Kicking Tires, Lighting Fires

 

Mike at the nerve center of the boat during start up: the electrical panel.

So we got the keys. Step one complete! We had about a week before we had to leave. “Ralph”(1) kindly allowed us to stay in his slip until December 31. There were three key things to accomplish before kicking the tires and lighting the fires. 

First, we needed to move on board. It was all a bit overwhelming. Why and when did our small mountains of items become so intimidating? How do we group things together and then find a logical place to put them? Ask my son and he will tell you I said often, “Everything has a place.” In a boat, it’s imperative because you can't have things out to roll around, or things to walk around. 

Second, Mike needed to replace the two oil gear coolers which was the only critical to-do item from the survey. He would have preferred to hire a professional for this, but we didn't have enough time to get on a professional’s schedule. This took an afternoon.

The “before” picture. Note the corrosion.

The “after” picture. 

Third, we (mostly Mike) needed to get familiar with all the key systems: engine, plumbing, HVAC, and electrical. He’s familiarized himself this way on three previous boats. And, at four houses, now that I think about it. There were systems and procedures unique to this boat. It's an uncomfortable but healthy challenge, IMHO, to get accustomed to a new boat that has familiar features, but in new places. 

Via our broker, Mike sent an email with a dozen questions to Ralph. Putting it off until after Christmas weekend, our brokers arranged a phone call between Mike and Ralph. I listened in at first, but their conversation quickly surpassed my knowledge base so I left the boat and ran some errands. 

We were a bit stressed feeling the pressure of having to get out of SC for tax consequences. 

“How are you feeling now? We leave in two days,” I inquired.

“Well, I feel much better now that I talked to Ralph for a half hour. I learned a lot,” Mike admitted. 

“A half-hour? Mike, you were on the phone for at least two hours!” Mike gave me a surprised look.

Ralph was quite patient and generous with his time. It was a very intense call. Time stood still for both of them. 

“We will get to know the boat best just by running it,” I said. 

“And the wind should be good for us for the next week,” agreed Mike. “Okay, let me start the engines now to make sure I know what to do.” Mike proceeded to kick the tires and light the fires(3). With a big smile and breath of relief, Mike shut down the engines and said, “It worked. It’s running!” 

We were concerned about different things.  Mike was worried that he would mis-step a start-up check or task, and I was worrried about how to pilot the boat.

As these final days raced by, we spoke a bit about where we would go. We knew we wanted to hang out in Florida until the Loopers begin heading North in March. On our trip down we could skip some legs of the ICW, which is long and winding, if we went out into the ocean. But this requires a good weather window. In the end, we decided to take longer and transit via the ICW since the boat is new to us and it would be easier to get help, if needed.

A page from the Great Loop Guide. You can see how there are relatively big gaps in the South Carolina to Mid-Florida cruise. We had to stop at in-between stops that didn't make it into the Guide.

A final leave-it-behind step was to drop off our F150 truck at a storage facility we checked out before Christmas. Mike drove it into the storage shed and we waved it goodbye as we pulled down the door. Our local friend, Paula, dropped us off at the marina and then, we were carless. Boat transportation was our only alternative. 

Mike captured our last moments as we said goodbye and thanks to Paula. You can also get an idea of the saloon, looking towards the galley.

December 31 arrived and at 8:00 a.m. it was cold and clear. Mike went through his checklist and got the engines humming. Like we did with the Nordic Tug, we discussed the game plan for undocking. We donned our headsets and then removed all encumbrances from shore. Ever so slowly Mike put the boat in forward and there was no turning back. 

After we left the marina a random gentleman at the end of a pier took a pic of us. I yelled out my cell number across the water and he sent it to me. Thus, we captured the beginning of our journey.

Since that day we have had enjoyable daily cruises. Even though it’s been chilly, we’ve been warm in our fully enclosed flybridge. Mike gets all “A’s” from me for his first few docking jobs. The stabilizers make for a Cadillac-like cushy ride. 

Yes this is a boring screen shot of one of our navigation devices. But it was an exciting moment when we started following along the “rec. track Intercoastal Waterway!” FYI, the blue dotted line is a crowd-sourced overlay of how boaters transited on the ICW. Following their path makes our navigation easy.

We will have to get used to the relatively shallow waters on the Atlantic ICW. The depth has been typically around 15 feet below our keel. In Puget Sound, we were regularly in hundreds of feet of water. Shallow waters automatically put us on high alert so have been glued to our navigation devices 100% of the time. The government-tended navigational aids in the ICW have been excellent so far. With our electronics, it's been a snap to know exactly where we are and where to aim next.

The video above shows the swift current moving through the marina. So far, this is a typical situation. It makes docking fairly sporty. There's not a lot of room for error or hesitation.

Typical view of the marshes and waterfront homes from our plastic-wrapped flybridge helm.

The scenery hasn't changed much since we left Charleston. In the ICW of South Carolina and Georgia, also known as The Low Country, we glide through broad saltwater cordgrass marshes via creeks, rivers, and canals which are dredged periodically. 

There is a steady stream of wildlife. In the sky are white and black pelicans, cormorants, grebes, cranes, and terns. Small, adorable grey dolphins regularly pop up, often in synchronized pairs, but surprisingly don't ride our wake. At Seabrook and Jekyll Islands, we spotted bald eagles soaring in circles. 

It all feels very rural, like going up the Petaluma River in the Northern SF Bay Area. Winter is the off-season in this area. We see small, well-powered fishing boats every half hour or so. 

Mike filled out the Captain Log at the end of the day, seated at the L-shaped settee.

We felt a bit of trepidation as we approached our first night at anchor since we knew there would be a lot of current, and it was our first time using this boat’s anchoring tackle. (4) We found a good anchoring spot recommended by others right off the ICW “road.”

We fell into the same roles, responsibilities, and procedures that we had on the Nordic Tug. We discussed the game plan, donned our headsets, took our places (me at the anchor, Mike at the helm), and...we just had a minor issue. I briefly pressed the up anchor button when I should have pressed down. The fattish connecting piece got a little stuck at the narrow guiding piece forward of the winch. Mike came down from the flybridge perch and carefully pulled out the chain. No fingers lost. We were good to go. 

Overall, Mike says, “I’m really pleased with the handling of the boat...going through wakes have been nothing!” 

After a week we are still learning the boat systems. We haven't found homes for all of our stuff, either. We’re excited to get to warmer weather. We also need to find a good pausing stop in Florida to get the hull worked on, as we originally planned. 

The overnight stops in our rearview mirror since Charleston:

• Bohicket Marina, Seabrook Island, SC
• B&B Seafood Dock, off the Ashepoo River, SC (They rent out dock space cheap--$40/night.)
• Beaufort Marina, Beaufort, SC
• Isle of Hope Marina, near Savannah, GA
• Back River, near Sapelo Island, GA (anchored)
• Jekyll Island, GA

FOOTNOTES FOR FUN FACT FANS

(1) Not the boat owner's real name.

(2) You may have heard the Southeast experienced multiple days of 3”-5” of rain daily after Christmas. We are fine in the boat during the rain. Everything is watertight. 

(3) Mike has a nine-item checklist. It necessitates that he crawls into the engine room. 

(4) Just like our Alaska trip, anchoring will be important for when we can't make it to a marina (e.g. it's too far between marinas), if marinas have no available spaces, or if we just want to save money. 

BONUS PICS

Grand, enormous and stately seem to be the rule for marsh-front homes around here. Many have wharves leading the way out to covered docks. The homes I captured below look to be more than 3000 square feet. Most looked empty and we thought they were second homes.

Beaufort, SC, had a historic district that we enjoyed meandering through. Most of these houses were built between ~1800 and 1850. The original walls were built from tabby material. Tabby material is a combination of local sand, lime, and oysters.

We wanted to reveal our Ocean Alexander’s new name by now. But we're still removing the old name! I think we'll get there in a week. Here is Mike, in the cockpit, using a polishing compound on those old letters.

To the Boat Survey in Charleston--or Bust!

At the end of the survey day. That’s Pete with us. He’s our broker who flew in from San Diego. He’s Mike’s second cousin. That's our boat behind us.

We continued our 6 drive days across the U.S. Our goal: drive from San Marcos, CA to Charleston, SC to meet with the surveyors on Dec. 8. I pick up the story as we left Austin, taking Highway 20.

We saw many oversized windmills and some large solar farms along Highway 20 in Texas. And saw only a handful of oil pumps!

THE DRIVE CONTINUES

The only surprising incident on the leg to Shreveport was during our exit off the highway for BBQ lunch (more about lunch in a minute). It was a perfectly clear day. However, it was so windy that in addition to dodging tumbleweeds, our F150 was hit on the broadside by a flying sign.(1) When we got out we saw faint marks on the door, but neither of us saw where the sign went or what it said. It probably read, “Danger, wind ahead.”

Something we regret missing is a stop at Buc-ees. The first one we drove by bowled us over with a huge amount of gas pumps. The parking lot for the Buc-ees store was packed. We were so eager to make good time that we didn't turn around. We stopped some time later at a highway gas station and convenience store. I was shocked by the clean, spa-like bathroom. I thanked the cashier later for my positive experience. She explained, “We have to compete with Buc-ees...you have to stop at one on your drive through the South.”

The enormous line-up of gas pumps at Buc-ees. Pic courtesy of the Internet. We saw maybe 40 pumps as we raced by.

SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA 

As the hills subsided, you could hear our childlike joy as we passed into Louisiana. To be frank, we voiced the same joy every time we passed into another state, as the signs marked our progress. We closed in on Shreveport, LA after about 6 hours of driving. 

Bienvenue en Louisiana!

As I drove, Mike searched for a hotel in Shreveport. We were shocked by the relatively low prices of hotels. However, the online reviews were glowing for The Margaritaville Casino along the Bossier City side of Red River(2), so we took a chance and reserved a room. Incidentally, the room was very nice. We were a little concerned about someone breaking into the truck where we parked it in the back forty of the huge lot (remember we had everything with us for the next year or two), so we brought everything piled in the truck cab into the room. 

The obvious choice for dinner here in Louisiana was Creole food. However, so many online reviews of Creole restaurants warned us of bad fish, so we opted for a local Greek place. We greatly appreciated friends in other cities who took us to their favorite haunts. We needed friends in Shreveport. 

BIRMINGHAM, AL AND FOOD

Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama sign. Sorry, we missed the Mississippi welcome sign because Mike was sleeping when I was driving.

After a slight pause in our march East (3), we continued on Highway 20, drove relatively fast through Mississippi (which I recall had fairly rough roads), and hooted into Alabama. After about 7 hours we arrived in Birmingham in the dark. We left first thing the next morning. Sorry, I have no stories to tell about Birmingham.

It was clear that as Mexican restaurants dwindled, BBQ spots increased--to our delight. We’re not huge fans of fast food/road food so if we can't find a Mexican spot, we learned that roadside BBQ is more than a great substitute. We just don't seem to have these types of BBQ joints on the West Coast. At these local, rough-around-the-edges joints, we enjoyed “taters”(4) with brisket or smoked turkey, sides like baked beans, collared greens(5), flat green beans, and coleslaw. There are always a variety of red and mustard sauces at the table. Every joint we’ve been to has slightly different sides and sauces. And the people in these joints have always been friendly and cheerful.(6)

Typical BBQ joint menu.

On the sixth driving day, we drove 7-plus hours from Birmingham, through Atlanta (”yeah Georgia!”) to Charleston. We finally made it to the Low Country and our friends’ P & C’s house. 

Charleston has many waterways. Most seem to be surrounded by peaceful marshlands. 

THE SURVEY DAY

The day finally arrived when we could bring in the pros to examine the boat inside and out--just like you do when buying a house. Meeting at 6:00 a.m., to accommodate the engine surveyor’s busy schedule, were the aforementioned engine surveyor, Mike and I, our (buyer’s) broker, the seller’s broker, and to our surprise, the boat owner, whom I’ll call Ralph.

Oh dark hundred as we pulled out into the Charleston bay.

Ralph was a soft-spoken, retired gentleman from the interior of South Carolina. He had owned the boat for 10 years and had taken many trips up and down the ICW as well as to the Bahamas. He was selling the boat because his wife said she “was done with it.” He wanted to get a smaller boat that he could handle on his own. 

We needed to pilot the boat about 5 miles away to where we had a haulout appointment. The sun was just starting to rise on this calm, clear, and brisk morning. As Ralph skillfully piloted the boat out of his slip he said, “I’m not used to doing this in front of an audience.” Ever so slowly, he glided the 50’ boat out and then rotated it 90 degrees in a narrow fairway(7). He headed down the fairway out into the river. 

We had the boat pulled so the surveyor could look for hull issues. It definitely needs some fixing and painting.

By mid-afternoon, the engine surveyor spent about 2 hours in the engine room, altogether. The hull and systems surveyor spent about 4 hours checking everything else out. As we expected, some issues needed addressing, but nothing that would be a deal breaker. Deep breath out!

TAKING POSSESSION

It has been almost 2 weeks since the survey. The clock is ticking and we are waiting to get the keys. It takes time to get the written surveys, negotiate a little, move around the money, get a good insurance policy, and formalize the paperwork with a title company. It’s just like a house purchase. 

While waiting, we spent a few days down in Jacksonville checking out marinas and boatyards.(8) We also checked out some storage units so we could tidy away our truck for a year or so. We are also doing some nesting; getting new sheets and kitchen stuff.

We were cozy at our friend’s house during the large and heavy rainstorm that came through. During storms, we will be staying put either at a good anchorage or tied up at a marina. It will depend on the tides, wind, and what is available. It was sobering to think through the logic of how we would handle a storm like this.

We have been so appreciative of our friends in Austin and Charleston who have opened their lovely homes and comfy guest rooms to us--and without much warning (both get 5 stars!). Both times we didn't know exactly how many days we needed to stay. Yes, that was awkward. I don't recommend it! We tried to be helpful to show our appreciation. We loved their company and their advice about making the most of our time in their towns.

We visited The Slave Mart Museum in Charleston. We learned that there were many more enslaved people than colonists and their descendants during Colonial years. Most of them were in South Carolina and at plantations. The wealth of the Colonies centered in South Carolina at that time.

The Jolly Roger flag was a real thing among pirates! This was from an educational exhibit we visited in The Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon. So much early colonial history in Charleston.

During our short trip down to Jacksonville, we made a side trip to St. Augustine. Behind me is the draw bridge and moat of the super-interesting Castillo de San Marcos fort. It was originally built in 1672. Now it’s a National Monument. St. Augustine was colonized in the mid-1500s. 

In the next travelogue, you will read about our first ventures on the boat. And, we’ll reveal its new name.

FOOTNOTES FOR FUN FACT FANS

(1) And some of you think boating is more dangerous than driving!

(2) The Red River looked pretty brown from the perch of our hotel room, but it is impressively wide. It has a long history as an important marker and enabler for native Americans, Creole people, and later farmers.

(3) Mike had a cough from a cold for a week so he visited an urgent care center. There was about no wait. Some of you have asked how this works when traveling full-time. It is not any different from visiting Urgent Care in your neighborhood. Mike received some prescriptions for bronchitis at the local pharmacy and he was good to go!

(4) Taters are whole baked potatoes sliced open and topped with your favorite meat or beans. They are not tater tots.

(5) I can't wait to make collared greens when I get settled. Did you know that the greens simmer with a smoked turkey leg?

(6) For example, at a highway BBQ spot I ordered just Rice & Beans, which were quite a meal on their own. The charming lady behind the counter said, “Darlin’, you need a little sumpin’ to go with your side.” Me, “The side is my something!” We enjoyed a little laugh together.

(7) One rotates a 50’ boat clockwise on a dime by engaging a bow thruster intermittently to starboard. At the same time, you put the port engine in forward gear and the starboard in reverse gear. It takes some getting used to, but Ralph demonstrated this well.  Mike is used to oprating boats with twin engines, so having a bow thruster in addition to them will be great.

(8) The boat needs  a little fibergalss tepair on one of the stabilizers, some gel coat patches, and bottom paint. It also needs a new coolant part. We thought Jacksonville may be a good place for this.

Travelogue Extra

Humourous Buc-ees billboards along Highway 20. These pics are courtesy of the Internet.

Searching for the Goldilocks Boat

Could this be our Great Loop boat and home for the next year?

It's time to catch you up on our adventure. 

Our 32 Nordic Tug is still up for sale with Seattle Yachts in Anacortes, WA. Tell your friends! Great, well-taken-care-of boat!(1) 

We shut down our cabin on Decourcy Island in mid-September and have been traveling in our packed-to-the-ceiling Ford F-150 ever since. You may recall, we established residency in Washington state and we've been staying with friends and family. It's not ideal to be living out of duffle bags, but it's been relaxing, frankly, to leisurely see the sites and share meals with family/friends in all of these places(2):

• Edmonds, WA (our official domicile -- thanks Cuz!)
• Chelan, WA (visited a friend in wine country in Central WA)
• Beaverton, OR (lots o’ my family)
• Newport, OR (old buddy on the coast)
• Tiburon, CA (my sister--and caught up on doc & dentist visits(3))
• Orinda, CA (ol’ college buddy)
• Santa Barbara, CA (Mike’s sister)
• San Marcos, CA (Mike’s mom)
• La Mesa, CA (Mike’s cousin)
• Coronado Island, CA (convenient stay at the Naval Amphibious Base(4))
• Orange Beach, AL (flew here to see boat #2-- more on this later)
• Charleston, SC (drove from AL to see boat #3 and stay with Mike’s ol’ college buddy)
• San Marcos, CA (flew back to Mike’s mom’s house)
• Oro Valley, AZ (began drive East to further check out boat #3; my dad's house)
• Las Cruces, NM (saw my Second Cousin)
• Austin, TX (ol’ college buddy)

On the drive from Edmonds, WA to Lake Chelan, WA. Driving along the gorgeous Skyhomish River with its fall foliage.

One of our favorite on-the-road vistas. Mount Shasta, in all its glory, on the Southbound Highway 5 drive from Oregon to the SF Bay Area.

At the pinnacle of our steep, hot hike to The Hippy Tree in Tiburon. Way behind my lovely sister Jeanne and friend Natalie is the SF skyline and Golden Gate Bridge. It will be a while before I return to the Bay Area.

Just to remind some of you, we are on the midst of looking for the best, i.e. Goldilocks, boat for our year-long, Great Loop adventure.

The Great Loop is circumnavigating the Eastern side of the United States. We will be in rivers, lakes, and inter-coastal waterways (ICWs). So please don't picture us on the high seas crashing over swells and hanging on for dear life in a squall. We’re going to be pretty darn comfortable in a stable power boat, in mostly calm waters. There will likely be windy days and rainy days, but we will not be in a hurry. We will wait out sketchy, windy weather. 

So back to the boat shopping...picture our boat needs.

We'll be living on the boat for about 1.5 years. Think: storage. To make it through shallow waters and under low bridges we need less than a 5’ draft(5) and 19’ height. Mike also requires a roomy, clean engine room where he can crawl around with minimal contortions. I require a good-sized fridge/freezer and no carpeting. 

After looking at many brands and sizes we've narrowed it down to 42’ to 48’ power boats.(6)

Nice-to-haves are things like beautifully varnished woodwork inside and minimal teak to care for outside. We want to be proud of our boat and make it pleasant to come back to after a day of sightseeing. 

We’ve kept an eye glued to the online boat sale sites for about 2 months. We were a boat length away from making an offer on boat #1, a 48’ Ocean Alexander, but before we got some key questions answered, someone else snatched the boat from under us. 

We flew to Pensacola, FL to check out boat #2, a 42’ Nordic Tug in Orange Beach, AL, but made a difficult, game-day decision to not buy it because it didn’t seem to be cared for as we would have liked. However, we love all the practical storage and roomy, inside pilot house of Nordic Tugs. 

Walking along the beach in Orange Beach, AL after examining boat #1. We were excited to get our first glimpse of The Great Loop here. We’ll be here this time next year on our boat! We were were charmed by our first taste of Southern hospitality. If you look closely at this pic, you can see rows of sand. It seems that the white sand beach is groomed regularly?

We immediately found boat #3, a 48’ Ocean Alexander Classico, and drove 2 days in a rental car from Pensacola, AL to Charleston, SC to examine it in person. Bingo! It passed our sniff test and the owners accepted our offer. 

We enjoyed the drive from Alabama to South Carolina very much. The roadside flora was green and the plethora of billboards advertising accident lawyers became hilarious. Our stops were Jacksonville, FL and Savannah, GA. 

On our drive from Alabama to Charleston, SC, one of our stops was Savannah, GA. We enjoyed an afternoon strolling through the historic district and seeing the 18th-century squares and buildings such as this one. Most of the plaques in the parks memorialize the revolutionary and Spanish-American wars. (7) Savannah, GA is also on the Great Loop.

After looking at boat #3, we strolled the historic quarter in Charleston, SC. Every single home has a Historic Places plaque. Our favorite plaque said that the original timbers showed damage from Revolutionary War cannon balls. The colorful pastels of the homes and their wrap-around porches were enchanting. 

We enjoyed a BBQ, water-front dinner in Charleston. This is on the Great Loop and is exactly what we anticipate in most stops--water access docks at restaurants. (8)

We want to be in person for boat #3’s inspection, so this triggered a fly back to our stuff waiting for us at Mike’s Mom’s house in San Marcos, CA. Mike engineered a re-pack into the F150 and we firmly set the truck East on Highway 8. This will be our cross-country drive East to start The Great Loop, which will officially start when we take ownership of our boat. 

A cool site in the hot desert between San Diego and Oro Valley, AZ. Here we saw precariously balanced boulders. Closer to San Diego we drove on curvy freeways, skirting giant-sized piles of boulders. 

Funny-looking twin Saguaros on a hike near my Dad’s house in Oro Valley. Are all Saguaros so funny? Did you know that Saguaros of this size are likely hundreds of years old?

 

Typical view on our 9.5-hour drive from Oro Valley, AZ to Austin, TX. The speed limit on this mostly straight freeway was 80 MPH. Really, really fast for us. We observed a plant we never recalled seeing before: a Soap Tree Yucca. 

From Las Cruces, NM to Austin, TX we marveled at the buttes and mesas towering above the desert. We found sites of this leg much more interesting than we anticipated.

Currently, we’re a few miles West of Austin, TX. We learned that this area, known as The Hill Country, is filled with fantastic wineries! I find the wines very drinkable-- many at a lower alcohol (e.g. <13.5%). 

Picture perfect view from a winery in Hill Country (Driftwood). Looks a lot like Napa and our former town, Portola Valley.

We will continue with our drive this week. We are just now trying to decide what East-bound route to take through the South. 

If boat #3 has some sort of time-consuming, costly set of problems, we will take a break from finding the Goldilocks boat until after the holidays and head to somewhere like Costa Rica for a month or so. I’ll let you know how it goes.

FOOTNOTES FOR FUN FACT FANS

(1) Probably the worst time to sell a boat; in between boating seasons in the Northwest. 

(2)  It looks like a really long list, now that I see it in black and white.

(3) We’ve volleyed many questions about healthcare. We have insurance. It uses our domicile location in Edmonds, WA. If we need to see a doctor, either urgently or as an emergency we get covered at the same rate--like we pay only 10% and it’s part of our annual deductible. If we need to see a specialist we will get a referral from our regular doctor in CA. We will pay out-of-area rates, which will be applied to our deductible.

(4) Our buddy is a civilian employee who is able to use the armed forces hotel chain. We stayed at the base where the Navy Seals train. Unfortunately, we didn't see them running with logs on the beach. But we did shop in the Navy Exchange.

(5) Draft is the distance from the waterline to the lowest point of the boat below water. 

(6) We also prefer a single diesel engine boat, to keep fuel and maintenance costs to a minimum but it has been very difficult to find single-engine boats at this size. Most days on the boat will be spent at slow to moderate speeds, so that is another reason for not needing a double-engine boat. 

(7) The squares in the historic district were every two blocks. There’s something to having a common area that a neighborhood shares, isn’t there? Today’s equivalent in neighborhood planning might be a strip mall...but that addresses a larger group of people, I think.

(8) We often wondered why there weren't more dockside restaurants in the SF bay. So many boaters and relatively few fun destinations.

(9) Bonus fun fact: Buying a liveaboard boat is a bit like buying a house. You make an offer, negotiate if needed, and hire a marine surveyor to check it out. An insurance company needs to see the inspection report. And getting insurance is not straightforward. Not all insurance companies offer boat insurance. And if you can get a real agent on the phone, they may know little about boating terms and they are not interested in your business, it seems. The good ones are overwhelmed with requests. The industry seems inundated with claims, perhaps, from hurricane damage.

Lessons Learned

Living room view at Decourcy Island today.

We’re back at Decourcy Island for about 2 weeks. The weather is still lovely, mostly around 60 to 70 degrees F. It has rained a few times, enough to keep the air clear of wildfire smoke. I even went in the water a couple of times! We’ve enjoyed hanging and reconnecting with our neighbors. And I'll admit it. It's nice to sleep in a real bed again.

FINAL STATS

Hours underway: 330

Miles: 2563 

Days: 77

Rainy days: about 10

This was a trip of a lifetime. The animals, the glacier-cut mountains...the beautiful color variations of the water and sea states... connecting with the boating community, including professional fishermen (and women)...friendly locals, including welcoming First Nations people who gave us new perspectives...quiet sunsets in lonesome beaches and coves...dance parties in the pilot house and chocolate birthday cake made in the BBQ. It was about trusting our experience and the ability to learn new skills. 

LESSONS LEARNED

Looking back, there are a few aspects of the trip North that surprised us or that we were unsure of when we left: 

- Mike said, “I didn't know you were so adventurous! You kept me going.” I said, “I was so happy to see you unwinding more and more each week. I haven't seen you this relaxed since college.”

- A 32 ft. boat was large enough, even though we were among the smallest boats doing this type of trip. However, we didn't like having to store bulky items like crab pots, ropes, buckets, etc. on the decks. It didn't look ship-shape. Also, using a dorm-sized fridge was frustrating.

- Yes, Mike and I got along fine for being together so much. Sometimes I would listen to books via earbuds and Mike would just listen to his thoughts. We had a routine and division of labor which worked out well. We never got sick of Cribbage, Dominoes, and NYT Crosswords.

- Using Starlink was a game changer. Being connected to the Internet at anchor was fun and added to our ability to unwind. We streamed Foundation, and all the newer Star Trek shows.

- While nothing dramatic broke along the way (1), and we didn't need extra parts (2), it was a good feeling to be super-prepared. Also, Mike's pre-work and maintenance along the way likely paid off.

- No regrets for towing a heavy dinghy. We used the RIB often. Our heavy-duty bridle and oversized hardware were a good choice. 

- Mike will not have a second career trimming ladies' hair. I won't have a second career managing boat electronics. But there is always hope and more chances to practice!

- Currents were less predictable than we thought. The government issues a 2-inch thick “Tides & Currents” guide. We found that it was a good guide, but actually accurate perhaps half the time. Sometimes currents were running opposite of expected, or stronger or weaker. The slack predictions for important narrows were accurate, however. Current did what it needed to do for various depths, turns, and parts of a channel. Cruising along the edge of a straight channel could sometimes give us a push when the center of the channel was running against us.

- Taking one day at a time is a reliable plan to meet an incredible goal, just as they say.

WHAT'S NEXT

We are now repacking for an extended leave from Decourcy. Before we start The Great Loop, we will drop off Unwine’d with a boat broker in Anacortes, WA. Then we will visit friends and family in Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona. We still own one car, our beloved Ford F150. Picture everything we want with us for over a year packed in the back...like clothes and tools..for the next boat adventure!

We are narrowing down our must-have features for the next boat. (3) It will be bigger. It will have below-deck storage, a good-sized fridge and hardwood floors. And, it will have a walk-around bed and a second stateroom. Mike will have excellent access in the engine compartment.

Shopping for the next boat is the fun part, people!

YOUR PART IN OUR NEXT ADVENTURE

The next email from us in a few months will be a spreadsheet of our potential stops along the Loop route and dates. Some of you have asked to meet us along the way. The spreadsheet will be a sort of sign-up sheet for you. Please look out for it.

So, this is the last chapter of this travelogue. I will likely take it up again when we start The Great Loop. 

Close-up of photo on the left side of the living room pic. We are celebrating our 30-year anniversary in October. This was taken at Oktoberfest in Munich in 1992.

FOOTNOTES FOR FUN FACT FANS

(1) I dropped a glass jar on my portable induction burner in the second week, splitting the top in two. Ugh. I ordered a new one and picked it up 2 weeks later in Ketchikan. It turns out that not many distributors ship to Alaska. And, Amazon does not have 2-day shipping to Alaska. The induction burner was an excellent cooking tool.

(2) Mike changed the engine and reduction gear oil 3 times, and generator once during the trip.

(3) We are thinking of a 46’ to 48’ Grand Banks or something similar. We may need to be flexible. Our choices are limited to a <5’ draft and less than 17.5’ height.  We’d prefer a (slow) trawler over a fast motor yacht; one engine instead of two. Lower maintenance and diesel fuel costs.