May 1, 2010 - We be boat people

The big news is that we are now out of the boatyard. "KingFisher" (yes, that is our final new name) was launched today from the Salt Creek Marina boatyard and it feels great. In the last couple of weeks we have continued to work hard to ready the boat. Here are some of the things that have been completed since our last report -

1) Hull painting.

2) Stainless Steel rub rail installation

3) New zinc installation

4) Propane stove installation

5) New 110 vac outlet installation on the pilot house helm

6) New anchor installation (55 pound Delta)

7) Purchase of a bunch of stuff such as fenders and new shore power cords

8) Flybridge top (bimini) installation

9) Sink faucet installation in both bathrooms

10) Bright work (varnishing by Linda - see photo below)

11) Installation of new lazarette drain.

12) New house bank battery installation

13) New starting battery bank installation

14) New inverter (110 vac from the batteries) installation

15) Bottom Painting

16) Installation of our refurbished compass.

17) Installation of a new "sanitary" system.

Above is a picture of the boat showing it's new coat of paint. It made a great difference in the appearance!

Here is a picture of Linda working on the main head (bathroom) floor grating. We moved onto the boat on Thursday and are trying to get used to it. It feels great to finally get the boat cleaned up. You can't believe how hard it is to have ten or twenty projects in various states with all the associated parts sitting around. We have gone through two boxes of Zip Lock bags for organizing parts and I am sure that we spend at least an hour a day trying to find parts that we set aside because we were delayed on that particular project for some reason. And of course switching from job to job means we are constantly looking for tools in spite of trying to diligently keep them in their place. We have had to go parts shopping at least once and often twice a day. Couldn't have done this without a vehicle.

Below is a picture of the actual launch process. Pretty cool eh?

So that's the good news. The bad news is that since we were launched we have discovered three problems. First, the generator shut down after five minutes due to (I think) an overheat problem. Second, the starboard engine started making a screeching noise after about an hour of running so I shut it down. This required docking on one engine in pretty strong wind but I avoided disaster with a low speed crash landing. I suspect a frozen alternator or something similar. Finally, one of the thru hull fittings or it's valve is leaking. I will investigate all of these over the next few days and I'm sure we can get them fixed.

So we are at least wet if not fully functional. It is GREAT to get out of the boatyard after 50 days. This was 22 days more than our original plan but not really too bad considering all the stuff we did. It will take a week of washing just to get all the paint dust off. Here is a picture of the boat moored at the St Pete Municipal Marina (Linda had been working hard in near 90 degree weather and refused to be in the picture).

Are you getting sick of boat pictures? Hopefully there will be real journey pictures in my next report.

Miss all of you

Tod and Linda.

April 15, 2010 - Are We Cruising Yet?

-Hardly!!

Hi everyone -

Our original plan was to complete all of the boat repairs and upgrades by April 9th and be on our way. Boy were we optimistic. It is now a week later and we are still a couple of weeks from getting wet. The picture to the right was taken on April 5th and shows some of the old stuff that we took off the boat so we could install new items. It was a nice place to rest.

We have hired a company that is based here in the yard to paint the hull. They are all

Russians and are interesting to talk to. They have the boat prepped but but have been hampered by high winds. Hopefully it will calm down in the next few days. Here is a picture of one of them working on the paint prep.

We just received a set of charts and cruising guides that we bought from a guy who recently completed the loop. It was two full boxes. I had studied the inventory list before we bought them but I was still a bit overwhelmed by how much material there is. For navigation, we will mostly use some low end GPS chart plotters (Garmin 540S) that we bought and installed plus a nice PC Package (Rose Point) but I feel that you always should have paper charts. Well now we got em!

Here are our various thoughts and feelings-

- This is a lot harder than we thought it would be.

- This is more expensive than we thought it would be.

- It's hard to look forward to cruising because of all the projects that need to be done.

- Any day without excrement splashing on you is a good day.

- St Pete is a pretty nice place to do this. Great weather although it does rain hard.

- Where did our old life go?

- Does Kirkland still exist?

- Why did we abandon our friends?

- What have I done to my golf game?

- Our hotel is our little cave home.

- Too many projects going on at once. Parts are getting lost all over the place.

- Will we ever get out of here? Will it be on the boat?

- Every project we start turns into two or three.

- Hope the truck keeps running.

- There are victories every day but are we winning the war?

Today was an unusually good day. I finished wiring 110 AC outlets in the pilot house (can you believe there was nowhere to power a PC or charge a cell phone?), our carpenter put the new laminate in the bathrooms, we picked up our replacement Lexan hatches and the Russians actually started doing a little painting (although the wind has picked up again). The really great thing today is that no new surprises came to light! This picture is from our fly bridge out to the entrance to Salt Creek. This leads out to Tampa Bay. This is a pretty nice view if you are stuck in a boat yard.

Well that's it for this report. Hopefully we will be able to report that we are in the water by our next report (May first).

Hope you are all doing well. Good bye for now. We miss all of you.

Tod and Linda