Yippee-i-cay-eh, yippee-yeah, yahoo, yeehaw and any other sounds of joy and happiness that you can imagine. We are on the boat at anchor at a place other than our dock. Wahoo!!!!
We got the boat back on Thursday, Aug 25 in the afternoon, the engine was installed, and the fuel tank was installed, whew. That afternoon I ran around like mad getting the new sails that were still at the sail makers, a new main, a new staysail, the cleaned and repaired furling jib and the recut cruising spinnaker with a new sock. My, my, my it was like a whole bunch of Christmas’s and birthdays all rolled into one day.
We had to put the inside of the boat all back together after we got it back from the mechanic, stuff was all moved around and put out of the way so it didn’t get dirty and they could get at everything. Then we had to figure out how to put the new main on and where all the lines went. There are 6 pulleys at the bottom of the mast and figuring out where the main sheet, the boom vang sheet and the four reefing lines went was a learning experience, but we are still married and the main flies beautifully. The main just crinkles when you touch it, Barry says ”Listen, you can hear the sound of 100 dollar bills”. I never thought I would have any complaints about a new sail, but man is it hard to manage, it doesn’t want to fold any which way, like our usual old sails do and it is HUGE, so flaking it when you take it down is a major wrestling match, but oh well, I guess I’ll just have to get used to that, hee, hee, hee J
We were ready to leave on Friday about 3:00 P.M. and we motored out and then put up the sails. What a thrill, we were in our new boat and we were SAILING, after 2 months of waiting it was heaven, then the wind died, so we turned on our new motor and listened to it purr as it pushed us nicely through the water. We had a successful first anchoring, no hitches to speak off, no screaming and yelling at each other which is always the sign of a successful anchoring.
The next morning we awoke to beautiful sunshine and WIND, and it was my 50th birthday. Man, we had a superb day, the wind came up, there were white caps and the boat performed like a trouper. We hadn’t forgotten how to sail, we even managed to put a reef in our new main and life was good. (We did however manage to loose the second reefing line in the process, so now we have to figure out how to thread it back down the boom.) What a gorgeous way to spend my birthday, we sailed from 1000 hours to 1800 hours, we only had the engine on when we tried to sail through these narrows and we figured out the current was pushing us backwards. When we arrived at our destination we popped a bottle of champagne and had barbequed steaks and potatoes and carrots in tin foil. Heather had sent us some Back Eddy’s seasoning so everything tasted absolutely delicious.
Today, Sunday, we are going to sail somewhere else. I hope to get out in the dinghy and take some pictures of the boat under sail. We haven’t tried to get off and on the boat from the dinghy yet so that should be another new and exciting experience. There is no boarding ladder of any kind and we figure we are just going to have to step off the side. I don’t see it as a problem, but Barry is pretty leery about it. Hopefully I will have some pictures of us under sail to show all of you. We still have a huge list of things that we need to get repaired but we have basically decided that we can’t leave this fall, so there is no rush to get stuff done and we can take out time and have fun getting to know our boat. I wanted to do a man overboard drill yesterday but Barry wouldn’t let me, maybe today I will have more luck with that today.
We got the boat back on Thursday, Aug 25 in the afternoon, the engine was installed, and the fuel tank was installed, whew. That afternoon I ran around like mad getting the new sails that were still at the sail makers, a new main, a new staysail, the cleaned and repaired furling jib and the recut cruising spinnaker with a new sock. My, my, my it was like a whole bunch of Christmas’s and birthdays all rolled into one day.
We had to put the inside of the boat all back together after we got it back from the mechanic, stuff was all moved around and put out of the way so it didn’t get dirty and they could get at everything. Then we had to figure out how to put the new main on and where all the lines went. There are 6 pulleys at the bottom of the mast and figuring out where the main sheet, the boom vang sheet and the four reefing lines went was a learning experience, but we are still married and the main flies beautifully. The main just crinkles when you touch it, Barry says ”Listen, you can hear the sound of 100 dollar bills”. I never thought I would have any complaints about a new sail, but man is it hard to manage, it doesn’t want to fold any which way, like our usual old sails do and it is HUGE, so flaking it when you take it down is a major wrestling match, but oh well, I guess I’ll just have to get used to that, hee, hee, hee J
We were ready to leave on Friday about 3:00 P.M. and we motored out and then put up the sails. What a thrill, we were in our new boat and we were SAILING, after 2 months of waiting it was heaven, then the wind died, so we turned on our new motor and listened to it purr as it pushed us nicely through the water. We had a successful first anchoring, no hitches to speak off, no screaming and yelling at each other which is always the sign of a successful anchoring.
The next morning we awoke to beautiful sunshine and WIND, and it was my 50th birthday. Man, we had a superb day, the wind came up, there were white caps and the boat performed like a trouper. We hadn’t forgotten how to sail, we even managed to put a reef in our new main and life was good. (We did however manage to loose the second reefing line in the process, so now we have to figure out how to thread it back down the boom.) What a gorgeous way to spend my birthday, we sailed from 1000 hours to 1800 hours, we only had the engine on when we tried to sail through these narrows and we figured out the current was pushing us backwards. When we arrived at our destination we popped a bottle of champagne and had barbequed steaks and potatoes and carrots in tin foil. Heather had sent us some Back Eddy’s seasoning so everything tasted absolutely delicious.
Today, Sunday, we are going to sail somewhere else. I hope to get out in the dinghy and take some pictures of the boat under sail. We haven’t tried to get off and on the boat from the dinghy yet so that should be another new and exciting experience. There is no boarding ladder of any kind and we figure we are just going to have to step off the side. I don’t see it as a problem, but Barry is pretty leery about it. Hopefully I will have some pictures of us under sail to show all of you. We still have a huge list of things that we need to get repaired but we have basically decided that we can’t leave this fall, so there is no rush to get stuff done and we can take out time and have fun getting to know our boat. I wanted to do a man overboard drill yesterday but Barry wouldn’t let me, maybe today I will have more luck with that today.
