Monthly Archives: September 2011

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy (by Ann)

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Here we are T minus six days (if the weather holds) and things are getting wild. The last week was spent finishing up my job of sixteen years at JStokes, while trying to get down to the marina to put in some quality time prepping Charisma.

As of tonight I have cleaned and shined all but four “holds” on the boat. We figure that we will clean everything out and then start provisioning.  Cleaning everything out includes compacting Bob to fewer drawers so that I can have at least one to hold my 12 allowed items of clothing (including my underwear!) just kidding – I think get more items. Meanwhile at home I am packing up my bedroom. I’ve lived in that room for 28 years! Hard to pack it up – but why am I whining? I’m leaving for the trip of a lifetime! And I am very excited about it.

I am amazed at what it takes to prepare for such a long adventure. I have legal issues to address, animal issues, heck, kid issues too! The lists have kept me up late at night often, until my dear friend, Karin, convinced me to prioritize and focus on the trip. Thank you , Karin!

Thank goodness that Chuckie has been helping with our HaHa costumes. Tinker Bell is done and will be a show-stopper, Peter Pan is done, Captain Hook is close and the crocodile is almost done. Thank God for Chuckie’s help.

And the week was filled with parties! Family, friends and work. I am truly blessed and am loving all of the good wishes. Soon this blog will be from the water! Thanks for all of your support. Please, live vicariously with us!

Ann

Counting down the days

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We’re about a week and counting.  Trying to leave next Thursday, 10/6 (or so) pending weather, and whether we have all our gear packed, stowed and ready to go. Been working very hard this week. Ann’s been cleaning and organizing down below in the cabin and I’ve been pulling cables and wire to get the two new solar panels and the 1000 watt voltage inverter running. Long story short, the panels are working (two Kyocera, 130 watt panels wired in parallel to double their amperage), a Blue Sky “duo” regulator (to run the panels and a water generator that we’re waiting for from Hamilton Ferris). Spent waaayyy too long in the Lazarette wiring stuff, but the result is pretty cool. I took us “off the grid” four days ago. The refrigerator runs all night and pulls the batteries down, but the panels, one of which faces the morning sun, power the boat back up and by 9AM, the batteries are completely full again. Really fun to watch how self sufficient we are becoming.Here’s a couple pics of some of our work including the watermaker and THE LISTS! Everything at this point with only a week left is about lists.
Watermaker     Everything has to go on a list, or we instantly forget!

Watermaker lesson

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A quick post to note a lesson in watermaker 101.  After installing it, I wanted to run it as much as possible to see what would break BEFORE leaving for a year or more.  That meant running it in the Marina, since I don’t have time to leave the dock and go out into the Bay every couple of days.  I only ran it at very high tide, presumably when the water in the Marina was at its cleanest.  Well, it worked for a couple weeks, but this weekend I ran it and WHEW! stinky water.  Fortunately none went into the tank, I found it in the sampling water.  Rotten egg smell which means marine organisms are clogging (and dying) in the filter.  The water in the marina is just too still and warm and grows a lot of algae.   I immediately did a fresh water rinse (pushing tank water back through the filters instead of pulling salt water).  Smell gone.  Then pulled the main filter.  Filthy!  OK, removed and put a new one in.  No more watermaker in the marina.  Until we leave, I’m just going to do a 2 minute fresh water flush every five days, to keep the water from getting stagnant in the watermaker as recommended by the manufacturer.   Less than a month and we’re in the open ocean!