-
Lines Untied
We did it! We untied the lines! We tied them back on in Half Moon Bay, a mere 7.5 hour sail from Emeryville, but we have officially made “the big left turn” (South from the Golden Gate). I’ve been a mess of emotion these last few days with all of the goodbyes and actually doing what I set out to do 14 years ago. And this marks the close of a very big chapter in my life, the main chapter as an adult. When people ask me where I am from, I don’t say Florida where I was born, or Texas where I went to high school, or certainly not…
-
Changing Schedules
Cruisers rarely keep a schedule, and if you’ve read the previous posts, you are probably coming to this conclusion already. Despite my moderate Type-A tendencies, I actually like this about cruising – you do what you want, when you want, when it makes the most sense or just feels right. All of which is the long way to say that we are not yet in Half Moon Bay. But we have a plan (another one). Today we are taking the boat up to KKMI (our boat yard in Richmond, CA). Wednesday is my last day at work (!!). Thursday & Friday I will make what’s called “the transition” which is…
-
Solla Sails (whew!)
The boat sails; she sails well in fact, and now that we’ve serviced the heat exchanger she motors well too! But wait, there’s more…. nothing broke or failed to function! I’m happy of course, but I think “relieved” is the chief emotion 🙂 The “tune-the-rig” sail with our rigger and friend Barrett didn’t end up happening (no wind, and I’m giving him little welding lessons so we did that instead). The following day, New Years Eve, Deb came and we got off the dock around 1130am. The tracking device in our Wirie that I got working that morning performed beautifully, and you can see the route we took for the…
-
Sew, Sew, Sew!
As soon as we got home from the Christmas holidays with family up in Tahoe, we got to work. I had 3 covers to make in 3 days: outboard, hydrovane, and staysail foredeck bag. (I was going to make a 4th, a cover for the windlass, but aborted for the time-being). Each posed a very different plan of attack. For the outboard, I planned to roughly follow the steps laid out in this Sailrite video. I wanted to deviate slightly and have the throttle cover be attached to the main body cover instead of 2 separate pieces like they do, and I had 6 pleats instead of 4. I got pretty…
-
The First Post
Starting a new blog is proving to be almost as difficult as leaving to cruise. One has to start somewhere though, so here it is. I used to write all the time, 15 years worth of journals and an old blog with my early sailing days and a few international adventures. It’s not like there is nothing to talk about…my life is about to turn upside down, and the plan I put in motion right around this time of year way back in 2004 is finally coming into fruition. There is some serious content here! And yet each word on the screen is hard-won. I think I’m scared we’re not…
