Happy New Year!

It's now the first week of the new year and we're settled in for the season.  The water temperature is warmer (47 degrees F) than it was this time last year (solid ice 4" thick).  I'm kinda hoping this is a sign that global warming has advanced to the point where we won't have to use our Espar heater anymore but I guess that's probably not the right thing to wish for.  Actually, as long as we're comfortable we really enjoy the winter here at the marina.  We practically have the place to ourselves, just us and the ducks.  We decorated the boat for Christmas this year.  Put up purple berry LED lights in the rigging and a three foot tall Christmas tree out in the cockpit.  Looks pretty sweet!

This past month has been interesting/frustrating in our attempts to find another boat.  We've narrowed our search down to a handful of boats so we talked to a loan company that specializes in boat loans and got the paperwork started.  We were dumbfounded when they came back and rejected the loan because we were "live aboards".  What?  With a credit score of over 800 and our only debt being the boat we live on they think we're a bad risk because we might sail away without paying off our loan.  Gee whiz guys, there's nothing in our record that indicates this might happen.  Maybe they overheard me at the bar the other night when I was talking like a pirate.  I don't know.  So now we have our boat up for sale but we won't be able to buy another one if we sell it.  Then what do we do?  The bank suggested that we buy a house and then they'd consider giving us a boat loan.  Am I alone in thinking this sounds insane?  We're trying to free ourselves from financial commitment and they want us to replant ourselves in the dirt and be buried in debt.  Didja hear that?  It was the sound of our dreams being laid down to die.  What a system.

So, I don't think we'll be buying another boat anytime soon.  The one we have right now is plenty good and if we make a few adjustments she'll do just fine.  Besides, we've got three years to go until retirement and a lot can happen between now and then.

In the meantime we're gonna go ahead with our plans for adding some gear to La Vida Dulce and preparing ourselves for blue water sailing.  We had originally planned to invest in Furuno electronics but that's changed and we're looking at Raymarine equipment now.  We used Cheri's bling money and bought a really nice multi function display (MFD, C120W).  Working with the local supplier (MTS) we got a killer price and timed it right to also get $500 back from Raymarine.  We wanted to go with a local dude so we'd have technical help if we needed it, which you won't get if you buy off the internet.  We ended up with a better price in the long run too.  Ryan at MTS drew me up a schematic and made suggestions to help me plan the system.  We'll be able to use the boat's existing ST-60 instruments (which are about ten years old now) which will work fine with the new gear.  To replace them with up-to-date stuff would have cost about $1600 so that's quite a savings.  Our boat speed display needs some help but Ryan says we can send it into the factory and have it rebuilt for half the price of a new unit.  Good plan.  So we have the display and that gives us GPS and a chartplotter (with 3D charts!).  I chose a housing with a ball and socket foot to mount it at the helm.  I plan to modify the steering pedestal so the display can be turned around and face in any direction.  That way you can engage the autopilot and then go sit up by the cabin out of the weather and read a book or something and just glance up now and then at the display to make sure everything is going OK.  Cool!  Of course we don't have the autopilot yet but that is in the plans.  We also just placed an order for a 4kw radar which will be mounted about halfway up the mast.  That gets displayed on the MFD and overlays on the chart or can be shown in split screen.  The mount for that is self-leveling so the radar is always in line with the horizon and won't be affected by the boat heeling over.  At least for the first 35 degrees of heel.  Beyond that it probably doesn't much matter.  Once we have that gear up and running we'll install AIS which will automatically communicate with other boats (all commercial ships have it) letting them know where and who we are and also showing us their position and heading.

This is the minimum I want to have up and running by this Spring so we can head out into the Atlantic for our first offshore sail.  We'll be taking two weeks in May to do what's called the DelMarVa circumnavigation, sailing around the Delaware/Maryland/Virginia peninsula.  We plan to take our time and enjoy the trip so we'll be making stops along the way. Heading north we'll anchor in the Chester and Sassafras Rivers.  Leaving the Sassafras we'll enter the C+D Canal and cruise into Chesapeake City for a day.  From there it's out to the Atlantic, then down to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.  This will be a three to four day non-stop run.  Our first anchorage in the Chesapeake would be at Mobjack Bay.  From there we'll work our way up to Fleets Bay  We should be able to make an easy one day run to Solomons Island on the Patuxent River for another overnighter and then a one day run back to Herrington Harbour.  This schedule leaves us three or four days open to hang out and explore when we find a particularly nice anchorage.

That's the plan.  The overnight runs would be a lot easier if we had an autopilot installed.  We're looking into a used one that includes a course computer, fluxgate compass, rudder reference and control head.  We'd have to ante up for a new linear drive which is the part that actually pushes the rudder back and forth under command of the course computer.  If we went this way we'd be able to have an autopilot for less than half the cost of a new one.  We'd always be able to replace the used parts with new ones at a later date.  With four days of non-stop sailing planned for this Spring this might be our best bet.

This'll be our big vacation for 2012.  The following year we're planning to take three weeks and go to Bermuda.  Then the year after that we'll take off and go wherever we want because we won't be coming back.  No more commuting, no more working for da man, no more having to wait to take some time off.  It'll all be time off from there on out.  Woohooo!  I'm gonna be a pirate and steal back all the time they stole from me over the last 40 years.  Bastards!  I'm gonna bury treasure in the sand and say "lardy dar" all the time.  Might drink some rum too.  I'll probably skip the pillage and plunder thing though because I pretty much covered that one when I was in high school.

Three years.  The time goes by pretty fast although we have accomplished quite a bit since we bought the boat.  We made a list of things we felt were important (life raft, whiskey, cigars) and we've been checking things off as we go.  So far we're about half way through the list.  Still, I'm feeling pressed for time.  Might have to quit working so I can spend more time on these projects.  That should go over big with the wife.