by miami | Nov 29, 2013
Putting up a first sail on Yume
We put up a sail today. This is a big deal! Had the boat a month and finally got to go out. Not far, no wind, but nothing bad happened either!
We did discover that the chart plotter would not come on ( found out later some idiot hooked the power wire to the gauge light switch), and that the knot meter did not work ( Ryan learned how to take it out while in the water and clean it), and we learned that the genoa unfurls and furs quite nicely.
She ran a bit slow but methinks the beard and barnacle on the bottom have a lot to do with that. The revs were running very high as well but that could be dirty bottom and/ or wrong size prop. I would not be surprised if the prop were incorrectly sized at all.
A diver is coming this weekend to clean the bottom, check the zincs and the prop…
After a nasty couple of days, Thanksgiving started cold (ice on the dock) but once the sun came up it was a glorious day. We started looking for the leaks (think the screws in the rub rail need rebedding) and cleaned the hull a little.
I replaced the propane solenoid first thing only to find some idiot (me) had ordered the wrong voltage so it had to be taken back out and the old one cleaned up and replaced so the bird could join us for dinner!
And what a first dinner it was!
The best part of the day was definitely going out though. We only have a few more days here as we have to be in west palm beach DEC 20 which is 525 miles away. Since we only do 6-7 miles an hour, and can run about 10 hours at most a day we have to get moving!
Ryan got a 6′ cast net and was out as soon as the weather cleared learning how to throw it, and I got up on the bow to test the anchoring systems.
We are all excited to get moving on. Settling down to routines on the boat and learning how to manage three people and one dog in 41 feet is actually easier than we thought. In fact it feels like we have always been here.
Getting more work done online too!
Plus you just can’t beat those views off the back deck!
by miami | Oct 17, 2013
We are back on the farm (not ours anymore!) finishing the details. Packing up what little we have not already moved to YuMe. Cleaning and getting rid of all the stuff we can’ take.
Some of this kills me. Things we paid hundreds if not thousands of dollars we give away or sell for peanuts. Shelly tells me it is just stuff and let it go. Easy for her to say!
Then there is the fun of dealing with the ‘companies’. Tmobile wants to charge me $800 for canceling a contract after I have been with them 15 years. Nice. Doing my best to wipe my tracks clean!
Helping the new owners get familiar with running a horse farm has been fun. Each task I do for them (take a load to the dump) is great as it is the last time. The guy at the dump yesterday asked if we were moving when he saw what we were throwing away and when I told him we bought a boat – he said ” I heard about you! You had that horse farm right?” I guess we are locally famous… at the dump anyway 😉
Another interesting project is moving from a desktop of 15 years to an ipad mini and a chromebook. Cleaning off my computer is a trip down memory lane but it is fun deleting all that crap I have been meaning to get to! Liberating sort of!
10 days and counting until we are back on YuMe and can start that new life! Here is what our new car looks like! See it hanging on the stern?
by miami | May 24, 2008
For years I have been writing about happiness. What it is, where to find it, how to keep it, and how to share it.
The more time goes by, the more certain I am happiness is what we all really want.
And I also believe the more we all tie happiness to having money, the less happy we will be.
Speaking only for myself now – I feel the most alive and happy when I am super excited about a new project, goal or journey.
There is something extremely attractive in a new challenge.
When we built our first sailboat. When we built the horse farm we currently live on. When I went to sea for the first time. When I took the engineer crew position on a 165 foot mega yacht in Acapulco Mexico. When I joined the Navy and to serve on nuclear submarines. When I met my wife.
All these and many more are dreams manifested to reality. Manifested means I was so passionate I would do anything to get there!
Our newest goal is to go back to the cruising life – and share it with our two sons – Ian who is 16 and Ryan who is now 9. I want to show them there is a whole another world of people, places and cultures beyond their current experience.
With the challenge of manifesting such a dream comes work. Lots of it. We have a horse farm and business to sell (great time I picked to sell property!), 11 years of accumulated stuff to get rid of, a boat to find, purchase, and get ready for sea – and finally to move us all from a home to a small boat!
Easy.
The thing is I am so excited about it – I want to skip all the steps and just go right to sea! Why can’t it be this way?
I’ll leave that answer to you…
(But now you know what I have been up to!)
So my point is – what is it that makes you so passionate you can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning to get started? What keeps you up late at night?
Is this what you are doing?
Posted with Blogsy