Breeze On

Breeze On went through her safety equipment inspection this afternoon. We ticked all of the boxes and passed without any issues to fix. George is so relieved. He has worked very hard reviewing the requirements and gathering and organizing the equipment. Lyall and George during the safety equipment inspection As we were washing the salt off of the enclosure panels a photographer asked if he could take our pictures and interview us for Chesapeake Bay Magazine. We agreed. Why not? Then we started measuring and marking the straps that will enable us to roll the panels when not in use. We added one snap when we were at anchor the other night. It enabled us to keep the egress door out of the way. Egress door rolled and held in place with strap. There are quite a few planned activities with this rally. There is a social event most nights and quite a few seminars. We have met some nice people at the social events and plan to attend most of the seminars. Our berth for the week. We are parked ...

After a lovely half-day of sailing on the bay yesterday, George calculated how much further to Deltavile, VA, our planned destination. At the time we were tacking back and forth past the Potomac River. According to his calculations, we still had 25 miles to go and it was already 2 pm. That would put us arriving in Deltaville after dark. Not a good idea when when going to an unfamiliar harbor. So, we turned the motor on and headed for Little Bay, just north of the Rappahannock River. We had to dodge a few fish traps on the way in but we were safely anchored before dark. We got up before sunrise, raised the anchor and were motoring out of the harbor before dawn. There was just a tiny bit of light in the sky. George stood at the bow with a spotlight and watched for crab and fish traps. I tried to follow the convoluted course I had taken into the harbor. Sunset in Little Harbor Sunrise over the Chesapeake     We motored most of the day. Sometimes with the sails up and sometimes...

We threw the dock lines off yesterday at 9:04 am. We woke very early (too early, as has been the case for weeks), packed up and readied the boat. I put my favorite quilted vest in our collapsible wagon with the other last minute things to be loaded. I wanted to make sure I didn't forget it. A few minutes before we were to leave I looked for the vest so I could put it on. It wasn't on the boat. I returned to the condo and looked everywhere. It wasn't there, either. I gave up and came back to the boat. Just before we were set to leave George looked down into the water and shouted, "Bev, get the boat hook!" I couldn't imagine why he wanted it. He reached in and pulled out my soggy vest. Apparently, as we were loading the boat it had blown out of the wagon and into the water. Neither one of us had noticed it. At least I had my favorite vest back. Ray helped us ready the boat and throw off the lines. Bobbie and Sue came to wish us a bon voyage. We exited the cree...

It has been a whirlwind week of packing and making the final preparations for our trip. George and I have been on an emotional roller coaster. At times we felt panicked, hopeless and exhausted. Then we would feel optimistic and hopeful that everything would fit and we would be ready on time. The amount of work involved in getting everything on the boat in an organized way was astounding. George did the packing while I recorded the items on our inventory. We are hoping that the inventory will reduce the amount of time spent looking for things. We have decided to postpone our departure for a day. We had originally planned to leave tomorrow morning but there are thunderstorms predicted for tomorrow night. We don't sleep well during thunderstorms while we are at anchor. We are already sleep deprived from lying awake at night with hundreds of thoughts going through our heads. We didn't want to start the trip with the guarantee of a poor night's sleep on our first night at ancho...

The propane locker is finished and looks great. Chuck at Generation III did a fantastic job. We now have space for two 10-pound tanks of propane instead of just one 5-pound tank. Now, when one tank runs out of propane we can begin looking for a place to refill. Chuck made this new door for the larger propane locker. Inside the new propane locker with the 2 new 10-pound propane cans   We have one week until our planned departure date, October 27. We will use this time to organize and load the food and supplies on the boat. Our plan is to organize the food into three categories: accessible, semi-accessible and buried. The food that we will be using the first few weeks will be placed in the most accessible locations in the galley and salon. The items we won't be needing for a few months will be in the semi-accessible areas. The food and supplies we won't need until the spring will be loaded in the "buried" locations, which include under the v-berth, aft berth and what I...

We are scheduled to leave in less than two weeks. Yikes! I have been busy gathering up medical supplies and developing the provisioning list. George has been busy installing and setting up the Iridium Go (satellite phone); installing the Seagull water filter for the galley sink; and buying and organizing spare parts.   The provisioning has been surprisingly stressful. I am trying to do it in a way that is similar to the way we do our weekly shopping, but that makes the process more complicated. As I mentioned in the last post , I first make a list of the menu items that we plan to eat. I modified the recipes to incorporate freeze-dried and dehydrated foods. Then I estimated how many times we would eat that recipe while we are in the Bahamas. Then I used our Paprika recipe app to scale up the quantities and develop a shopping list. I used the shopping list to develop a spreadsheet. I also added staples that had been suggested by others and the toiletries that we use to the sprea...