The Tyranny of the Weather Window

[Hilde's log]

When you are traveling from place to place on a boat, you soon learn to take advantage of the weather window. This is a short term forecast that gives you the kind of conditions you want to travel in. A weather window is usually good for two or maybe three days, and when one comes up you have to hop to, because they close pretty fast.

In Pensacola, we waited for a chance to leave that would be moderately warm. We saw that a cold front was arriving on a Wednesday, so decided to leave the preceding Friday. Our plan was to motor over to the anchorage we’d used when we first came in, drop the hook, and then leave early the next day. 

Clear weather, calm water, cool temperatures...but waiting for incoming cold weather. Time to leave!

The veranda at Island Cove. On sunny days when the breeze was still, it was pleasant.

On Thursday David discovered that the fresh water pump on the engine was leaking. Further inspection revealed that it was shot. Fortunately, a nearby shop (Bell Marine) knew the part we needed and was able to order it. We spent the next 24 hours on pins and needles waiting for its arrival. Fortunately, while we were waiting, my good friend Sherry came to visit and we had a delightful distraction from the waiting frenzy. Had the pump not arrived Friday, we’d have had to wait for a Monday delivery, and our window would have slammed shut. Temperatures for later in the week were in the 40s. To our mutual relief, the pump showed up Friday about 4 p.m., and David installed it. Obviously, it arrived much too late for us to go to the anchorage, so we just decided to roll with it and leave Saturday morning. The boat was all ready; all we had to do was leave first thing.

The round thing under the pulley is the fresh water pump.

All tidy and stowed and ready to pull out.

Because we were all squared away, we took advantage of an invitation to a local neighborhood party, courtesy of Art and Mary Jane. Most of the people in their neighborhood are retired boaters, some of whom are circumnavigators (that’s way out of my league, but I stand around and admire them from a distance). It was a lovely end to our stay in Pensacola.

The next day, we lept out of bed at 5:30, had everything stowed by 7:30 and were ready to back out of the slip. What we had not counted on was the tide. We draw 5’ (i.e., we need 5’ of water to move) and we simply didn’t have enough depth to back out of the slip. How frustrating is that!! We spent three long hours waiting for the water to rise. Time and tide wait for no man; time and tide don’t rush for anyone either.

We finally got away about 11, and motored toward the fuel dock. We needed to fill up the tank and the cans on deck. We radioed the fuel dock and got no response, which was weird. Then we came up to it and found no one in attendance. David slid Raven as close to the dock as he could and then jumped from the boat to the dock. I threw him the spring line (the one in the middle of the boat), crabbed to the back and pitched him the stern line, and then pulled myself forward to toss him the bow line. It was all very “cowboy sailing” which I hate. Evidently since we were out cruising last, no one monitors the radio any more – it’s all cell phone. The young fellow who eventually showed up had no idea what channel they monitored, which told me they didn’t monitor the radio at all. Since it’s hard to fool with a slippery cell phone on deck, it’s not a change I much like.

David got the fuel cans secured and we finally pulled away around noon, crossing Pensacola Bay in about an hour. We popped out of the entrance about 1:15 p.m., under sunny skies, watching the sugar sand beaches on the barrier islands slide by, dotted here and there with people laying back in deck chairs soaking in the sun. 

Leaving Pensacola. Now you know why they call this the Emerald Coast.

Raven underway from Pensacola

The temperatures were cool, but pleasant, and the sparkling blue water mirrored the sky above. Now this is the life, I thought. Little did I know.

Sailing from Pensacola 

Click on the link above for a short video.

Third Time's the Charm - Part 2

Greetings from Florida! That's me near the beach at Destin.

[Hilde’s log]

The whole character of the trip changed the next day. From light winds (8 knots) to no wind, from confused seas to flat calm, suddenly we were adrift on a turquoise and blue sheet of water, relying on the motor for any forward progress. Sunny skies glinted off the ocean and we baked happily in 85 degrees. The only breeze came from our motoring forward; the seas went creamy calm. Other than the fact that the droning of the motor drives me crazy, the trip was ridiculously pleasant. I could warm up food, climb up and down from below, take the wheel, etc., all on a nice flat surface. The calm lasted three days. Had we had only the sails, we’d have drifted along listening to them slap back and forth. Another reason to love Mr. P, our engine – we weren’t stranded.

By day, we were surrounded by a deep blue sea in every direction, a bright blue sky stretching from horizon to horizon. By night, before the moon rose, the carpet of the Milky Way glinted overhead, cut from time to time by passing satellites. The moon rose, its blood red disc cut by a few indigo clouds, climbing high and casting a pale shimmer of light over the water. 

Sunrise on the Gulf - in the distance are some drilling rigs.

From Texas to Mississippi we shared the scenery with all sorts of working boats, barges, supply boats, and oil rigs. The oil rigs are lit up at night like gigantic Christmas ornaments. The most spectacular one I saw was all golden orbs at the base, topped with glowing green towers, and strung with blinking red lights. In the dark of the night, their lights lit up the horizon. Marvels of engineering, these glowing behemoths stand in 700 to 1,000 feet of water, dwarfing the vessels that come to supply them. After Louisiana, we had the Gulf to ourselves. As we passed Mobile Bay, we saw two big ships. By Florida, our only companions were a few fishing vessels.

The Big Blue Circle - David's video

We had a couple of things break (fortunately, during this calm period). David went down to check the engine oil and discovered a leaking water hose. He double-wrapped it in Rescue Tape and it performed just fine for the rest of the trip. The connection from the block to the traveller car (the traveller allows the mainsail to go from one side of the boat to the other) broke and David had to remove the offending part and rely on the blocks for the rest of the journey. I wobbled my way forward (clipped on, of course) to help him by moving one of the blocks to a new position while he held the mainsail lines out of the way. It is pretty intimidating to be looking right down at 700 feet of water from the deck. The cockpit is like a cozy screened-in porch, but climbing out on the deck (which David does all the time) is like being in a yard next to the Big Bad Woods with no fence!! The view is breathtaking but it’s pretty scary scenery to me.

Traveller, blocks, etc. The incomplete "C" in the middle is the broken bit.

We have new instruments this time out. Our panel is B&G, we have radar, and we have AIS. My overwhelming favorite is the AIS (automatic identification system). All the commercial boats transmit on AIS, and by looking at our screen you can see out 15 miles, determining what ships are out there, what kind of ships they are, how fast they are moving, and in what direction. It even tells you the closest distance they will pass and what the name of the vessel is, so that you can hail it to let it know you are out there! The AIS takes most of the terror out of night voyaging. It won’t show random private vessels, but will show you the Big Scary Ships in plenty of time. When I compare it to our last cruising adventure, when I spent hours peering into the darkness, straining to see if lights on the horizon were green or red or white, which way, how fast, etc. and always just guessing, I cannot believe what an improvement this is. Like having a flashlight in a dark room.

Ha! With AIS, you can't sneak up on us anymore!

We arrived at the entrance to Pensacola Bay at about sunset. We intended to go in and anchor in the bay, but decided to wait until moonrise to have a better shot at seeing our surroundings. We don’t like to go in at night – in fact, this was our first time. The lights at night can be very confusing, with different reds and greens marking different channels, and lots of other competing lights from shore, from cars, from buildings, from parking lots – it can be hairy. But we have been to Pensacola before and our alternate was doing donuts outside for eleven hours, waiting for dawn. The AIS helped us again, showing us the barge that passed right in front of us in plenty of time for us to slow down and watch its huge black bulk glide in front of us, about ½ mile away. We dodged a couple more barges as we motored down the GIWW, accompanied by a pod of cheerful dolphins that dove and splashed beside us not realizing it was time for all sentient beings to be fast asleep. We dropped the hook at English Navy Cove in about 12 feet of water at about 11:30 p.m. We sat below, stunned to be floating quietly without a motor deafening us, and finally passed out, sleeping “late” like dead things - a little over five hours.

The morning after we arrived, at our anchorage. Happy, but stupid tired.

The next morning we zombied around, eating breakfast in the cockpit and getting ready to come into a marina. I called the City Marina, where we stayed nine years ago when we were here, and asked if they had a slip and what the rates were. I was told the rate was $15 a foot. That is high, but not awful, for a month. So, to clarify, I said, “A month, right?” “No, ma’am, $15 a foot per week.” $540 a week? Ah...no. What is this guy drinking? He assured me they were right downtown near everything. I assured him that made not a whit of difference, hung up, and called another marina in Bayou Chico. $11 a foot – per month! Sold.

Our marina is sort of picturesque, being across the bayou from the scrap yard, but has a rustic charm. Like fixed wooden docks and a finger peer that comes about 12 feet down the boat, which means some interesting times getting off and getting on. But it has all the essentials, folks are friendly, and we are happy and plugged in.

View down the dock here in Pensacola.

Scary finger pier...

We’ll be here a month, while we rest and David catches up on the stuff that needs to be fixed. He’s done so much already, in less than a week, and is currently rebuilding a winch. He’s a happy man.

Third Time's the Charm - Part 1

Our comfy bunk in the V-berth, complete with "mattress and springs", sheets, and a sleeping bag for the winter. This is our bedroom most of the time, except when making passage.

The V-berth as catch-all while we are underway. Everything got stuck in here, including a whisker pole. Obviously no place to sleep! It's uncomfortable, if the sea is at all rough, because this is the bow of the boat. If David had been sleeping here on night two, he'd have waked up in a hurry - probably on his head on the sole.

[Hilde's log] We have survived our third Gulf crossing and are ensconced in a marina in Bayou Chico, in the Pensacola region. Technically, we are in Warrington, FL. After two days plugged in with electricity, and three nights of decent sleep, we’re about to emerge from the exhaustion that is just part and parcel of a Gulf crossing. A couple of people have commented on how little time the crossing took. That’s because we didn’t go far south. We basically headed out to the commercial safety fairways and then scooted along parallel to the coast, about 100 miles out, before heading in at an angle to Pensacola. Had we headed for Tampa or further south along the Florida coast, the trip would have been a lot longer. When we leave here, we are looking at another five day voyage to get to Punta Gorda, just south of Tampa. We will be here in this marina for about a month, fixing what broke and getting our energy back.

I have also been asked what our plan is. Do we have a route, destination, goal – i.e., what are you doing? I don’t have a clear-cut answer. We both retired in May and are, first, thrilled to get out of Houston and environs. Too many people, too much pollution. We are choosing to live on the boat and travel to reclaim some joy in our lives. On land, our lives feel constricted and predictable. On the water, life goes technicolor and there is a sense of adventure. We find ourselves smack in the middle of God’s breathtaking creation – sun, sky, and sea – and our hearts fill in a way that they just aren't living on land. When we take a break in an anchorage, it’s peaceful and still. When we take a break in a marina, folks are friendly and welcoming. It’s a very pleasant way of life (also rough and ready and without conveniences...but who cares?).

The overall plan is that we are going to sail and voyage until we don’t feel like it any more, or until David’s 93 year old mom needs us to help her, whichever comes first. We envision a cruise of at least a year to five years, but who knows? We have no fixed destination or goal. As I said to David, if we want to hole up in Pensacola for the rest of our lives, we can. No agenda, other than keeping ourselves in a mild climate. Since we are shivering in a cold front here as I write this, that looks a whole lot like a lot further south for the winter. Neither of us is a fan of cold.

We left Kemah on Thursday, November 2^nd, about noon, headed for an overnight anchorage at the Texas City dike. I wanted to squeeze in one last sleep! We filled up at the fuel dock across from Portofino and then headed out into the bay, where we were greeted with leaden skies, 24 knot winds, and choppy water. As we lumped our way to the ship channel, the whole idea of leaving was upsetting. I had a couple of good cries below, mostly just releasing all the stress that had built up over the last month, and some sadness at parting with my car. I know, ridiculous, but I bought her new and loved her. She’s gone to a good home, but still. Fortunately, by the time we reached Redfish Island, the wind had calmed down, the sun was out, and the trip was benign, albeit noisy with the motor chugging away.

Taken from our anchorage at the Dike the morning we left for the Gulf. This big ship was headed into Houston. Each ship that passed sent us rolling gently from the wake that travels all the way to shore from the ship.

We anchored off the dike in about 12 feet of water, lopping back and forth with the passing of each huge ship making its way to Houston up the ship channel. I made a good dinner that night and a big bowl of oatmeal for each of us the next morning, knowing they were probably the last square meals we’d have for awhile. That turned out to be an understatement.

We hoisted anchor and slipped down the ship channel, past the ferries and various early morning fisherfolk, the sun eating up the mist on the water and the cool air flowing over us. Just past the south jetty, we put up the sails and promptly headed for Corpus Christi (i.e., west, not east). I don’t know why we expected to sail south, since that is the same direction of the ship channel to Galveston, and there is no sailing to Galveston. We wrestled with the sails and basically tacked back and forth over a horizontal line for a couple of hours before giving in and motoring south. By that time, we were both thoroughly seasick.

Explain to me why, no matter how bad the weather is in the bay, we never get seasick. But just let us get three feet into the Gulf, and down we go. Every time. This trip was no different. We took ginger pills and they did help (nobody puked) but we still felt miserable for two days. Neither of us ate a bite and we hardly drank any water. Fortunately we had a gallon of water on deck or we wouldn’t have had that either. Going below to use the head was torture.

By the third day I had recovered enough to make us hot jello (the jello you get after you add the water but before you put it in the fridge to set) and sipping that helped the nausea and settled the sharp hunger pangs. About two hours later, I made another batch. A few hours later, we sipped some soup. Gradually, we got some energy and some perspective back. The next day, I reheated some meals I had cooked in advance, and we each had very small portions. David was recovered; I came down with a cold. Seriously?

Our first night watch wasn’t too bad, other than the seasickness and the two hour watches. The second night out we were motor sailing through oil rig “cities” (10-12 oil rigs close together) and although we didn’t have much in the way of wind, the boat shuddered and hobby-horsed its way through five foot waves and troughs, all headed in contrary directions. My theory is that the currents swirling around and among the rigs create the contrary seas. There was certainly no wind to blame it on (maybe 8 knots). The bow of the boat would leap up and then slam down in the troughs, seawater bucketing over the deck. At the helm, I was sick as a dog, mad as a wet hen, and totally frustrated, since every time we hit a trough, the boat basically stopped before ploughing on. I don’t know how David slept through it. (We sleep in the main cabin in the middle of the boat when making passage, and that is a very stable place.) 

"Bed" in the main cabin, where we take turns sleeping underway. Wads of sheets that didn't stay put, jacket and life vet wadded up at the "foot" - the good news is, you're so tired you just faint. Most nights I slept in my life jacket and sandals. When there is an emergency, no time (and no light) to get dressed.

The last straw was when one contrary wave picked Raven up and slapped her down in such a direction that the sails tacked and we were headed back to Corpus again. I yelled below, David came up, and we got her headed back on course. Then we just cut the motor. Sailing in chop is much less stressful than motoring, as the boat rides the sea instead of blasting its way through it. Less stressful or not, when I made my way down for my off watch nap, I was having mutinous thoughts of desertion the second we touched land. 

Fortunately, that night was the nadir. The next day dawned sunny, our seasickness was mostly past us, we ate something, and life looked good again. Enjoy the videos below to sail with us. (left click on the text, left click on the link that appears, click on the x in the upper right hand corner of the video frame in Google Photos) - please let me know if these do not play correctly. The Wifi here is a joke and I am having a hard time checking the links.

The magic of a gimbled stove 

Day three - life is possible again!

Royal blue ocean

Navy blue ocean

Tomorrow's the day. Eeeep.

At long last – tomorrow is the day! Holy cow. About a year since we moved to Portofino. About 18 months since we started getting Raven ready in earnest. Tomorrow.

Believe it or not, this will all get stowed today. We will probably stuff it all in our bedroom in the v-berth. We will sleep in the cabin (the port settee folds out into a double bed) while underway. Then we will deal with the rest of the mess in Florida. At some point, you just have to LEAVE.

The usual pre-leaving mess is everywhere, in the cockpit, on the dock, in the cabin. All the food has been purchased and some of it pre-cooked. Upgrades are done, repairs made. The cars will be gone by tomorrow at 10 a.m. (I will no longer have ANY keys – I can’t quite process that.) We’ve had our goodbyes with family and friends, last visits to restaurants and to HEB, last purchases of gasoline. We are still stowing stuff. We’ll be stowing stuff all the way to Florida, I guess.

More mess...it, too will disappear. Maybe over the side...

It’s not all ready. But, as David says, it’s ready enough.

Tomorrow we will head toward Galveston. Weather permitting, we will anchor out, just off the Bay at the Texas City Dike. Then Friday morning, in sync with the tides, we’ll motor out the jetties, set the sails, and head down the fairways to Florida. The weather looks benign, and we are certainly ready to get gone.

There’s not really a lot to report, except…

Oh, dear. We are really going to do this.

Shaken down and stirred

[Dual log - we kept saying "oh, don't forget to add..."]

I (Hilde) promised myself I wouldn’t write one more post until we had actually left the dock and gone somewhere. Yesterday we returned from our first short shakedown cruise, to Offatt’s Bayou, behind Moody Gardens in Galveston. The weather forecast promised high 80s and 10-15 winds, which we got the first day out. After that it was 90-95 degrees in the afternoon and not a wisp of wind. We enjoyed the mornings and the evenings and gasped miserably in the heat in the afternoon.

Shakedown cruises are basically time away from the dock to see what works, what doesn’t work, what breaks, and what needs to be tossed overboard at the first opportunity. We discovered that we didn’t remember all the myriad steps it takes to secure the boat, all the steps it takes to get her ready to sail, and all the steps it takes to keep a happy ship. We remembered most of them, but the devil is in the details.

What a mess! All this stuff had to be stowed - it's a safety hazard of the first order.

Amazingly, it got stowed. This is more like it.

We did manage to clear the decks. I did manage to make some food in advance. We did find the fiddle rails and secure them before we left. We did find all the bits and pieces we needed to leave, such as the polypropylene line to secure the dinghy. We figured out how to use our new life vests. We took on fuel the day before we left so there was no hurry as we left. I secured most of the stuff below. We remembered to put the lanyards on our glasses.

The chaos of the grocery store trip when you are stocking up for a few days.

Sweet potato salad, the one thing that did get made ahead of time.

I didn’t think to secure the gallon water bottles that live under the companionway steps – on the first tack they slid out from under the steps and on the second they rolled to a stop right in front of the steps, making it quite difficult to negotiate my way off the ladder.

I forgot how stuff shifts in a cabinet, and got clonked on the head by flying canned goods when I opened the door in search of snacks (the tack we were on heeled us 10 degrees or so, pushing all the cans against the cabinet door).

We found that the dangling mesh bags are a no-go: they wave wildly back and forth, slamming the onions into the table and wall.

I forgot to put all the loose objects in the head into the sink while we were underway, and my favorite water glass flew to the floor and broke, even though it was made of heavy plastic.

I thought flat-bottomed things on the sole of the cabin would be fine, but they slid everywhere, turned over where possible, and scattered this and that all over the place.

I forgot the hot water heater only works when we are plugged in, and it was so hot I couldn’t bear to heat water on the stove for washing up. Eew.

I forgot how long it takes to prepare food for a trip when you don’t want to cook and ran short because I ran out of time before we left and couldn’t bear to cook in 95 degrees.

Did I mention we trusted the weather forecast and left before our new cabin fans arrived? Never trust the forecast for more than a couple of days. It was supposed to be cool.

I decided to dump my heavy plastic “wine” glasses that I have bumped my head on for a decade and never used. Decision made when I bumped my head for the 439^th time in 95 degrees and 80% humidity. I have no sense of humor when I feel like a boiled turnip.

We had some exci tement trying to furl the jib with its halyard very loose. My bad...I am supposed to check these things before we push off, but, again, I forgot.

David wrestled with the windlass, which acted up because one of the electrical wires running to it was loose (here we have our first genuine shakedown fix!) and the resulting short blacked out our instruments. Fortunately, we were pulling up the anchor in an empty, and completely flat, anchorage with no other boats and no breeze.

The second shakedown fix became obvious when we noticed that the bilge pump ran about every fifteen minutes instead of once a day. This was bad because it added unnecessarily to battery load - and water was coming in where it shouldn't. The run down the Houston Ship Channel in lumpy seas had loosened the stuffing around the rudder post. It is designed to be adjusted, so it was an easy fix, once David loosened the bronze nuts. Once again, he enjoyed the new locking access panel in the cockpit floor. There was room enough for him to sit down under the cockpit floor with the rudder post to fix it, instead of crawling into dark spaces through too-small lazarettes.

I had a miserable time reading the charts on our new B&G chart plotter. The color scheme, etc. is different and the controls are different as well.

I discovered that I absolutely have to have some project to work on when we are at anchor because after one day of reading nonstop I had nothing else to do but clean the boat and sweat and swear under my breath.

Shakedowns are not all bad news. The new high-pressure pump that feeds the washdown hose on the foredeck easily cleaned the gooey black ooze that passes for "mud" here in Texas from the anchor chain and anchor. Clean chain in the anchor locker lasts longer and doesn't stink up the vee berth.

Also, the new solar panels kept our house batteries topped up without our having to run the engine while at anchor. What blissful silence that was! More practically, it saves wear on the engine and saves fuel - as well as minimizing pollution.

In other words, it was a highly successful trip!

We did have many lovely things to enjoy:

We were able to sail a bit on the way down, and enjoyed the motoring trip back up from Galveston because we finally had a (motor-generated) breeze. The wind to and from Galveston is always on the nose; there is no explanation for this phenomenon, but you can count on it. We had lots of fun motoring back up the channel admiring all the working boats – barges, tankers, container ships, ferries, a science boat from Texas A&M, pilot boats, a tug boat, etc., as well as a few other pleasure craft. It was a busy day on the channel. We used AIS several times to identify and call barges by name, just so we all knew who was going where. The wind was such that we had a lovely breeze the whole way, which makes all the difference. Also a bag of chips, which helps morale a whole lot. Cold leftovers, chips, yogurt, and cold seltzer water kept the wolf at bay.

For the videos below, left click on the text and then on the link location that appears below it. When the box with the video appears, click the arrow in the upper right hand corner to play the entire thing. None is longer than 90 seconds.

Trail ride along Pelican Cut behind a couple of barges. On the left, "The Colonel" is coming toward us. It's a faux paddle wheeler that is usually docked at Offatt's Bayou.


Barge "race"; they aren't really racing, just trying to pass one another safely, as they are going different speeds.

Our first night on the hook, when the moon loomed over the horizon. David's photo, at the beginning of the blog, does it better justice. It looks really small in this video, but it was enormous.

The mornings were glorious! It was cool and the anchorage is so big we felt spacious and free.

We saw three flamingos fly by! Either that or three great egrets that had been washed with a red shirt. I have no idea where they came from or where they were going.

The harvest moon was full and glorious our first night at anchor and shone brightly the whole time we were gone.

I managed to get most of the green tape goo off the deck using acetone (Wear neoprene gloves! That stuff is nasty.) although a few stains remain. It looks so much better!

We had a lovely breeze come down the forward hatch, which made sleeping possible and even comfortable, despite the high humidity which left the sheets pretty soggy.

When we came back in, we got set up with A/C in record time, now that I know how to clean the filter. It’s a good thing, too, because below decks after six hours of motoring it was 98 degrees and 80% humidity and I thought I would die before we plugged in. Autumn, my foot.

Goodbyes and Hellos

June 4, 2017

The Kemah Channel at dusk. A familiar sight, to be traded in for new places and new experiences.

We are about 10 days from moving back aboard. Yes, I know, we keep saying that! But the only things left to do are 1) 3 more coats of varnish on the repaired cabin sole, 2) opening the drain in the refrigerator so we can drain out condensation (huge improvement), 3) polishing the hinges for the doors in the v-berth and the head, and 4) hanging the doors. All that should be accomplished this week.

We’ve had a rush of things to deal with – unexpected surgery and recovery, retirement, a new grandbaby...and now the trauma of moving. Sometimes it feels like trying to run through wet cement. Other times it feels as though we are rushing over a waterfall.

The good news is that we are moving! Goodwill has received a carload of our accumulated bounty and will get more this coming week. The church garage sale was the recipient of a lot of nice, gently used household goods. The RV is going to a consignment lot, the truck to another consignment lot. We enjoyed them but are not sad to see them go. Two fewer things to pay for, keep up with, and fix.

Other things are not so easy to let go of. I will sing my last Sunday in my church choir this coming Sunday and I am more than grief-stricken to let that go. It was the one place I truly belonged, and the place that made my spirit soar. I know that I will be blessed again out on the water, but it’s hard to let this particular soul solace go. I’m taking my hymnal and will yodel on the water on night watch.

We are letting go of the predictable. Now you would think that would be easy, but it can be comforting to know that on Thursday you go to work, make supper, then head off to choir. You know what’s next and are spared the flailing around that no schedule can produce. The exoskeleton of a schedule keeps you ordered and moving in a particular direction. No schedule is the ultimate freedom and can be hard to navigate. It’s easy to move in circles and to let being busy overwhelm a sense of purpose.

We are also letting go of the comfort of the familiar. We know all the side streets, short cuts, shops, professionals, and traffic patterns here. All the new places we go will be, well, new. The fun of discovery, the frustration of doing everything blind and on foot.

I am letting go of space. My personal space aboard Raven is basically a fiddle rail in the v-berth, a locker, and the fiddle rails in the main cabin (which I often share with the galley). I am culling books and it’s like cutting off fingers. I have no idea how I am going to store my knitting, but by golly, it’s going with me.

I am letting go of personal items. They are very sticky. Lots of perfectly good clothes are going to new homes, because there is simply no room for them. My beautiful blue dish is going to storage. It’s pottery, and pottery doesn’t do too well in the humpty-bumpty of a boat. My excellent collection of wide mouth storage jars are headed for the recycling bin. Big deal, you say, but it took a few years to collect them and I use them all the time. Again...glass.

I am letting go of being known. People here know me, in the places I frequent. Store clerks say hi, people at church know me, people in the community recognize me. I’ll be a stranger wherever we go next, a passing observer but likely not a participant, unless we find a “home port” where we stay part of the year.

So, it’s the season of goodbye/hello, of letting go of one life to welcome the next. You’d think it would be easier each time, but even though I recognize the whole cycle, it’s not any easier. I do trust that regardless of the discomfort of letting go, it’s going to be just fine. Breathe in, breathe out, next step.

Ten Years Ago and Right Now

[Hilde's log]

A happy birthday, 10 years ago today.

Ten years ago, on my 55^th birthday, I was baking a loaf of bread as we bobbed around in Great Sale Cay in the Abacos, Bahamas. See above photo for proof. This year, I'm not.

This year, I am seven weeks shy of my last day of work (well, of paid work), and am spending a lot of time sorting and tossing my belongings, an activity that seems to be a never-ending pursuit. We are trying to shrink our inventory yet again so David can get all his tools to fit in the smaller of our two storage spaces. The larger one is sort of a “garage” where he does work on the cars and where we have been varnishing the large doors. (see photo) It's a workshop, more than a storage space, but it needs to be shut down before we leave. So...more sorting and tossing. Thankfully, things that were vital to me eight years ago are much less so now, so I have been able to let go of more.

The "workshop" minus cars...varnishing in progress. All that stuff either has to be put on the boat, in our other tiny storage space, or tossed.

I must admit, I had no idea last June that we would still be working on the boat in March, and still working on storage, and still winding up, and still, well, everything. I have some acquaintances at church who were to set sail in February. They were at services last Sunday. I know exactly why, too. Same as us - “one more thing.”

Since the last post, we've had the mast pulled for repairs and upgrades (new radar, a radar “cage” to keep the sails from snagging on the radar, steps for climbing the mast, new spreaders, and a new mast step) and had the boat hauled for a rudder inspection, sea cock replacement, instrument fit, sole repair, and a bottom job. In between those large projects the cabin was full of folded sails and David was beavering away at the instruments and wiring and battery voltmeter. And, of course, the varnish work, which is getting very old.

Raven at Seabrook Shipyard, getting her mast pulled (that huge crane is pulling it up out of the deck).

But as of next Wednesday, Raven will be splashed again, the cabin will be clear of sails, one door and our table will be rehung and the rest of the varnish work will be almost finished. We actually do see the end of this year-long refit approaching. I am admiring the fact that the leaks from the sea cocks are a thing of the past, that the splintered floor is replaced, and that the cabin looks, well, finished. I might start looking for new couch pillows or something. Big shout out of thanks to Stix N Rigging and to Mockingbird Marine, who have done a fabulous job, and to the folks at Seabrook Shipyard, also an excellent group.

Raven "on the hard" at Seabrook Shipyard. Like an iceberg, most of the body of a sailboat is under the water! She looks naked with no mast, no boom, and no sails.

This is an interesting shot. See David's left hand? It's on our very tiny rudder. Note the flat finish of the new bottom paint. Every five years you get to do it again.

So, we're done, right? But, oh, wait, there's the non-skid to be re-done. And the instruments installed. And the solar panels. So it goes.

Still, starting next weekend, I will be hauling everything out of every crevice on board for a deep cleaning (no more construction dust) and yet another sort and throw party. Then we will begin moving back aboard. After we are back aboard, yet another deep cleaning and sort and throw party in the 5^th wheel prior to putting it on the market.

At some point in this process we will both be officially retired (!!!) and will move forward more quickly.

Except: the whole process is happening amid the arrival of our first grandchild and requisite trip(s) to Portland, Oregon, and in between all the other financial bits and pieces and medical bits and pieces that must be seen to in conjunction with leaving our pre-retirement lives...but that's okay. It will be on our time, for things that matter to us.

When you want to change your life in a major way, it's always a lot more complicated than you thought, even when you have done it before. But, one step at a time, you get closer and closer and then… then you find yourself baking bread while bobbing at Great Sale Cay.

THIS. Raven underway.

Behind, but movin' forward - New Digs

Raven in her new slip. David admiring the fine job he did stripping the toerail. We're getting there...

Mid-November and we're still in the 5^th wheel. Plans deferred are plans gone awry.

We somehow got sidetracked in October. Mostly we were just tired and wanted to do Something Else with our limited free time. So, we enjoyed the month and did do quite a bit on the boat, but not enough to get us back on board.

I have spent hours in the head, taping, painting, getting paint in my hair, wiping bits of paint off every conceivable surface, some of which weren't even in the head, removing paint from under the tape that was supposed to block the paint...Did I mention I really don't like to paint?? To add insult to injury, I think I did it wrong and I am anticipating the whole of the painted surface peeling off in my hand at the first scratch. Demoralizing, yes. But it does look nice, temporarily or not. Clean! The paint got rid of old stains, old yellowing, bits of mildew I couldn't reach, etc. If it stays put, I'm a happy woman. If not, gee, I just don't want to think about it. If you could stand in there with me, which you can't because there isn't enough floor space, we'd fill it up. But that tiny room took me about two weeks to finish.

So much for October. Now, with the time change, our time after work to do anything aboard is really, really limited.

On the positive side, we moved to a new marina. We'd been at Watergate Marina for eight years and had a really nice slip. We'd have stayed, had they allowed us to move back aboard. But they have instituted a new rule which decrees that your boat must be 40 feet long if you want to live aboard. So...36 feet is not long enough, and the fact that we have been there for 8 years and have been exemplary tenants makes not a whit of difference. Fine. I feel completely dissed.

They'll miss us now we're gone! Probably not. Bye bye.

In the long run, though, it was a blessing, as these things usually are. We have moved to PortoFino, right off the south side of the Kemah channel, and it has a completely different atmosphere. For one thing, the marina has mostly sailboats. For another, there is a lot of activity. We sat in the cockpit yesterday doing various tasks and watched a number of boats go in and out. We have a great view of the channel from the berm right in front of the boat. We met two very friendly couples who walked over to introduce themselves and welcome us to the neighborhood.

The new neighborhood. Kemah channel in the background. Raven's slip is off to the right and back about 30 feet.

Sitting out on the swing watching the Sunday night traffic, I felt my heart light within me. This is a good move. It sort of feels like the first step in setting off, in getting my life back again, in loving what I do. This is a good move.

View from the edge of the channel. Across the way there is Seabrook Marina. You can just see our slip, where we left on our first cruising adventure in April 2006. My fingernail tracks are still in the pier. :)

More scrubbing and some shine at last

[Hilde's log]

Let no one tell you that refurbing a boat is not glamorous work. I post this photo of me in varnish/paint thinner protection mask to prove my point.

I've almost finished the port side of the salon, and have moved into the galley. Here is the galley before I tore into it:

You can see why it is time to do all this work, after 20 years of hard labor for the original varnish. Here is a closeup of the wood before I started:

Why it takes forever...I am scrubbing off the quick touch-up coat Raven's previous owner applied without (I think) sanding the original layer. That touch-up coat turned leprous and took a lot of scrubbing to remove. I do it by hand, being a dead loss at electric sanders.

The galley, mid-refurb. The wood on the right is done, except for the trim and the framing. The junk on the counter is going home with me to be sanded while the current varnish dries. I am also in the middle of a stack of drawers that are being re-varnished and having their insides painted.

And here is a glimpse of the future! See how the new varnish shines and brings in the light? It's worth it, just so very slow.

Meanwhile, Cap'n Dave labors on. His work isn't as easy to appreciate as new varnish, but it much more important in terms of actually being out and sailing.

He installed a galvanic isolator, which required several hours of work in a hot boat (all the electric had to be turned off), and then a long shower and a nap to recover. That was it for that Saturday. The galvanic isolator should make our zincs last longer and keep us safe(r) from weird wiring at questionable docks.

This stern light cost David several days of work. "All" he did was move it from the stanchion (where it blinded us at night and was blocked by the wind vane) to the back of the wind vane. This involved creating a new bracket (multiple trips to store, storage, etc.), wresting the rusted screws out of the old bracket, disconnecting and reconnecting the various wires, repairing those that were UV-cracked, and resisting the urge to whack it with a large hammer. In other words, a week of evening effort.

It can be overwhelming

[Hilde's Log]

Ten months, two weeks to blast off, more or less, depending on … everything.

We are working away on the physical tasks before us, the financial, retirement, and familial decisions we need to make, trying to take it steady and not get overwhelmed. Sometimes we do pretty well, other times not so well. There is just so much to do and decide.

I wonder why on earth we didn't do a lot of this stuff before, and the answer is probably because we couldn't see the exit, just the tunnel. We couldn't recondition the boat while we were living on her. Once we moved off, we found ourselves in the “go home and melt” mode. Working all day, running necessary errands after work, going home and making/eating dinner, all that seemed to preclude doing anything on the boat during the week. The same set of circumstances, without the goad of a timeline, allowed us to ignore the other life decisions that were yammering in the background. Then on weekends, other more interesting or pressing things stood in the way. It was easy to say “next weekend” because there was an unlimited number of them and we needed a break. Now we see the exit, and the number of weekends is suddenly very limited. It's easy to get overwhelmed.

I have mixed emotions about this period of time, this “suiting up for the next thing”. I don't really know what this next thing, this who-knows-how-long-and-where cruising thing, this living-into-the-last-part -of-our-lives thing, is going to look like.

Part of me is so excited, my hair's on fire, to paraphrase a friend who has a poetic gift for overstatement. To shake free of the schedule and the boredom and the routine...woo-hoo! I remember the spectacular scenery and sights. Is there anything more glorious than phosphorescence in a summer sea? Than the sun coming up in a molten-gold sheen over the water? Than the absolute silence of a still, star-studded night in an empty anchorage?

Part of me remembers quite well how exhausting it can be. How frightening some experiences are. How frustrating it can be to do the simplest chores, like buying groceries or doing laundry. How isolating it can be.

Part of me is worried. It's been ten years since we were out. I'm ten years older. I get tired more easily. I live with a chronic disease that requires a specific diet. Will I be up to the physical challenge? Will David? I remember the times when he had to do foredeck work in the middle of the ocean at 2 a.m. You can't always avoid those times.

If we go out and for whatever reason it doesn't work out, or when we simply decide we're done, then what??

Mix those mixed-up emotions with the long list of things that need to be accomplished, decided, and let go of before May 2017, and you can get Overwhelm.

When that day comes, ten months and two weeks and some days from now, it will be the same sense of leaping off into the unknown that we experienced in 2006, tempered to an extent by our experiences since then. It will be change, on a huge scale. And change, big change, can feel a lot like dying. Fortunately, I believe fervently in rebirth.