Underway
Hurricane season is over and we are free to travel south again. We spent eight months in Brunswick, GA, almost to the day after we arrived delivering our new boat from Antigua. During this time we got a good start on our refit, traveled to visit family and friends, traveled to Turkey and even attended a lovely wedding.
We had a few more projects to complete prior to setting sail again. One major priority was the radar replacement that had to be done up the mast, since we werenβt pulling the rig this year. Furuno is our preferred radar so, like the rest of the Raymarine navigation suite, we replaced the Garmin radar to sell it on eBay.
This went relatively smoothly and the hardest part was chasing the new wires inside the mast. This had to be done with one of us on either end of the cables pulling back and forth, inching it along and through squeeze points.
All instruments on the masthead were also replaced. Mark spent a lot of time going up and down the mast for a while there!
To install the new running rigging, there was lots of splicing going on, as well as some other optimizations... The generator needed some TLC and Mark invented some new swear words when working in that tight space.
In general however, Mark likes to work alone so it is usually my job to get out of the way. I went all-in on my hobbies, birding, photography, yoga and boxing! Boxing fitness and mitt work is such an amazing workout, and I loved the challenge both technically and physically.
Itβs been wonderful to expand my birding experience and knowledge with new mentors and friends. Brenda and I both share the photography bug when out there and occasionally snap a few hominids every now and then.
Like the coconut telegraph for sailors, there is the equivalent birding telegraph for birders. This opens up a whole new world of like-minded birders to share in the obsession and report recent bird sightings. It is also a way to expand knowledge, which suits the scientific me as the research is half of the fun. I recently learned an amusing new word to describe us: Twitchers⦠Seems appropriate somehow.
I even met a group of birders in MD when visiting family. I will now be sure to connect with them when I go back and seek out local Audubon groups during my travels. As with yoga, being self-taught is fine but Iβve found it is much more fun to share, learn and experience life with others.
The photography aspect is also a continuous learning experience. Olympus came out with a new 2.0x teleconverter for my E-M1 that puts me right back in the range where I like to be for birding photography.
With my m.zuiko 40β150mm pro lens, my effective focal length (35mm equiv) is now 160-600mm. Still working on technique and looking forward to using my Olympus E-PL2 underwater this winter.
One last thing to do before getting underway: empty our temporary storage unit and organize our stuff on the boat. We had moved everything off of the Manta catamaran into storage in order to sell the boat and not clutter up the Dolphin during project work.
We were thrilled to sell the Manta to a couple who will live aboard and prepare for cruising, and who we know will take great care of Reach (1.0).
A little bittersweet saying goodbye thoughβ¦
I could not believe how much stuff came out of storage! It was mostly the tools and boat parts that give us the accurate reputation of being a floating hardware store! Luckily, I had already staked my territory with the galley and pantry areas⦠It took a long time to unpack, sort and organize the rest of our stuff, but it felt like our home was finally complete when done.
As we often say, everything we own is on board. Even if we have a lot of stuff in boat terms, relative to land-life we certainly qualify as minimalistic. This boat carries the weight better as planned and we will be conscious of keeping everything well balanced.
All moving complete, we just had to wait out a bit of weather for a window to sail to Florida. Early November got cold and we were happy to have the heaters working!
By the time we could leave, temperatures were in the 50βs overnight and required many layers on watch.
Onboard rhythms were immediately recalled and we sailed happily for three days and two nights to reach Miami, where warm temperatures and a green flash sunset greeted us.
We are now in the Florida Keys for the first time sailing there. For the next couple of months we have some construction projects planned and will travel to the west coast of Florida for this work. Although weβd never planned to sail there, it will be interesting to see what the Gulf of Mexico has to offer.