some random things we think we will need, but aren’t sure.  I’m positive once we arrive at the boat more stuff will wind up being tossed out or given away, but until we arrive, I just can’t be sure.

My tools have been gone through and I’ve tried to eliminate some, things I’m sure I won’t use.  But, I still wound up with a lot of tools.  Again, I’m sure I will get rid of more.

Sometime after the weekend, we’ll be departing.  I’ll try to document some of the trip, without every, single boring detail like where we stop for gas or to go to the bathroom, lol.

If we take cool pictures, which I am sure we will, I’ll post them here (or links to them).  I’m in the process of setting up an image hosting location so it might be a few days before that’s working.

That’s it for now.

 

Fair Winds!