It's been about three months since the last entry. I can't believe it!! Things were slowing down a little, but now they are picking up in ernest!! So what have we been doing??
We've been attending rendezvous with the Brownsville Yacht Club, Agate Pass Sail and Power Squadron, and the Hunter Association. But of course that isn't all we've been doing. Dave and I drove down to Ukiah, California, at the end of May, to visit with my sister, her husband, one of my Nieces and her family. We had a wonderful visit. I knew they wouldn't be able to make it up to Washington before we left, so went to see them. Then we visited with my other niece and her husband, in McMinnville, Oregon, on our way back home. It was great to see them and also had a great visit.
June was filled with installing a single sideband radio and a Globel Star satellite phone. This entailed putting up attennas so we can communicate with other vessels and also for emergencies. The phone will be used little as it is expensive to call out. But this way we will have email and phone capabilites when needed. We won't be cut off from the world. We can also get weather faxes for the areas we will be traveling to. All good things!! I mentioned in April we were going to get solar panels. We have decided to hold off on that for now until we see how our battery output does. We will run our generator to make water and charge the batteries as we cruise. We will then get a feel for what size solar panels we will need. One expense we don't have to worry about right now. We still haven't received the varnish for the inside of the boat. Don't know what is up with that. I guess eventually we will get it. No worries. I went through storage again and cleaned out more stuff. Waiting for Dave to do his thing now. We have a lot of memory stuff and pictures to go through. Little by little.
We were having problems with our refrigeration unit recycling frequently. We installed a new thermostat and had a service guy come out to check the fluid levels and all and he said it was fine. So now we won't have to worry about that.
Davey hoisted me up the mast so I could clean the radar. We had talked about it for a couple of years since I was given a climbing harness. The harness is much more comfortable than a bosuns chair. When I finished cleaning the radar, my stepson went up the mast and installed the radar reflector. This helps other boats see us on radar. They call it a tri-lense reflector. Looks like 3 breasts. Davey thought of painting them so no matter which side of the boat you looked at, it would look like a set of breasts. But he didn't. I'm not sure that would go over big in foreign countries. Only in America!!
July 1st, we had the opportunity to help crew a 63 foot double masted Tall Ship Schooner, named Lavengro, to Port Orchard. It was an awesome experience and I really learned a lot about gaff rigs. Those are the square sails on tall ships. She met with other tall ships on their way to Tacoma for the Tall Ship Festival, from July 3rd through the 7th. The captain and his wife are very good friends of ours and this was his maiden voyage with a tall ship. His wife was the cook. They had people scheduled, including Davey, to help crew Lavengro from Port Orchard to Dockton, located at the South end of Vashon Island. I took this time to give my back and arms a rest from raising sails. Raising the sails is manual labor and even though it is fun, it gives you a workout!! Once they arrived at Dockton, Davey came home. After that the Lavengro went from Dockton to Tacoma, for the duration of the Tall Ship festival.
July 3rd, Dave, myself, my step son, my oldest son, and his two boys spent July 3rd through the 5th with us on the boat. We went to see the fireworks in Liberty Bay, Poulsbo, on the 3rd and started out early on the 4th for the locks to get to Lake Union for the fireworks. We almost didn't make it. A part that connects to the alternator to charge the batteries, wasn't working. We weren't going to be hooked up to power so it was a big concern. So we headed back to Brownsville Marina where Dave and the two sons helped figure out what the problem was. When we had it figured out, we called West Marine to see if they had the part and they didn't. So Dave said we could run the generator to charge the batteries for the next 2 days and we should be alright. Our plan was to anchor with the Brownsville yacht Club in Lake Union. Once Davey was comfortable about the decision to go, we gathered everyone on board and away we went. Because we were a couple hours behind our original schedule, the locks were busy and we had to wait and wait and wait. The grandboys were really getting tired of being on the boat. They wanted to get to our destination and go swimming and have fun. We of course had the Ballard and Fremont bridges to go under, but have to wait for them to open. So some more waiting. When we finally got through the bridges, we drove past, Signature Yachts, where we bought our boat. The owner had asked us to stop by and say hi before going on. So we did. To our pleasure we were able to get a ride to the West Marine store close by and get the part we needed. Hooray!!! We put it in and we were good to go. So we didn't need to run the generator often. We went our merry way, the grandboys got to go swimming, and we enjoyed the best fireworks display ever!!!! Then we came back on the 5th to Brownsville Marina and we said goodbye to the guys. It turned out to be a great weekend.
Dave received a phone call from the Captain of the Lavengro, asking if we would help with tours, Monday, July 7th. You bet!! We spent all day talking and teaching people about the ship, and got to spent the night, because we were crewing to bring her back to Brownsville Marina, and had to leave early the next morning. It was a great ride home. Once at Brownsville, everybody got a break for a couple of days and then Sunday, July 13, we and many other hands came aboard Lavengro to help take her back home to Lake Union. It was awesome. We sailed for hours before entering the locks and mooring her. If you are interested in reading Lavengro's history, just google Lavengro, Or go to www.nwschooner.org. It's pretty interesting history. She was a shrimp boat and there is only two left in the world. Lavengro and her sister ship Zodiak. They are both moored in Lake Union side by side.
With that excitement behind us, we had to get back to business getting things ready for our cruise.
Dave has gone through all of his stuff in storage. He got rid of stuff and saved a few things. We have down sized from a 16 x 20 to a 5 x 10 unit. We figured it was better than trying to get someone to keep our stuff plus our kids didn't have room. We should be finished with the large unit by the end of this week. A big headache gone!! We are planning on a dock sale the beginning of August and that will help with our cruising kiddie.
We are cleaning our cars to sell. I have 3 potential buyers at the marina, for my car, and Dave will probably list the T-Bird on Craigs List, on the internet.
We are having our going away party this Sunday, so I am getting the boat ready for people to come aboard and check her out.
Dave and I went this morning, July 23, to get our Hepititis A shot. We will have to get another one when we come back to visit next year. Then we are good for a life time.
Michael, my stepson is being deployed again to Iraq. He is in Yakima right now training for his mission. He will come home long enough to say goodbye and then he is off to Wisconsin for more training and then to Iraq in September. We expect him to be home from Yakima the first week of August. I am inviting all the kids over so we can see everyone again before we depart mid August.
Before we take off cruising, I will add another post to the blog. Then that will be it until we get to San Diego.
