Is this heaven? No it's Iowa---er, Ventura

Carl:

Helloooo from So Cal!  Ok, ok----so nearly all of the posts already have been from So Cal, but cut me some slack people, it's taken an effort to get down here from Seattle.  And all I can say is so far it's been everything I've imagined and more---beautiful sunsets, er, snaking clogged shit out of waste pipes, tasty rum runners, er, sanding deep lockers to prep them to be re-fiberglassed, and cooking shrimps on the barbie, er, eating Clif Mojo bars just to keep our blood sugars high enough to keep functioning between meals.  That said, it's still heaven---working on the plumbing, galley organizing, music compiling, dog acclimating, audio system design, etc, all seem to be pulling us together closer as a crew, and I'm loving it in general.

Point in case: Two days ago we took the boat out of the slip to test run the engine after the top engine rebuild.  The original intent of this particular mission was completed successfully---the diesel engine rumbled and ran just as it was supposed to---as for our landing back into the slip, well, let's just say that didn't go quite according to plan.

My ideal landing characteristics:

• Boat under power
• Bow goes forward into boat slip
• Smoothly glides into slip, with clean tie off

Our actual landing characteristics:

• Engine running, but boat in neutral
• Wind blew us past the slip so we couldn't pull in on our first pass
• Fended off other boats/docks with boat hook while we floated perpendicular to the way boats should move in the channel
• Andy and I jumped off the boat two slips down with the stern lines and pulled our 17-ton boat into the slip
• Boat went in stern first
• Smoothly glides into slip, with clean tie off (one outta three ain't too shabby)

And we all came out smiling.  Well---smiling and full of adrenaline---but smiling nonetheless.  What was the point of this post again?  Oh yeah, just to tell another tale of what's happening.

Maiden Voyage

     So we took the dinghy out for a run and the girls are trekking cross country to arrive tonight. Sadly, we have no video from what I suspect is the far more entertaining of the two events. The whole crew will finally be together on tuesday this week (theoretically. You can do it Carl!) 

     Our plan continues to evolve but somehow we seem to be getting things done and moving forward. We may end up staying in Ventura for all of our prep now, but who knows. We'll have our second in person crew meeting ever (we've had quite a few through skype and conference calls) on tuesday and I'm excited to really get moving with the whole crew working on things. 

     Hopefully the rain will let up and tomorrow we will have some nice pictures of our new stove installed to show tomorrow. 

there is actually more video but it was taking ages to upload, so we'll put it up tomorrow

EDIT: here it is

Take a Lap

So this morning don and I moved the boat from our slip to the boat yard so it could be hauled out for the prop to be re-pitched.  This would seem like a simple endevour but as with anything with this boat or any boat it seems it has not been.  First,  Donald (remember he is the captain so the cofidence he exude's dictates the rest of the crews feelings) has been making nervous comments about moving the boat with the two of us for the last few days.  I have heard this before so didn't really think anything of it and just put Don's nervouosness down to his questionable manhood.

So last night I went to sleep happy in my thoughts of our productive day (more on that later) and woke up around 2 in the morning needing to go pee.  After satisfying this need I got back into bed and listned as the wind outside got steadily worse.  After about 2 hours of no sleep and general restlessness I got up and removed all the things above deck that could be blown off and tied down a few things to eliminate some noise.  This semi worked and I proceeded to gain another 2 hours of kinda sleep.  Upon waking in the morning I am now groggy and a shower and stretch do nothing.  I also find out funnily enough that our fearless captain had also been up in the night and felt pretty similar to me.

Now lets put this move into perspective.  It includes us backing out of the dock. Turning the boat and driving about half a mile to the boat yard where we need to stop and tie off a 17 ton boat.  All with two poeple.  Seems pretty simple right.  Didn't sound like a big deal to me. 

So off we go.  We both take the time to unhook everything and make sure everything is out of our way and stored (this did not happen in a previous occasion).  We move the dinghie out of the way for when we come back.  We start the engine up and let her warm up.  We take a look around and get ourselves ready.  It is about now that don lets me know that when they docked last time it was him, leslie and two guys on the dock(4 people) and that this hasn't been done with just two of us yet.  He is also bitching about how the thing doesn't turn right when it is under power (he's been doing this for a week now).  Cool, everything still sounds pretty good to me.  Untie everything,  push the boat off, jump on, boat is swinging the right way, looking good, easy as bro.

Fast forward one minute and we are 3 feet away from one of the other boats and pointing the wrong way down a dead end, and Don is cursing a little.  Well we havn't hit anything yet and we havn't sunk so i am still feeling pretty good but getting a little more nervous.  The next 10 minutes went like this.  I got a big pole and prepared to push off anything and don went back and forth and few dozen times.  However we got out and I was pretty impressed with Don's effort and my everlasting optimism.

Time to cruise over to the dock at about a half a knot (its a 17 ton boat, you try and stop that thing).  We get there, turn in with ease, I jump off and tie her up and we are done.  Wait there has to be more to this.  Nope, evidently if you feel unsure about driving a boat just make sure the engine is really good and you have lots of time to go back and forth. We were even there early.

PS  yesterday was really productive and we got lots done but still have lots to do.

something or another

     So a lot has happened and today's post will double for yesterday and today. There has been a bunch of work done but very little finished. That gets old, and today was a long day of traffic. I'll let the pictures/video speak for me today.

getting the outboard off to bring to the mechanic

tool organization

drive to san diego to sell a bunch of extra stuff 

I'll add some details of these adventures tomorrow.....maybe

Doin Work

     What a day! It feels like we actually got some things done, and for the first time we took things off our to do list. The sails we are keeping are stowed, the V birth is basically ready to be lived in, the pile of death trap life vests has been disposed of, we tested all the hatches for water tightness, and we inflated and tested the dinghy.

     Having said that, almost all the hatches need new gaskets, the dinghy has one small air leak we need to patch, and we still have 3 spinnakers to deal with. We also need to pull the dinghy's wood floor out and test it, as you may have noticed the lack of a floor in the video. We are going to replace one maybe two hatches as well,  that will be an interesting job. 

     To my great pleasure, Andy woke up this morning swearing his head off, absolutely certain he had completely ruined his tattoo. When I asked to see what he was talking about he pointed out a tiny spot where his shirt had stuck overnight, and I told him it looked fine. He then went on a rant about how he knew he would mess it up, and of course I spent the drive to the bagel shop (who has wifi, where we do these posts every morning) winding him up and doing my best to drive him crazy. When we got there and checked it against the photo from just after it was finished, we both quickly concluded that there wasn't even the slightest change. Andy think's this morning was awful and I couldn't disagree more.