2 Months Into Retirement…No Time to Relax Just Yet!

Since we both stopped working in June, it’s been a non-stop effort to complete as many projects as possible. As noted in the pictures, some of the things we’ve been working on are:

1. We installed a 6 man emergency life raft from Viking. It’s mounted on the deck next to the new dodger. It has some survival supplies in the raft already but I’m also assembling 2 ditch bags with additional equipment. I’ll try to make a post with more details about that soon.

2. Bending and polishing stainless steel tubes to create a new and taller dodger to provide easier access to our companion way.

3. Designing and sewing a new canvas to fit on the dodger frame. Sewing big, heavy canvas in a small space like a boat is no joke. It’s a total pain in the butt actually…and alcohol was consumed : )

4. Many of you probably saw on Instagram or FB that Max had an accidental swimming event…hence we were able to check the “pet overboard drill” off of the “To Do“ list…lol

5. We FINALLY installed the Hydrovane (the thing with the red flag in the pics). You orient the flag to an angle to the wind to set a course. As the wind moves the flag, it rotates a small rudder below it…and this maintains the boat’s course.

6. Next we installed the Watt & Sea hydrogenerator. It is the next picture which shows a long white blade with a propeller off the back of the boat. It is currently hoisted out of the water but when you drop it down, it spins the propeller as you sail, thus making energy. We typically sail at about 5 to 6 knots and at this speed, the hydrogenerator would produce about 300 watts, which is enough to power our batteries, fridge, lights and other equipment.

7. I’ve been learning to splice lines. This is useful when you need to connect things together. The blue line in the pic below is an example of an eye splice on double braid line.

8. Mike has really really been working hard to wet sand (polish) all of the new stainless steel things we‘ve made. The example is part of our new davit (holds up the dinghy) and you can see how sparkly he’s making it compared to its raw state.

9. We’ve NEVER had shelter for our cockpit and this can make being at the helm in bad weather or hot sun, quite uncomfortable. So, Mike designed, built, and polished a new Bimini for Lunar Bird. It doesn’t have canvas yet…but soon.

10. Pet therapy…you can see that Cleopatra has the right idea and encourages some intermittent relaxation from time to time.

11. The picture of the circle thing with a handle sticking out is a manual bilge pump. Although we do have an automatic bilge pump that will pump out water if the boat was flooding, this manual one is easy to pump and can pump out 17 gallons of water per minute!!! Isn’t that cool! The best part is that we actually did a flooding drill, where we turned a garden hose on down in the bilge to fill it with water and then we tested the manual pump and it took care of it fast.

12. The last picture is important because it shows Mike’s ENDLESS patience and mechanical abilities and we trouble shoot the Sailrite sewing maching…again. Like I said, sewing canvas isn’t for sissies.

So…what’s next? Well, we have a boat inspection tomorrow to document our upgrades to the boat. And in about 2 weeks we have to have both of our storage units cleared out And get rid of a car. Then we have an inspection of our rigging up in Port Townsend and afterward, head back to Seattle to wrap up the last of our travel vaccines (Hepatitis A, typhoid and shingles). Between now and then we hope to finish building a dinghy, finish running wires for all of our new electronics, installing new ceiling panels, install the new GPS autopilot, sew the top portion of the Bimini canvas, install our safety jack line (so we don’t fall off the boat), and get the cat’s rabies titer back from the vet. After that…whenever there is a good weather window, we plan to start heading down the coast.

Despite these deadlines, we are in no way finished with our projects and will definitely be bringing lots of them with us to complete as we travel. This includes some big items like:

1. Finishing our water maker install

2. Hooking up our one 50 watt and two 110 watt flexible solar panels

3. Finishing the sides to the bimini canvas

4. Installing some new light fixtures in the main cabin

5. Installing a new inverter

6. Redoing all of the brightwork…total labor of love

We’re feeling excited about the new equipment upgrades and things are starting to fall into place for a departure in mid September! Thanks for following along On our adventure.