top of the world.

No big deal. Just hanging around at the top of our mast while Josh looks on from below.

When we were up last week we decided we should try out the whole "hoisting-me-up-the-mast" thing for when I may need to go up and replace a bulb on the spreader lights, fasten a new line or antenna, etc. so no big deal. It was a bit windy but it was nothing major. I don't really have any issues with heights and I trust Josh like I trust no one else. Ever. In. My. Life. We worked out what I was supposed to do when it was time to come down before I was even off the ground. Ok. Fine. Cool. He starts hoisting me and I'm cool. I am concentrating on not getting tangled in any lines or accidentally loosening anything on my way up. I get to the top after a few minutes and all is well. I snap a few photos, look around and then it's time to come down. And then I can't loosen the ascender. I'm supposed to push a little latch down and back to let the rope off, only it won't come. I'm not panicked. I'm annoyed. I try one hand then the other, then both. I push this way and that and no dice. Again, I'm totally cool with being up there. Not worried just pissed by this time. Soon, the harness I was wearing was pushing on some nerves in my thighs which made my legs fall asleep. No bueno.  Luckily, there was an easy work around and Josh was able to lower me gently to safely on the deck just in time to still be able to stand upright when I was unfastened from the spinnaker halyard. All in all, an exhilarating experience. 

As I get a bit older my threshold for risky behavior gets lower, I will admit. I have no intention of letting those feelings of fear or apprehension keep me from living fully, though. Sometimes I force myself to be a little wild as long as the proper precautions have been taken. I mean, I'm not going to jump off a cliff if I have no idea what's below me, you know? 

Another very brief adventure I'll tell you about has no photographic proof unfortunately because it was extremely brief. 

I jumped in Lake Michigan. Wha?? Sounds crazy, right? What about 3 miles out in over 100 foot deep water? Crazier? Not my favorite decision, for sure. We took Interlude out on Sunday for a sail and it was hot. Steamy and sunny. I told Josh, half-jokingly, that I wanted to swim off the boat. He said we'd heave to (slow the boat to an almost imperceptible speed) once we hit 100 feet depth and I could swim. I thought he was kidding but once we hit the depth he called me out. I hemmed and hawed but eventually decided I should "man up" since I had brought it up. We hove to and the boat slowed to a crawl. He tied one of the fenders to a line and let it drag on our port side. We opened the life lines along the port side, he told me to get in, and swim toward the line/fender and follow it back along the side of the boat to the swim ladder. I had on the most awkward life jacket and my scared face. The one full of regret and indecision about whether or not I should slowly take the ladder in or just jump feet first into the inky blue water below. I almost had to have him push me, my nerve waning as the seconds ticked by. Eventually, I leapt. Into the inky blue, freezing cold depths, quickly being buoyed back to the surface by my life vest. I couldn't catch my breath, the waves were 1-2 feet and I felt myself immediately drifting toward the stern. Not the calmest of feelings overtook me and suddenly all I wanted to be was anywhere but bobbing, desperately trying to catch hold of the fender line in the icy water. As soon as I fought through the waves and hooked on to the swim ladder and I climbed up I began to breathe easily. No, not my favorite decision. Risky, sure. I was safe and it was an adventure so I'll just just count that one as one I might not try again. We'll see.

sunday share: bialetti.

Oh hey, do you like coffee? How about espresso? We LOVE coffee. One of the accoutrement for the boat that was an absolute must for us was a coffee maker. Josh did the leg work on this one so I claim none of the kudos here but I will tell you he did his homework. The Bialetti 6800 Moka Express 6-cup Stovetop Espresso Percolator is a great little gadget. We received it as a Christmas gift and promptly put it to work. This baby has just a few components and is kinda idiot-proof. You fill the bottom portion (up to the line) with water, place the basket over it, fill with your choice of ground coffee or espresso, screw the top half on and go to town. Over medium/high heat on the stove it takes 5-10 minutes for the brewed coffee to percolate into the top portion and then you're ready to enjoy your morning brew. Let it cool, or run under cool water to cool, dump the used grounds, rinse and repeat as needed. Josh and I each drink a 6-cup portion (we run it through that process twice total) a day, so we may or may not each drink 6 espressos? Regardless, it produces a rich coffee and the apparatus itself is easy use, clean up and storing. 

settled in.

Blogging from the boat! First time for everything and this one of those things I'm glad came sooner rather than later. The wi-fi is sketchy at best so I suspect there will some delayed posts. Oh well. If that's my biggest complaint, life ain't too shabby. Plus, I'm sitting in the open cockpit, breeze on my shoulders, fresh cup of joe in hand and my faithful pup next to me. No, not too shabby at all. 

We came up weekend before last around lunch time, unloaded our many bags and dug in. We brought the pup with us who seemed to remember the drill from the brief time up here last fall. She jumped aboard like a champ. She and water are not buddies so the proximity of water, especially deep water, always makes me a little worried for her anxiety level. We even let her roam the docks off her leash for awhile later. 

Josh decided to do a bit of organizing below deck so I cleaned out the dock box so we could stow some folding chairs, our power cords and hoses there when we are out for day sails. Guess what laid in wait?? Spiders. And grime. Oh, and also? More spiders. Not tiny ones. Big ones with fat bodies the size of your pinky toe. I thought I might have nightmares of them crawling on me and I was right. I woke up in a cold sweat on Monday thinking one had climbed into my ear. Yech. 

We grabbed groceries at Aldi, popped in the local Salvation Army (which is a hidden gem near the marina--yes! going back on a lazy afternoon once i bring my bike up), and picked up some beer and made dinner on the grill.  Grilled baked potatoes, salad, and grilled pork chops. After a long afternoon tidying, fending off spiders, and cleaning, it was heavenly. 

The rest of the weekend was a lazy, windy, wonderful time.

a gift from a friend.

One of Josh's friends kindly sent us this stack of sailing books yesterday! Hopefully they'll be full of wonderful tips or insights we can soak up. Thanks, Rod!

I'm back to reading all our guides and how-tos, seriously taking the ideas of the authors into consideration now that we are pretty much less than a year from departure. Especially about provisioning. Starting July 1st I'm going to begin keeping close tabs on what we use for food and dry goods over the next six months. The idea is that I need to understand our consumption so I can better keep the boat stocked (we are talking toothpaste, t.p., ziplock baggies, shampoo, wax paper, bread, eggs, sugar, flour, etc.). This idea came from "Care and Feeding of Sailing Crew", which I mentioned in a post before. Eventually, I'll catalog, enter data in excel, and graph (Josh has generously offered to help me do this) the results. Woo-hoo!

at last.

Interlude is FINALLY back in the water, ladies and gents. Yes! Finally. It all happened in just a few short days. After much heel dragging on the part of the marina/shop where Interlude was being "serviced" (I very loosely will acknowledge that she did indeed have some work done though not near enough) they pulled it together, finished up 90% of outstanding issues. Thee is at least one that will be completed in the coming winter (supposedly) and I would guess the other one as well (chain plates STILL need replaced and there was some fiberglass work that needs addressing as well as the malfunctioning autopilot remote). 

But enough of the bummer part of the whole process! The fun now begins!  

We went up to Waukegan, where she's been all winter, on Saturday with Josh's parents who graciously agreed to help us get her put back to sailing condition and deliver her to her home port in Racine. We put up the sails, tidied the cabin, scrubbed down the cockpit cushions, filled tanks, checked electrical systems, hosed her down, etc. 

Bright and early, err...late Sunday morning, we came back, climbed aboard, stowed belongings and snacks below and motored out into the lake. Seriously you guys, the weather was unbelievably perfect. It was the type of day sailors daydream about: 8-10 knots per hour wind, moderate waves, sunny and clear. I had thought we might be sweaty beasts but once we got out on the lake it was clear the humidity was not going to be an issue. Heavenly. Magical. We motored out around noon and arrived in Racine just about 6pm. We only had to jibe once which was nice. There is a reef, of sorts, just outside the harbor in Racine so we turned on the motor to maneuver her in about 3.5 miles out since the wind wasn't ideal for bringing her in under sail. Once we switched on the motor there was a little hiccup where the propeller wasn't engaged and moving us forward so Josh was a little frazzled trying to drop the main but we got it all sorted out and then we were right as rain. 

And now Interlude is tucked nicely in her slip, waiting for us to come do a few projects and generally enjoy the remainder of the sailing season. We'll head up Saturday morning and stay a few days and hopefully next weekend or the following we'll be there for most of the summer!

a whozit whatzit now?

What do you know about GRIBs? Yeah, me too. Not a darn thing. 

Part of our deal in this upcoming journey is that Josh will manage the engine maintenance and I'll do all the weather forecasting. "Fine," I thought, "how hard can it be?" Apparently, harder than I anticipated. 

Some cruisers have Internet connectivity and simply log onto a website like passageweather.com, windfinder.com or weatheronline.com. Others pay a service and use the single-side band radio and call up a person somewhere back on land who is an expert weather enthusiast (for lack of an official term) through mwxc.com or similar and get the skinny on whether optimal conditions are heading their way. Still others, using email service (sailmail and saildocs, which I'll in a later post) send out an email request to NOAA for a specific area denoted with a series of coordinates, then download the file (called a GRIB—GRIdded Binary or General Regularly-distributed Information in Binary form) they send you, open it with your reading/viewing software and interpret the file. We fall into the latter category. The files look like the above. It's a chart/series of charts that you can animate (much like the weatherman on the 6 o'clock news does) with markings to indicate wind, pressure, wave height, etc. that is from NOAA's satellite imaging with their best guess of what the weather is going to be based on past conditions and what is currently happening in the vicinity. This is why meteorology is not an exact science. There are certain weather patterns/behaviors that can be assumed based on generally accepted weather knowledge (for instance, high pressure usually equals sunny, fair conditions and low pressure air is rising and may bring precipitation) but it takes lots of practice to interpret. And that's my next order of business. Researching, reading, and gathering all the advice and information available to me now so I will feel confident when its time to test in real life. Even when we get out to sea, don't worry too much about us, as we will ALWAYS err on the side of caution. 

For now, I plan on starting a weekly if not daily exercise of doing the above described and checking weather conditions for the great lakes area. 

Also, quick update on Interlude: still not in the water. Yep. Not thrilled. Josh is traveling part of this month as it is, so we will not have her back in the water before the middle of the month. Still no resolution on the work that needs done and we are having difficulty contacting our surveyor. Will keep you updated!

what do you do...

When no one seems to be in a big hurry but you?

As you may have guessed, the lack of posts around here has much to do with the fact that Interlude is not yet in the water. She went into the shop around the first of the year and up until mid-March, we were told she was being serviced. The purchase agreement had a laundry list of things to be fixed and we were told the service department would address them all and let us know when repairs were completed. Around the end of March, Josh received an email update complete with photos of the king plank and bowspirit being replaced, as well as the compression post being replaced. We assumed that all meant the boat was in tip top shape. Josh took a trip up one Saturday following that email to look over the work. Lo and behold, during his inspection he saw that the chain plates had not been cleaned, replaced, or in any way serviced. He also noted that the sea cocks hadn't been replaced (both issues are troublesome and need attention before being launched). He followed up in person by showing the head of the service department the lack of action on the issues. He subsequently sent an email with photos of said problems. No response. 

Fast forward to last Saturday. Our surveyor wanted to take a look at the work that had been done in order to get insurance all squared away and felt a boat in better condition would merit a lower insurance rate. Great. We like that idea. We still haven't heard any more from the service department but I think we both assume they'd seen the email and had taken action. Guess again. As of last Saturday, the boat's still not completely fixed. We are back to the drawing board and the next steps are to involve the salesman who sold us the boat and probably the owner of Larsen. It's a super big bummer because we were really hoping to have Interlude back in last week. Will keep you posted.