Departure

7-27-12 - Alameda, CA - Grand Marina - Day 25

Friday afternoon at 3:30 we finally said goodbye to Grand Marina and slip C-55.  They had taken good care of us for the last three years, but today was the day we had set to leave.  Today was the "leave day".  As you begin to prepare for a journey like ours you consistently hear from others that you must have a "leave day".  Where, within reason, no matter what still has to be done and how many things aren't completed, and how many trepidations you have; you simply must leave the dock.  Some say even if you motor around the corner and drop the anchor for the night; you must leave at some point.  The fact is you will not be ready, you will not have completed everything you wanted to and you must accept that fact.  Thankfully we are joining a rally to the Northern California Delta that starts on July 27, so we had a date, or else, I am willing to bet, we would have stayed a little longer to finish some projects; but the projects never end.  So on Friday afternoon, after fixing a blown fuse in our 12V outlet, replacing the the raw water pump on our engine, selling our bikes and emptying the dock box into the boat; we departed; unfinished projects and all.


Ready to go

A group of people we had met the last month living on the boat saw us off.  We didn't have a distinct departure time, but as the time grew near they began to sense what was happening and started milling around the end of our dock.  Wisely, no one asked to help or spend to much time BSing about our plans.  That had all been done already.  They were simply happy to see us off and wish us fair winds.  People we had met as little as 2 weeks ago took time out of their day to stop by and see us off like family.  The boating world continues to amaze me.  With that we executed a graceful departure and at the marina entrance I let the air horn go for longer than really needed to signal our departure, not just for today, but for the foreseeable future.  Oddly that was the one moment that hit me emotionally.  Then reality kicked in and we motored over to the pump out dock and pumped out the holding tank.

How do you fill a propane tank without a car?

The week and month leading up to "Departure" I will call it, was busy to understate it.  Something as simple as filling our little 3 gallon propane tank took research and time to complete.  Elizabeth took on the challenge of backpacking our propane tank across the island to some little auto repair shop to get it filled.  How do you provision for a 12 day trip with a bike and a backpack?  Probably not a problem if you don't drink and like rice...a lot.  We don't fit that model so with the help of a friend we made the huge final grocery trip, filling up two dock carts for the trip down the dock.  Somehow it all fit in the nooks and crannies of Autumn Wind.  We will probably find a finely aged bottle of Chuck Shaw in a year, when we finally get to the bottom of the food locker.

Final provisioning  - Note this doesn't include any beverages

We received much advice and encouragement from people over the last month.  Without fail every person we talked to had two things to say. First was some piece of advice - some worthwhile, some not so much.  Second was that every person said we would make it.  When we described our tentative plans to head South they would immediately look at us oddly and say "you'll make it, don't worry, you're ready, you'll be fine" We would talk to someone on the dock we had said Hi to for years and once they heard of our plans they would say, I did that last year, here is my advice, oh, and you'll love it!  Our old dock neighbor email us offering up his fishing gear, flares, even a dinghy.  It is as if the success of one boat brings happiness to the entire group and everyone wants to see you be successful.  Sailing South seems to be a rite of passage on the West coast sailing scene.  No one says you're crazy, instead they say, you'll love it.  Like hiding in you basement from a tornado or shoveling your driveway in the Midwest.  People on the west coast think that's crazy, Midwesterners just say it's what you do.  So anyway with the support of the community around us and people we barely knew we are off. 

Even selling our bikes went well.  They sold quickly on Craigslist and the gal who bought them was OK waiting until Friday at 10:30 to get them.  She didn't flake out like so many Craigslister do and she just paid for them, no haggling.  It was nice.  Come to find out they will be re purposed as playa bikes for her trip to Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert outside of Reno.  So I guess it all comes full circle.

On our way!

The Big One Gets Checked Off

7-23-12 - Alameda, CA - Day 21

It can be a tight squeeze sometimes

Not to fear Elizabeth got in on the action as well

I can officially say that the big one is finished.  Our biggest project is now completed and all we need to do now is figure out how to use all of our new electrical gear.  Probably the biggest, most expensive, most time consuming and most stressful project before departure has been the electrical and electronics upgrade.  Basically we added the latest electronic gadgetry and then gave ourselves more power to run all that stuff and then gave ourselves the ability to recharge those bigger batteries.  For electrically inclined folks this may not seem like a big deal; to add fuses, bus bars, shunts and plug it all in without causing a fire or serious bodily harm.  They would probably be somewhat correct.  Although, some of the equipment was a bit more intensive than plugging in a red and black wire and adding fuse blocks to circuits was more than I was ready to handle, at least with our limited time.  The real challenge, as we found out, was running the cables from place to place; thru decks and bulkheads, around mufflers and under the sole just to get them to where they needed to be plugged in. 

Think of your house and all of the wiring in it.  Now basically double it, since your house is only AC powered and a boat has AC and DC power throughout it.  Now add in the plumbing system, and then throw on an engine with all of its associated wiring and plumbing; then just for fun, add the extensive list of communications gear a modern boat seems to "need".  Then think of the fact that all of that stuff is hidden out of sight on our boat.  Yep, it gets pretty crowded in those little nooks and crannies, that is if you can get to those nooks and crannies.  We basically had to disassemble the boat from the inside out to get to the places these wires all needed to run.  It was frustrating at times, but we sure did get an education about our boat and it's systems. 

Look mom, safety glasses and knee pads..oops, forgot the shoes!

Who can name all the stuff we crammed into this locker?

After many days of running cables and mounting the equipment, we had someone come and help us complete it all in one long day.  Then Sunday night I was like a five year old watching the Christmas tree light up as one by one the systems came on line.  The star on top of the tree was when the new chartplotter/radar/AIS finally powered up.  I was in awe of my new toy!  Unfortunately, I now have many nights of reading to do so I can figure out how to use all this new gear.  To top it all off we got to see  our LED flood light that we installed on the radar pole light up.  I was obnoxiously bright; just like we were hoping for.  Now the sun can't dictate when we do projects in the cockpit.  This was the last real project that "needed" to get done before departure.  Everything else can be done underway or while sitting in the sun of the California Delta!

All the way from E-town?

In between working hard on our electrical/electronics project we took some time to buzz around in the dinghy and enjoy the Oakland estuary, stop by Jack London's old haunt The Last Chance Saloon and eat at Fried Chicken and Waffles.  I didn't realize that fried chicken and waffles was even a thing before this.  I can't say it is a new favorite dish, but I will say how can you not love an awesome waffle with your fried chicken and mac-n-cheese?  Elizabeth asked "What does southern style mean?"  Our server kindly informed her that it's a fancy way of saying deep fried.  Talk about healthy!? It was delicious.  I had to break down and get my hair cut finally; and after burning thru a small mountain of money on the electric project I decided to save $10 and do it myself.  (Actually Elizabeth was a good sport and did it for me)  I look at it as frugal, some say cheap, whatever; really I just didn't want to ride my bike to get a hair cut when I had a perfectly good extension cord, set of clippers and dock right here.

Saving money and easy clean up as well

The countdown is on.  Four days until we depart for Berkeley and our future afloat.  So much to do, so little time.

Mini Bay-Stay-cation

7-13-12 Pier1-1/2 and Clipper Cove, CA

After our many days focused on boat projects, we took advantage of Elizabeth's need to visit the dentist to take some well deserved R&R from our non-jobs / partial retirement / sabbaticals; whatever you want to call it.  Either way, while it may not seem like it, we've been working hard to accomplish our projects and we wanted to make sure the white flappy things on the boat still worked.

The circumstances surrounding the dentist visit are interesting in themselves.  It seems one of Elizabeth's fillings fell out, so she calls her dentist in Reno (the one she no longer has insurance to visit) and tells him she needs it fixed; but...... She isn't going to be in Reno, she has no car and will be in the East Bay area....can he help?  He says yes, he knows a guy in the City (ie. San Francisco)  Sounds easy, unless you... don't have dental insurance, a car, or any real way of getting to and from the City except for your bike.  Understand that while we can see SF from Alameda where our boat is, it's a 3 mile bike ride to the ferry, a $6 ride each way to SF, and a who knows how many block walk to the dentist; all of which people here do every day.  Very different from my 8  mile, 12 minute drive to work in Reno.  Anyway, that's what motivated the mini Bay-stay-cation.

Pier 1-1/2

We were ready to go the day before and left the marina at 7:30A.  We motored down the Oakland estuary, across the South San Francisco Bay, under the Bay Bridge and tied up at pier 1-1/2 by 9:15A.  Pier 1-1/2 is a free dock just North of the ferry building in San Francisco on the Embarcadero.  You cannot spend the night and has a time limit, is not very large and has a nice swell running into it; but in a city where you spend $25/day to park and $7 to cross the bridge; anything free is welcome.  Not to mention you tie your boat, or as we like to call it when in the City, your Yacht up to a pier right downtown in the heart of the tourist area with endless stuff to do... for free!  Elizabeth took a short 4 block walk to her dentist and I took a run down the waterfront where I collided with 5000 people disembarking a cruise ship, each with two of the largest roller bags Samsonite produces clogging up the sidewalk.  Besides the cruise ship fiasco the run was great and I made it back to the boat (yacht) in time for a shower and to hang out on the pier and wait for Elizabeth to show up.  The ferry building called us in to go shopping and find something nice for dinner.  We did find something nice, but $25/lb for ribeyes was richer than we could afford...but oh look at those nice ceramic vases, that would be pretty to put flowers in on the boat; not for $92!  We left empty handed.  Homemade pizza for dinner and the french press for a flower vase works for us.



Clipper Cove - AW is third from the right

 

Ellie surprised me with some brownies

 Off to Clipper Cove.  A popular anchorage between Yerba Buena Island and Treasure Island just East of San Francisco.  There's a lot of great history associated with Treasure Isand; man made island, 1939-1940 Worlds Fair, military owned it, now the city of SF owns it, but that's for you to look up.  We navigated the mess of little sailing school boats at the entrance and dropped our new 35 LB Mason Supreme anchor shackled to 50' of 3/8" grade 40 HT chain, shackled to a lot of 3/4" three stand rode.  It set like a champ.  If all that stuff means nothing to you, just know we threw a bunch of steel off the front of our boat and it kept the boat from moving for the rest of the day and night. 


Hanging out at anchor



Just like the BVI - almost.

I've been told that my blog references us imbibing quite often so I will not refer to that in this post.  Just know that there are four wineries on the island.  We dinghied ashore and beached our dinghy as if we were in the BVI, except we had sweatshirts and jeans on.  Elizabeth equates leaving the boat at anchor to leaving your baby with a new sitter for the first time.  You sort of look back a lot, making sure everything is OK.  Then you peak around the corner, just to make sure, then once out of sight you talk about it most of the time you are gone, and then when you finally get to see it again you are relieved that everything went well.  It's about the same when you leave you house hooked to 35lbs of steel floating in a bay.  The trip ashore was nice and we went back the next day for a walk around.  The history of the island leads to some interesting sights and you're never quite sure what's around the next corner.


TI Sights - Bliss Dance - originally from Burning Man



Treasure Island sights - ???

TI sights - Once again ???

Back at the boat I hefted all that steel back onto the boat and we headed home.  Our overnight stay-cation was a success, the boat and its systems worked great and I think we are ready for a couple hundred more days like it.  We even made it home in time to run a new spinnaker halyard (the rope that raises the colorful sail), install new cabin speakers and install our outboard hoist.  I guess the Stay-cation is over.

Projects, Projects and More Projects

7-12-12 – Alameda, CA Day – Day 10

Long ago when we decided upon this plan to live on our boat and go cruising for a year, we knew there would be many, many projects to be completed.  So many projects in fact that I had a list of things to be completed prior to us arriving on the boat and a time frame to go with them.  Things like install second reef lines on 3^rd weekend in March; install new macerator on 2^nd weekend in January; generally things that would be nice to have out of the way before we arrived to live permanently on the boat.  Needless to say, if you own a boat you know how those plans worked out.  So we found ourselves getting back to the boat a week later than anticipated due to some silly wedding thingy, and having accomplished almost none of our planned pre-projects.

Before

That’s not to say many of the materials hadn’t already been purchased.  In fact they had so much so that moving around the boat and actually living on it was a bit of a challenge for a few days.  Project 1 was organize the boat so we can sit somewhere and maybe even cook some food somewhere.  That was a highly unexciting project but it took us almost 2 days to even make a dent in the mess, and in reality it will probably not be completed anytime in the next year.  Disorganization is difficult for me to deal with.  It probably has something to do with being an engineer. It appears this is something I will need to learn to accept.

After

Who says sewing isn't cool?

I would like none other than to detail out each and every project that we have worked on, relaying humorous and witty anecdotes about lessons learned; but I don’t know if that makes for very good reading.  I can tell you that at one point I found myself sewing.  Somehow sewing on a boat, using waxed whipping twine, wearing mechanics gloves and working with canvas seems not quite so un-manly.  The end product of my sewing was some pockets to mount by our heads on the bulkhead to keep our personal stuff organized.  This very well may be the only personal space we each have on the boat.  But since a Danforth, Bruce or Manson Supreme; along with rodes, chains and shackles mean little to most people I will carry on. 

Oh yea, I had to go up the mast also, all in a days work.

Elizabeth has been designated the research and procurement position on our boat.  She seems to enjoy going on missions to pick up little pieces of gear we are missing or to take a bike ride to Trader Joe's to pick up wine; I mean groceries.  I think she just like to ride her bike around Alameda to be honest.  We learned quickly that one basket of food at the grocery is all you can fit into our backpacks for the ride home.  Unfortunately, this has seriously reduced my procurement and consumption of good beer (one of my loves) and increased my consumption of cheap wine (think 2 buck chuck).  One of the sacrifices I guess I’ll have to make to not have a car and live on the boat.  I think I can manage somehow.

We had a bit of boat Karma the other day.  It all starts on the 4^th of July.  We went to watch the Alameda parade (one of the largest and longest in the country if you didn’t know)  We saw a float for a bar named the Frog and the fFddle and made note that it would be a cool place to go.  The other day we were at WM (that's our initials for overpriced boat stuff) buying a battery charger; it was stressful so we packed up our new charger into the backpack and rode over to the Frog and the Fiddle.  After talking to the bartender we learned that she lives on a boat also, and it happens to be at our marina!  Her boyfriend owns a company that sells boxes of organic fruits and veggies and delivers them to people whenever they want.  She just happened to have an extra box of fruit and veggies with her and offered to give them to us.  We took her up on the offer and somehow managed to carry a battery charger and a box of veggies down the road on our bikes.  Note that this situation did not stop us from stopping at the next bar she recommended.  We probably looked like terrorists walking into the bar with a large cardboard box, a backpack with a battery charger and spools of wire.  They still served us.

Tasty Fruits and Veggies!

While the non-stop projects have been challenging, rewarding and frustrating all in one day; they have helped to give us a sense of accomplishment and purpose as we transition onto the boat and our life of doing less.  Riding our bikes everywhere has helped to slow us down.  Once you ditch your possessions, cars and house you  start to realize how few bills come in and how little it really takes to live. I haven’t watched a TV in weeks and don’t know what’s going on with House , Modern Family or Survivor – South Central Madagascar, but I can tell you how to install a radar pole or how many amp hours a group 31 battery has.   A nice glass of wine in the cockpit at sundown (2 buck Chuck), something good on the grill, the motivation that you’ve got more to do tomorrow (for the 10^th day in a row an counting) I think I could get used to this life.

This is what it's all about

Cross Country (and Back) Trip Completion

7-5-12 Alameda, CA

It seems like so much has happened since last time, yet when I list everything out the list isn't that long. 
Drive to Cleveland.
Hang out in Vermilion, OH.
Get Married.
Fly back to Oakland, CA.
At the risk of boring most people who are reading this, who coincidentally are the same people who were a part of the majority of the above events, I'll try to keep it short.

After our drive to Cleveland we commenced about 2 weeks of doing very little, yet always seeming to be busy.  This wedding planing stuff is a full time job and I have a new respect for anyone who can plan a wedding and stay employed.  The constant feeding of Brian and Elizabeth continued as it had since we first saw the Grandparents Ridgley a few weeks ago.  Somehow we found some time to relax and enjoy the area.

We discovered the "third Thursday" events of Vermilion and enjoyed listening to the many bands scattered around downtown Vermilion.  After indulging in more than 1 beverage Elizabeth found some nice hand crafted coffee mugs at the art studio that called to her. So we bought them and promptly packaged them up to be put into storage for the next year.

Sunset over Lake Erie from Vermilion

We spent a day at Cedar Point riding roller coaster after roller coaster.  The lines were all short and we just walked on to a couple of the rides.  Perhaps that was due to the stifling 95+ degree heat and 112% humidity.  We had fun conquering the roller coasters anyway.

We watched the sun set many evenings.

Ultimately, all of the work ourselves and our families put into the wedding weekend came together with our wedding on June 30th at Chez Francois in Vermilion, OH. The wedding went perfectly; or at least as perfect as a wedding put together in 2 months from 2000 miles away, at a restaurant no one had eaten at, with an officiator we found on the Internet, where we weren't sure the Maid of Honor could make it due to cancelled flights until 6 hours before the wedding, with absolutely no rehearsal and to top it off the spinach crop was damaged by some high winds and drought and this combined with something to do with farmers resulted in no spinach salads; could go.  In all honestly it did go amazingly and we want to make sure to thank everyone who came to help us celebrate the day and especially thank everyone who helped us make it such a great success and memorable event.  I mean really, before this I didn't even know what an Amuse Bouche course was, or that a tiny dish of Hearts of Palm garnished with spring of "micro greens" could be so delicious.

The finished product looks great

The wedding experience would be lacking if you didn't get to hear the story of the baby Christmas cactus and their little pots.  As a tribute to Elizabeth's love of plants and to do something thoughtful and memorable as a wedding favor we decided to plant 50 little baby Christmas cactus' in little pots coated with chalkboard paint and use chalk to write the persons name on them as a place card.  The first hurdle was that Elizabeth wanted the baby X-mas cactus to be from the original mother plant she had in Reno.  Conveniently enough her brother Geoff had an offspring of the mother that Elizabeth had given him in the past.  He graciously donated 50 little sprigs of cactus and started growing them four weeks before we showed up in Evansville.  All we needed to do was paint some little pots and plant them.  The search started for little pots and took us to at least 5 different locations before suitable pots were found.  Then we experimented with different paints.  Cheap spray paint, expensive spray paint and ultimately Brian got the opportunity to paint them by hand (twice) with a little foam brush and the chalk board paint.  In case you we wondering that took forever.  Then we had to decide on a color for the bases.  More driving around looking for colors and then the bases.  At least these got spray painted.  Elizabeth then planted 50 of these little things. You may notice from the picture that there is a little card and stick completing the presentation.  You would think that was easy, but no.  Finding little sticks to hold the cards was a challenge that Elizabeth and her mom eventually solved.  Then the little cards needed special paper so they wouldn't get wrinkled when you slid them onto the sticks. Card-stock was found and then the design was finalized and printed.  Elizabeth's mom donated some work time to cut them all out. So now we are in Evansville, IN with 50 little X-mas cactus that need to get to Cleveland, OH.  We somehow made that happen and transported the planted pots to Cleveland without killing any of them.  Once in Vermilion the names were added with chalk.  The final operation in this saga is to place each of these pots in front of the place setting of each person who would be attending the wedding and insert the little stick.  So four hours before my wedding I find myself desperately running around the restaurant placing little pots in front of place settings, trying to guess who would like to sit near who and making sure each table has the right people at it per the seating chart.  Somehow it all came together and they looked really nice, unique and memorable.  With any luck everyone in attendance will take their X-mas cactus home and watch it grow.  Eventually they will bloom each winter and someone else will see it and comment on how pretty it is.  And then they will break off a little sprig and plant it for one of their Friends.  So the story of the Reno Christmas cactus will evolve.

To complete the trip around most of the USA, we packed up our stuff and flew back to Oakland on Tuesday July 3.  Arriving in Oakland, CA it was hard to believe that the 2 checked bags and 4 carry ons were all that reamined of all the stuff we brought back to the midwest from Reno only a month ago.  With our trip East completed, it's time to start planning the trip South.