Aug 28, 2007

Cutting the Ties


Hello!

We're getting ready to go. That means packing tons and tons of both necessary, and useless shit on the boat! We have enough canned food (thanks Grandpa and Grandma Lawie) and ramen noodles to out last a nuclear winter.
We have gotten a lot done. We are getting ready to cut the ties to the dock and head off into the open sea! Or at least a narrow canal that most people lovingly refer to as "the ditch," also known as the "Inter Coastal Waterway."

Yes, that's right, for those of you that were under the assumption that we would be sailing the ocean blue... Well, sorry to burst your bubble.










The inter coastal AKA "ICW" is a 1,000 mile inland water way made up of lakes, rivers, sounds and man made channels. Despite our shore side ambitions, LeeAnn is still scared our boat will sink, and she will somehow end up in the middle of the ocean surrounded by sharks. Tonight she read to me from the book "SURVIVAL AT SEA"
about how to fend off an attacking shark.

The book said to "try swimming at the shark, sense sharks are used to being run from, that tactic might throw it off it's guard."

Personally, when it comes to learning to fend off a shark I don't like the sound of the words "try" and "might." What if swimming at the shark doesn't work? I'm guessing your next move would be to pull your severed leg out of the jaws of the shark and start beating him over the head with it. Did you know sharks don't have bones? I didn't. Look it up. I'll bet you a million dollars.

As fun as Chuamont (pronounced sha - mo, kinda like Shamoo, which is only one letter away from Shampoo) is, LeeAnn and I are ready to get on with the trip. We have around a week and a half left. Not much time at all.

By the way. We got a cat. She, is all black. I wanted to name her Rosa Parks, but LeeAnn thought it might be offensive. We settled on the name Sushi. Now that I think about it Zorro would have been a sweet name for an all black cat. Hmm, wish I would have thought of that sooner.

Zorro... err Sushi fell off the boat today. We didn't hear a splash, we just found a skinny little soaking wet cat on the top of the boat. Our best guess is that she managed to climb up the ladder on the boat that is rafted up next to us and somehow flew from there to our boat, no water trail was left. One life down, eight to go.

















Aug 16, 2007

In case you die!

So people seem pretty concerned about the likelihood of LeeAnn and I dying on this boat. We have been told in all seriousness, "Don't go swimming because the sharks will eat you." and to watch out for pirates because: "They really exist..." If it's not sharks, it's the barracudas. Or it's the dangers of sailing on the ocean, where "Storms can appear out of thin air!" and "It takes 8 hours to travel 1 mile."

Now, I'm not arrogant, and I don't think I'm invincible, but come on people! We are sailing to South Carolina.... not around Cape Horn. of the 1,000 miles we have to travel, only 120 of it will be on open ocean.

So feel free to be concerned. After all, I'm terrified. But just for consolation here are some ways we won't be dying:

Our odds of dying by...

Falling down on accident 1 in 218
Being crushed between two objects 1 in  27,559
Being blown up 1 in  25,497
Being bit by a wild animal 1 in  48,052
Drowning in the bath tub 1 in  11,000
Drowning in a swimming pool 1 in  7,000
Accidentally suffocating in bed 1 in  7,541
Accidentally hanging yourself 1 in  13,531
Choking while eating 1 in  4,284
Choking on something other than food 1 in  1,248 (wow)
Dying in a building fire 1 in  1,358
Alcohol 1 in  10,048
Suicide 1 in  119
Being killed by someone 1 in  211 (wow)
Being killed by the government 1 in  8,861
The doctor accidentally kills us 1 in  1,313
Eaten by shark 1 in  8 million
Winning the lotto 1 in  1.3 million


I guess what I'm saying is 43,649 people die in cars each year. Only 675 die in some sort of water transportation accident. So the odds are against you! Be safe! We will too!

Aug 8, 2007

Rot, Rot, Everywhere!!


Starting work in the beginning of May, I found a huge task before me. A spiderweb of old wiring that needed to be sorted out, A deck that needed to be re-caulked, plumbing black with mold that needed to be replaced. The deeper I dug the worse it got.



















Everything was rotting. The floorboards, the
bottoms of most of the storage lockers, shelves, the quarter berths, walls, support beams. Everything. After chipping it all out I had enough rot to start a mulch business.





























The engine, doesn't looks so good, but surprisingly she purrs like a kitten. All the same, I will have to put in a fair amount of maintenance, which I'm sure hasn't been done in years.