Category: Trip Log

The last few days have been pretty solidly filled with finishing the last projects to get the boat back together and ready to start the trip. We swapped out a fixed cooler for a powered CFX3 unit (basically a second fridge), since we didn’t want to be beholden to buying ice every couple days, which required running AC and DC lines from our breakers up to the cooler and fixed-mounting it onto the boat. We finished replacing the dead horn, and discovered the old one must have been running on only one side for as long as we’ve had the boat, as the new one is significantly more throaty. We tried installing a new wireless camera to help assist with docking, but the connection is flaky, so that might not last. We got a bunch of storage/organization aids for the wine, liquor, and other under-couch things, and finally got everything stashed away into closets. Then we did some more homey things like adding a foam topper to the front bed, installed a 12V outlet in the front stateroom, and got new linens and a pillowtop for the couchbed. We’re ready for guests, and, after a week of the boat being a complete mess, we finally put the last tools away in the closet!

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On Saturday, after finishing the last chores, we then had a great afternoon with a bike ride to a local brewery before returning back to the boat for dinner and final trip preparation.

This morning, we finally pushed off the dock and started on our trip. We made it all of 5 feet before the first mishap occurred — we apparently had left the side door swung open as we left the dock, and quickly discovered that the thrusters were completely dead (we assume drained battery from not being used or charged in 2 months), so the fairly heavy wind pushed us alongside a (rubberized, thankfully!) post and nearly took the door completely off before we were able to get the boat out of harm’s way. After bungeeing the nearly hinge-less door back to the boat, we then actually started the trip!

We had a bit of a harrowing journey up the New River out to the IntraCoastal Waterway (ICW). The New River is a much narrower continuous channel than anything we are used to boating, and we ended up behind a very large vessel being towed through the channel – apparently this is common as it is hard for larger boats to navigate the winding waterways. This was also our first experience going under bridges whose clearance is too low for us, meaning we have to wait for them to open, communicate with the bridges via radio, time crossings, etc. This will be a common occurrence for us for the next year, so we’d better get used to it! Northwest boaters will be amused to learn that instead of dodging logs, we spent the afternoon dodging floating coconuts!

We finally pulled into our stop for the night: Lighthouse Point Yacht Club Marina. David spent the evening hammering the hinges back to flat and making new mounts for the door while I was able to do a huuuuuge load of laundry, and we got rid of all the trash/recycling that had been piling up on our back deck. The boat is clean and organized, finally!!

All the chores were done just in time for sunset off the stern of the boat, and then we headed to the club’s tiki bar for dinner and drinks! Apparently the 75 degree weather was “a cold day” so the club was pretty dead. Their loss.

The only set-in-stone date on our trip for the next several months is having to be in DC for the March 6-8 weekend for a funeral. A couple months ago, with that date in mind, and expecting that we’d want to deal with some stuff on the boat before heading too far north, we guessed randomly, picked West Palm Beach to fly out of (~50 miles north of Ft. Lauderdale), and bought plane tickets.

Fast forward to being on the boat, and we think that guess is going to work out pretty well. We have the second round of canvas repairs that will be done either Friday or Monday (contractor-speak for “maybe Monday, probably Tuesday”) as the long-pull work item right now. Knowing we’re here until then, we have been taking the opportunity to catch up on all the boat prep that we missed out on in January when we had to send the boat out on 48 hrs notice.

With Sunday spent doing basic provisioning, the weekdays are our first trial of working full time from a boat on the other side of the country while trying to organize shipments, start planning travel, find/book future marinas, and do maintenance.

Monday, we had the pallet full of several hundred pounds of supplies from home arrive, and spent the entire afternoon unpacking and organizing. I stayed up late and installed a new chartplotter (navigation computer/display) and radar to replace our ancient ones. Despite wearing full protective gear and heavily using a vacuum to eat up a bunch of fiberglass, I’m still assuming I took another chunk out of my expected lifespan. Amazingly, I also managed to sell the old units, which I assumed would be nearly worthless, on Craigslist and eBay for 900$ in under a day.

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Tuesday, the couch pallets arrived, and we had an exciting afternoon of frantically getting the existing couch out of the boat and getting the new couch on board with literally seconds to spare before the sky opened up. Once everything was installed and cleaned up, we utilized our rental F150 to its fullest, bringing a completely overflowing truck of old couch, pallets, and other misc junk to the dump before returning it in the evening.

Tech-wise, working on the boat has been going fairly well during the day. I picked up a second unlimited SIM card from an AT&T reseller (NoLimitData), stuck it in the second modem on the Cradlepoint router, and enabled intelligent trunking (with the existing unlimited Verizon card), so the router splits our traffic between the two connections. The results, at night at least, have been great (see picture). Midday, when the networks are congested, with the two connections sharing load, we’re at least barely noticing that we’re not on a cable modem, so we can’t ask for much more than that. I still can’t wait for StarLink next year…

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Today, after work, I started digging into a few nagging problems we noticed on the boat on our quick trip up to Vancouver. A few of the switches on the flybridge helm had stopped doing anything, including the horn, and there were some issues with the trim tab sensors on the NMEA 2000 network. After messing around with the trim tab sensors for way too long, I finally just unplugged the device, plugged it back in, and quickly tried a fresh re-calibrate before the computer finished initializing it. Boom, all fixed. On to the electrical. I chased one of the issues down to a wire pulling out of a previous crimp connection, another of the issues down to loose spade connectors, and then fully debugged the horn down to it being a hardware issue. I pulled the horn off the boat and popped it open to check it out, only to be met with a horn element full of rust and spider webs/poop. So, a replacement is on its way from Amazon now.

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In general, though, things are coming together. More storage/organization supplies are arriving from Amazon by the day, so our living spaces are pretty usable now, especially with the new storage in the couches. The ghetto-rigged A/C unit is doing a decent job, though with it being 88F and quite humid today, it was struggling to keep the inside below around 75, but that’s fine for working. On the fun side, we’ve been soaking a tiny 1 quart oak barrel for a few days to get it ready for aging cocktails, and tonight we declared victory and filled it up with a bunch of Negroni. In a couple weeks, that’s going to be delicious.

Tomorrow, we plan to actually unload the bikes and take some rides around town — hit up an escape room, maybe head over to the beach, etc. We have a pile of Amazon packages coming in the next 2 days with more storage/organization supplies (and some boat parts…), so that’ll take up plenty of time, but we’re hoping to be able to relax for our first weekend of the trip.

When David randomly (at least to me it felt pretty random…) said to me about three years ago, “I think we should get a boat”, I never would have dreamed that three years later we would be celebrating the first day in a year-long adventure on said boat in Ft Lauderdale, Florida. I must admit that when he suggested a year ago that we consider doing the Great Loop, I was at first hesitant – how would we work? where would we do laundry? can we live in small quarters without wanting to kill each other? how will I fit all my clothes and shoes for a year? David is clever though, since he knows that once he’s planted a seed, despite my initial negative gut reactions, once I’ve had a chance to mull things over, I usually come around to his way of thinking :).

And now, here we are, toasting to our first day!

Yesterday evening, we left 50 degree and rainy Seattle on a red-eye and landed this morning in Ft Lauderdale where the weather is sunny and 75 degrees.

We were nervous about getting to the boat as this would be our first time checking out the full impact of the potential damage from shipping. The good news is that everything inside the boat was completely fine. The repaired canvas pieces look great and you can’t even tell that the BBQ railing had snapped completely from the boat. Unfortunately the BBQ itself was mangled beyond repair, so one of our errands today was to get a new one. We also noticed that some of the other canvas was less-obviously damaged, so we’re hemming and hawwing about what to do about those.

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After establishing the state of Highwind, we went out for the day provisioning and picking up a few things for repairing our outdoor table that is a little worse for the wear. Costco, WholeFoods, HomeDepot, Harbor Freight, West Marine. I said to David that it is funny how we are about as far as you can be from Seattle, yet we spent the day in the same stores that we would have at home!!

Now we are ending the day with some steaks on our new grill and probably early to bed since we didn’t get much sleep on the plane! Tomorrow, we both will be working from the boat while two different freight shipments arrive throughout the day with the new couch and our last pile of supplies from Kirkland. We’re also starting to look ahead to planning our first transit stages to get north to West Palm Beach by March 6th (where we have flights up to VA for the weekend for a funeral/celebration of life).