One Shakedown Cruise - Complete!

Well, we've definitely tested things out 'in anger' as they say in England! We've spent two months putting the boat through its paces in almost every type of situation we would expect to (or want to) encounter. We started the trip by crashing into a fuel dock (okay, that's exaggerating, we bumped it really, really hard. We've run aground (a lot, might be 9 times by now), had the anchor drag, and torn a sail. We've fixed the boat while underway and while at anchor. We've anchored out in many different places, sailed overnight, tied up to mooring balls, been to marinas and been to fuel docks (without crashing into them!). Our 'car' / dingy works as it should. The boat systems (plumbing, electrical, navigation, engine - we don't have heat) have been tested out for 2 full months. Provisioning works well. We understand the weather far, far better than we did when we started.

High points for me - having many of the things that we researched work!, finding that I really like the lifestyle and that I haven't been bored, getting more flexible and strong, being able to do things that I wouldn't have thought I could (maneuvering this 42 foot sailboat around some of the places we've been in for one!). The starry sky on our overnight sail was a high point. Bahia Honda was another (thanks for that one, Jess - our resident tour guide!) - so beautiful. The three weeks with Jess and the two with Jess and Matt. The way we handled the anchor dragging incident. The salon in Key West. Catching my fish! Toasting the sunset and meals on deck. Finding out what a fantastic man I married. Thinking it over, there are actually too many high points to list and that says it all for me.

A shakedown cruise is not just for the boat, it's also for the people on the boat (although we didn't realise it when we started). We've been 'shaken' and sometimes scared silly (we gave up life in London, chauffeur driven cars, and posh restaurants for this?!). We've also been moved by the beauty that we're seeing and awed by the elements. We're enjoying no longer being defined by our work, but by our capabilities and interests. We've tested the strength of our relationship repeatedly and found it to be sound.

That means the cruise continues! We've enjoyed this part enough to keep going so after a short sojourn to England for things like UK citizenship and hot baths, (all going well, touch wood, knock on wood, where is that lucky rabbit's foot?) we will embark on the next stage of our adventures - crossing to the Bahamas!

No Room at the Inn and the View from the Back Porch

We left Newfound Harbor for Marathon this morning after a very gentle and uneventful night (this was the location of the 'anchor dragging incident'). We like uneventful. As a matter of fact, we love uneventful!

What an absolutely gorgeous day! This is what we came sailing for! High 70's, bouncy (but not too bouncy) seas, the sea a beautiful blue and a green sea that you could look straight through to the bottom of. This is exactly the type of sailing that we ADORE! It was perfect!

As we got closer to Marathon, we heard people calling the City Marina there and, oh no, being told they didn't have ANY mooring balls. Now normally this would not be an issue, but there's a cold front coming on Friday with 20-25 knot winds. Now normally this would not be an issue, but Marathon's Boot Key Harbor is crowded, actually packed, with boats. It's bumper to bumper (or fender to fender) boats. They have 225 mooring balls and every one is taken. We know from having been there before that all of the spaces which don't have mooring balls are already filled with anchoring boats or are too shallow to anchor in. In Boot Key Harbor if there isn't a boat there, there's a reason! No room at the inn!

This called for a change in plans. I got on the phone and prepared to make calls to all the local marinas to see if there was any chance at getting a slip. We lucked out! The first one we called had a slip for us!

So we zipped (or motored in a slow, but stately manner) up to Marathon to get situated before the storm. Before entering the slip we made a fuel dock stop with an enormous, monster power boat riding right on our stern. We had called in and they told us to go to the dock, but that power boat must have thought he was going first. He left us almost no space in the channel and sat right off our side revving his bow thrusters. One thing I have learned on this trip is to pay no attention or to get stressed by what other boaters want to do, I focus on my own boat - that's enough!

After a successful fuel docking, we 'backed' out of the channel. Please note, this is a serious accomplishment in a Morgan - when backing, they have minds of their own and where they go has no relationship to the direction in which you are turning the wheel! Next step was to find the slip. 'Oh dear, do you really think we're going to fit this fat boat in that skinny little slip?' No time to think about it, Steve was directing us onward! We fit between the poles and coasted to a stop next to the dock, with only a foot to spare on either side!

That was the end of our Shakedown Cruise (another entry to follow on that topic), two months of using the boat all day, every day, putting it through its paces. We're done! A special sunset toast was in order and celebration to follow! Here at the end of it is the view from our back porch.

Passiones / Appassionato (Cont.)

After spending some time thinking about this further (and getting some direct prods!) I can't say I've found a passione (singular) yet, but I would say I am definitely living appassionato (passionately) and for me that might be the key. Do I have passions or am I doing lots of things that I can get really excited about (my definition of passions)? Are there many things that I look forward to, are there times when I'm so interested in what I'm doing that I lose myself and wonder where the time went? Yes, absolutely.

When I was working, my passion was work. I spent a lot of time at it and spent a lot of time working to become very good at it. But work isn't everything for me and I found that much of my thoughts and conversations were exclusively about work. Life isn't about work, if it is you become one dimensional. If all the passion is focused on on work, what happens when there is no work? It took a while and quite a bit of quiet / introspective time, but I'm finding the things I am passionate about. My 'Passiones List' starts with these things:

My family - Jess, Claire and Chris, both the US and UK branches of family, parents, sisters, brothers. This category also includes my really special friends, the ones who even when busiest I've been able to keep in touch with and visit with (at least now and then). Now that I have time to think, I'm working on connecting and reconnecting. Family is so important and when we're in the midst of the fray, some of these relationships don't get the care and attention that they deserve. This is expanding to connecting with extended family, some of whom I haven't seen /spoken with in 20+ years.
My relationship - The relationship with Steve, being the second time around, is an area that I pay particular attention to.
Exploration - Two areas comprise this, external and internal. External is exploring the world, going to new places and getting to know them well enough to understand how they tick. What are the nuances that are not immediately apparent? Getting to know places in ways far beyond the standard 'American goes to American places in international locations'. Internal exploration is learning new things (sailing, for example) and finding topics that interest me to the extent that I want to know everything about them, that I will read everything written about them. This is where playing music, reading books (exploring beyond the standard genres that I habitually read!), learning Italian and to live in Italy (at some point). Dancing is back on my passions list, cooking well remains there and I'm going to try a sport, bicycling (this should be very interesting for non-sporty me!).
Health - I know it sounds trite, but the past three years of the consultant lifestyle took their toll and I want to be fit!

I'm really enthusiastic about this blog and the fun that I have creating it. I started it just to keep a record, but it's become much more than that. It's a creative outlet at the least!

So, for me, I have passions rather than a passion, and they change, sometimes a lot. There are lots of definitions of passions and passionately, I think perhaps they need to be defined for oneself. Asking oneself, 'What is my individual preference, a passion or several / many passions?' And then defining them from there.

One thing I do know, this isn't a quick process - an hour with a notebook and, poof, I've defined my passions - didn't work that way for me! My list that I'm working with now took me two years to develop and as I explore that list I expect it will continue to grow and change as I explore ideas and try new things. It required quite a bit of quiet time asking myself what I wanted versus what others wanted me to do. All that alone time in hotel rooms in Scotland was quite useful! But for me, the key was just to start making the list, it was amazing how it grew once I had a place to put my passions!

Steve to the Rescue

As we've found, sailors and sailboats get stuck - a lot! They run aground (no, we are not the only ones who do that), they bang into things, and they have trouble anchoring. Part of the 'code' is if you can help you do, because someday you might be in the same situation and need the help yourself. (There's probably a code for life in there somewhere.)

So in the past two days, we've (actually Steve) has been able to help out some boaters in difficulty. In the mooring field in Key West, the mooring balls are virtually impossible to get your mooring line through while you are on the boat - which makes it a wee bit difficult when one of you must be driving the boat and the other must be at the bow directing and tying on the line - you don't have anyone in the water / dingy to put the line through the teeny-tiny loop on the mooring ball. Steve pulled some muscles when we came in reaching over the side and grabbing the mooring ball with his long arms. So yesterday when we saw some folks from Marathon struggling to pick up the mooring ball to put their line through (impossible), Steve hopped into the dingy, went over and helped them tie up.

Then when we got to Newfound Harbor tonight there was a sailboat with its anchor up, a dingy filled with water and tied to the boom pulling the mast sideways. We knew they were aground. We did sit there for a bit and hope they would get themselves off because we had our dingy up on the davits and the motor up on the mast (it is a fair bit of assembly to get the dingy and motor together in the water, taking both of us, several lines and a winch to do), but no luck they were really stuck. So we reassembled the dingy from travel mode to in water usage mode and Steve headed off to offer assistance to the folks on Jocks Lodge. Actually, they were so stuck, they didn't need it - no way that they were getting off until the tide changed. After all that and we couldn't help! Oh, well, the offer is what's important - and adhering to the code.

Dangerous Equipment

One of our favourite sailing bloggers, Toast of ToastFloats, says that the
most dangerous piece of equipment on a sailboat is a calendar. She's right,
calendars make you do things that you would never ordinarily do. A schedule
does not suit a sailboat and we've found that out. Not in a dangerous way
(thank goodness!), but in trying to find weather windows which will allow us
to get where we want to go and BACK! We've been waiting for one to head
over to the Dry Tortugas, but it doesn't look like there's going to be one
which will allow us to go out and ensure that we have sufficient time to get
back to make the UK trip, our calendar commitment. We've been bogged down
with weather for the past two weeks, there's a nice window to head to the
DTs this week, but we can't afford to get bogged down out there now. We
don't want to make bad decisions because of the calendar.

So no DTs for us this trip and it's been oh so horrible being bogged down in
Key West (NOT!). An 'intensifying high pressure system' coming through
tomorrow and one on Friday so we're going to make a quick trip up to
Marathon and then do short sails from there until we leave for the UK.
(Also having our cockpit enclosure put on - it's like having an addition put
on your house, a conservatory!)

Old Habits Die Hard

Had a very interesting discussion this morning on the topic of 'What do I
miss?' One of the things we didn't realise is what an adjustment all of
this would be for Steve although in hindsight (which is always the best
sight) perhaps we should have. The first major life 'adjustment' was coming
out of a job, a big one - that by all by itself one heck of a change. On
top of that we've moved to America, a whole new country, which again is a
fairly significant life change. But let's add in one more, let's make him
Captain of a sailboat responsible for our 'house' and our lives. Many would
have lost it after that first change. Added all together, it's not
surprising we were having a 'what I miss' discussion.

This is a funny area because sailing (or this time out of the fray period
that we're having, but for simplicity's sake let's call it sailing) changes
you. We talked about a lot of things that we miss, but here's where the
sailing changes you - for almost every thing that we missed we had
additional thinking about it which caused us to realise that actually when
analysed we didn't miss that particular thing at all. There are habits,
ways of acting, thinking and reacting, that cause us to miss certain things.
(It's like smoking, 20 years after quiting there's no way you'd ever pick up
another cigarette, but now and then your fingers twitch.)

For me, those things that I miss are going out to a nice restaurant whenever
the whim strikes. But this sailing thing has changed me, because when I get
that yen a follow-on thought arises, "Yes, I'd like to go out, but where and
what would they have that I like to eat? Is there anything that I would
order that I couldn't make here?" Usually the answer is no, unless it's
shellfish, but then I'm not willing to pay the utterly ridiculous price they
charge for a shellfish dinner (I think when lobster is going for 5-6 a
pound, it should not be 30-40 in a restaurant) - the cost exceeds my
personal price tolerance threshold and I'm just not going to spend that
amount of money on that (actually for the prices they charge for lobster
dinners, we could watch the airfares and take a flight to Maine to see Mom
and Dad for the weekend and buy lobster from Solak for a similar amount!).

So the first one, eating out, I miss, but when I look at it I don't really,
it's just an old habit, a twitch. The next one is shopping. Whenever you
get a bit low, a tiny bit bored, don't you want to go shopping? That flits
through my mind when I'm missing things, but again the sailing is changing
me because the very next thought is, "What would you buy?" Clothes? I've
got at least one of everything that I like (I do not have at least one of
everything the advertisers would like me to have and have no intention of
doing so). Are there other pretty things out there? Of course, but that
doesn't mean I need them. More shoes? I spend 90% of my time barefoot.
Handbags? They're not waterproof. Jewelry? I wear the same pieces every
day and don't change even with the stuff I have already (and I can't wear
jewelry in the water because barracudas like sparkly things and will bite
you). Cars? Not interested, getting rid of the ones we have. So would I
shop for anything? Well, I'll always shop for books, but otherwise
shopping, although there's a habitual residual desire, has lost its appeal.

We've spent so many years being incredibly focused on building careers and
working, those habits are ingrained. Those old habits die hard, but we're
working on gradually replacing them with new habits. Another funny thing is
all the time you're working, you think, "Oh, I wish had time to do (insert
get in shape, learn a language, play an instrument, do photo albums, write a
book, etc., here), but then when you have the time, what do you do? More of
what you did while working! (Also, surprisingly to us, we don't have as
much time as we thought we would - day-to-day living on a sailboat takes
longer - you dingy to land, you walk everywhere - this morning's pick up
laundry, do Internet and pick up a sandwich to ALL morning. On land, those
activities would take 15 minutes. But we still have quite a bit of time and
it's time to lose those old habits and replace them with new ones.) If
we're not doing that, what are we going to do? This is where the new habits
need to be formed and where yesterday's passione entry comes into play.
What are the things we love to do? We love the sailing and are looking
forward to doing more of the water-based things that were in the picture
when we started out. We love the time together. We're keeping busy and
enjoying the relaxation. We might even be still for long enough to think
about our passiones. However, we also need to get our backsides into gear
and start doing all the things we wanted to do.

Things that we miss habitually and even after second thoughts too, our
families, our friends and our bathtub!

Sailing changes you.

Living Appassionato

An Italian musical term for passionately. Passione - passion. Joe's comment about finding his art brought this to mind:

"What I would miss from your lifestyle is green........yes I would miss my pallet of green. In these difficult times of reflection, one begins to wonder; what is your talent, what is unique or at the very least, rememberable characteristic about what you can do? I am discovering I am artist of sorts with the color green as my backdrop, the oils are any living plant, and my canvas is anywhere things can grow."

Having seen Joe's garden, it is art, a canvas, a passion brought to life.

It's important to take some time, have some clear space to discover your passions, what gets you excited and makes you leap out of bed in the morning. What's difficult to find is time where it is just you with no outside influencers telling you what you should be or must be passionate about, time when you hear just your voice and not the voices of the media (your life will be perfect if you have this gadget, toy, really expensive thing), society and, yes, sometimes even the folks you love. It's been a long time since I've been able to hear my voice about what I'm passionate about, it's been overwhelmed for a lot of years by those who are much louder. I think our individual quiet voices can get lost or drowned out in all that noise. This trip has turned down the volume and I'm enjoying starting to find what makes me live appassionato, finding out what my passione is.

Wetsuits are Us!

Spent the day in Key West, picking up the laundry (still love
wash-dry-and-fold!), having lunch out (Thai / Sushi), going to the salon
(aaahhhh!!!) and getting wetsuits.

Yes, we have decided to take the plunge and get wetsuits! We've lost a
sufficient amount of weight to ensure that there will be no trauma during
the wetsuit try on session, the laughter should also be kept to a minimum.
We've only been in the water once since getting here, the water is just too
cold for us softies! Pictures to follow so you can all have a laugh!

And I Caught a Fish that Was THISSSS Big!

Our day of deep sea fishing was a success! We went out on one of those $55 rod and reel inclusive fishing trips today. This was our way of 'seeing how it's done' when it comes to fishing. Good chance to try the whole thing out without getting our boat all messy!

We arrived and explained that we were total novices and would need instruction, which the 'Mate' Eric promptly agreed to. We watched all the more experienced fishermen jostle for prime spots at the stern (back) of the
boat. Some had made reservations for these special places. We sat in the sun and watched how they prepared bait (gross!) and set up the rods and reels (no rocket science here).

We had a lovely motor out to the fishing grounds, past the last races of
Race Week (today is the last day). The anchor went down, the motor went off
and rods were at the ready. Actually ours weren't, 'Uh, what do we do now?'
Eric very kindly came over and said, 'You put the bait on like this and let
the line out until the hook hits the bottom.' End of lesson! (And we paid
55 bucks each for that!)

Okay, we'll give this a whirl. Bait on, hooks sinking, sinking, sinking
(we're in a hundred feet of water here!). I kept feeling little tugs on
mine and Eric informed me that I had a bite and then walked off. 'Hey, wait
a minute - that wasn't covered in the lesson! What do I do?!' Reel it in.
I did and caught a fish!!!

To be fair, it was not a big fish. It was not even a medium fish. It was a
6 to 8 inch Grunt (Steve insists it was 6, I however, being the actual
catcher of the fish know it was at least 8). Wooohooo, I can catch fish!

Because other people were not catching fish as successfully as I, they moved the boat. Whereupon I proceeded to catch another fish! This one was a big fish, an Amberjack, 23 inches. Eric measured my monster fish, told me it was an inch too short and THREW IT BACK IN THE WATER! Thank goodness Steve
had been quick with the camera and has photographic evidence which proves I did indeed catch a big fish. Please note that although Eric is holding the fish, I caught it - I just didn't want to touch it (as you may tell from the photo, fish have blood).

We fished for the rest of the day, but didn't really catch anything more.
Lots of other people caught other big fish (mutton snapper was the fish of
the day). We did learn how to put bait on the hooks (again, gross and why do
they not give out Wet Wipes here?!), we watched trolling, Steve watched
gaffing and removal of hooks. At the end of the day, we went back to the
dock and Eric filleted my little Grunt fish along with several Yellow Tail
and a Porgy for us. So we left with enough fish for a fresh fish dinner!

One of our favourite ways to prepare fish - Fish with Brown Butter and
Capers

Fresh fish
Butter
Capers

Melt the butter in a fry pan until it darkens to a light shade of brown.
Saute the fish in the browned butter until cooked to a state of flakey.
Sprinkle a couple / three teaspoons of capers in and give it all a good
stir. Enjoy with salad and a glass of wine.

It was the best fish we've ever had!

(Just a side note: Gaff Magazine is now following my Twitters. I am not making this up, I can show you the email!)

Race Week in Key Week

Somehow we ended up in Key West during Race Week. This is the week when 3000 sailors and their boats descend upon Key West for a week of sailboat races. The place is packed! And the harbor is full of boats! It's very interesting trying to get across the harbor in our tiny dingy with these big racing yachts swooping past us! There's not a slip to be found and Key West is full of yachtie types (you can spot them a mile away, just check out the shoes and the bags).

We're here because (surprise!) there's another cold front that we're sitting
out. The wind chill factor today, 36 degrees. Needless to say we're
wearing lots of clothes! But it's bright and sunny even if it is too cold
to go any place and there's certainly lots to watch when we brave the
elements on top (okay, now I am laying it on a bit thick!). We spent our
first night anchored off Wisteria Island, but it was a bit rolly - think of
sleeping in a hammock that someone will not stop pushing. So we've gone
around the back side of Key West and are tied up to a mooring ball which is
very nice because it's out of the way of the ocean swells and we've had
25-30 knot winds (remember - woowooowooo!), but being tied up to the ball we
don't have to worry about the anchor dragging in high winds.

We spent one day in Key West dropping off the laundry (I love wash, dry and
fold!), having lunch at Fogarty's and finishing our Christmas shopping.
Since we were down to our last cabbage, a fresh food restock was in order
along with a takeaway Chinese! Chinese and a movie (Too Wong Foo, Thanks
for Everything, Julie Newmar) - what a treat!

The weather gods keep sending cold fronts which are making the progress to
the Dry Tortugas difficult (we are NOT heading 75 miles out to sea in iffy
weather, thank you), but we're watching for a window which will enable us to
make progress in one direction or another. I really think all these fronts
are a message, we're supposed to be in the Bahamas and we're heading the
wrong way. Someone is trying to tell us something!

Since we can't make progress on that, we're on to something else. Friday
we're going deep sea fishing (if the weather permits) and we're going to
learn how to fish. We actually have all the gear, the rod, reel, lures, but
we haven't dared to put a hook in the water - what would we do with a fish
if we caught it?!! Once you catch them, you're supposed to eat them. We
love eating fish - it's the part between catching and eating that we're
having a bit of difficulty with - especially for Tidy Boy (everything must
be immaculate!) and Miss Clean Boat (I get irritated when we have sand in
the cockpit - fish guts, oh noooo!). Hopefully someone can show us the way!

Like Moles Coming Up into the Sun and Communications Summit

Bright, sunny and cold (although the northern contingent does contend that it is not really that cold here!). I am wearing a tracksuit, a turtleneck and a fleece sweatshirt, along with fleece socks! When we were packing clothes for this trip, I knew I was taking too much, but I couldn't decide whether to focus on warm clothes or clothes for the warm weather - so I gave up and brought both. To date I have worn everything from a swimsuit to what I would wear out walking in the Yorkshire Dales in January (no boots yet though!) and everything in between.

Wanted to modestly and demurely announce that I am the reigning Bananagrams Champion (nah, nah, na-nah-na)! It was close, very close, but in the end I snatched to the title away from Steve. However, he has captured the title of Master of Pizzas! (It's amazing all the new talents which are emerging - cocktails, pizza, Bananagrams, anchor resetting - all essential life skills, I'm sure!)

Yesterday was spent indoors and last night was even more woowoowoo-y. There was a long enough wind lull for sunset toasting before tucking back in below with the oven on making pizza (our version of central heating) and watching of movies. It was Steve's choice, The King and I - always makes me cry.

We held a Communications Summit this morning, an analysis of all our different types of communications and how we can use them most efficiently. This was driven by 'ouch' phone bills - mine 500 and Steve's of 121 - that's not in the spending plan! Okay, UK mobiles are now moving from the regular usage to emergency usage only. Actually the biggest aspect of that was data on my Iphone, uploading / downloading so that is now shut off. We're going to have to be a lot smarter and more selective about what technology we use for what type of activity. It seems to break down into some pretty clear categories:

Posting to the Blog - not going to give it up, love it, great way to communicate and a wonderful record of our journey - daily or at the most every few days

Talking to Jess and the rest of our families (voice or video) - not going to give it up, love it, want to stay in touch frequently - every few days
Emailing - a necessity for communications and for managing our affairs - daily or at the most every few days
Internet access - research and affairs management, we're still constantly running into things that we 'need to look up' - once or twice a week
Weather - must have for both safety and comfort reasons - once, twice daily

The goal is to use the least expensive communications method possible while maintaining the desired frequency of contact and the options are VHF radio, HF radio, computer with antenna, Internet stick, mobile / cell, wifi via 'internet cafe' or land-based wifi piggybacking. So, after much discussion and the creation of a matrix (or two), it looks like the processes are:

Posting to Blog - First go for the free options - HF (anywhere), Kindle (where there is a cell signal), wifi via antenna. Think we really can always find a free option for blog posting of text. osting of photos will involve a really good wifi antenna connection (rare) or land-based wifi access, so photos will often appear a few days after the blog text is posted

Talking to Jess and the rest of our families - Jess and I are getting wifi (Skype) phones so wherever there is a wifi signal (land or on boat) we can chat. I've also set up Skype Out which allows us unlimited calls to landlines and we can continue to use Skype on the laptop for video calling with a good wifi signal. Skype also has the voicemail feature so we're going to use that more. We're keeping the mobiles / cell phones for emergency usage only, but they will be on should you need to call us

Emailing - HF (anywhere), Kindle (where there is a cell signal), wifi via antenna and the land-based wifi options. Think we really can always find a free option for sending and receiving emails at a minimum daily. We will be switching our email addresses because 1) the HF Sailmail goes to a dedicated email address and 2) our current email addresses get too much rubbishy spam (much of what was included in that whopper bill was spam and I am rather unhappy about paying to download that garbage). So continue to email and we will get it via one method or another, and we will email you with the new email addresses once those are set up

Internet access - Unless it is a really important question 'which must be answered right this minute', write down the things we need to do on the web and do them when we come across a good connection

Weather - VHF when local, HF where there is no VHF

Otherwise, expenses seem to be in line with projections. We're still doing a bit of 'getting stuff for the boat' (wetsuits and a new anchor this week), but that has slowed considerably. We have spent no time in marinas (which would run somewhere in the 80 to 120 per night range), but we do spend time on the mooring ball at Boot Key Harbor (100 per week). Our restaurant eating out seems to be confined to lunches, primarily seafood and / or chicken wings, as we tend to be a bit far out in our anchorages to dingy in for dinner and our preference really is for dinner on the boat - all that cooking research is paying off! (Actually, I think if you want to cut down on restaurant expenses, becoming a really good cook is the way to go. If you cook well, you become very, very selective about what restaurants you will go to and pay for an expensive meal - the food should be much better than you can do yourself!)

It looks like the weather is going to give us a break and we're sailing for Key West tomorrow! Then on to the Marquesas!

Cruising Life Six Weeks In

(By Steve) Here are some reflections and thinking about the cruising life six weeks in.

PLANS AND PLANNING - This is an area of huge change. In my previous life I could pretty well make most things happen when, where and how I wanted them to happen. That was what it was like being the boss and being in control. That was one of the things that made me successful, the ability to make things happen. It took me about 4 weeks of frustration with the weather, the boat and the lack of skill (see below) to understand that you plan for the weather in the context of where you want to go and what you want to do, i.e. , the weather makes certain options available or not as the case may be and you plan within those 'givens'. If you want to be leisure sailors (and we do) then going TO where the wind is coming FROM is not a plan that will deliver leisure sailing. Here the prevailing wind is East which makes going up the Keys (heading east) difficult. The net effect of that is 50% of the time the wind is good to sail from East to West, i.e., down the Keys, 30% of the time the wind is too strong or to little to sail at all and only 20% of the time can you sail up the Keys. In addition you can only know this about 5 days out at the most. If you need to be in a particular place and that involves goes East then you need to leave plenty of slack in the schedule to make sure you can do it without having to bash into a strong headwind.

THE LIFESTYLE AND BECOMING ADVENTURING LOAFERS - The lifestyle seems, so far, to be appealing. I suspect that history will show that sailing is just one type of adventure of a number of types of adventures we shall have in our 'adventuring loafers' phase. It is the freedom to have adventures and the satisfaction that comes from those adventures that replaces the interest and satisfaction that once came from a career. We have set out a plan for the rest of the year to have the first few adventures in which we expect to be very many adventures in the coming years. This years list looks like:

- Dry Tortugas Cruise from the middle of Jan to the middle of Feb
- Visit back to England from middle of Feb to early March
- Bahamas Cruise from early March to late May, hauling the boat for the Hurricane Season at the end of it
- Holiday Rental Property Acquisition in the UK in June
- Motorbike Tour of Ireland in July
- Summer at Highcroft (our home in the UK) July and August
- European Tandem Bicycle Tour Sept
- Prepare UK Holiday Property and Highcroft for Rent Oct and Nov
- Start 09/10 Carribean Cruise December 09

CRUSING SKILLS - From 'expert' to novice in one move!! Expert at Shared Services, Human Resource Management before that and Avionics Systems before that, I now find myself on a very steep learning curve with more to learn than ever I imagined there would be.

Weather: This fundamentally determines what will be possible and when. It seems to go hand in glove with sailing. We have both read a book by a very experienced cruiser about how to make passages against the prevailing wind, the combination of this and the experience of the last few weeks has taught us
- Do not try to sail or motor to windward in more than about 10-15 knots of wind
- The path into the prevailing wind is best traveled by taking advantage of the wind when it doesnÕt blow from the usual direction but from some other direction and by taking a route which allows you to make progress to windward via a series of ÒlegsÓ a bit like really big tacks when it does.
- Wind speed that we find enjoyable to sail in is a function of where the wind is coming from, not just the strength of it. Into wind 10-15 is enough, beam reach 15-20 is comfortable and with the wind behind you then 25 is OK. Sailing directly into 25 knots though would be positively unpleasant! This is a function of the effect the boat speed has on the apparent wind over the boat - going into wind add boat speed to wind speed to get apparent wind and going down wind subtract it.
- The angle of the wind to the boat and the sails also affects the heeling of the boat. Sailing close to the wind (angle between boat and wind 50 degrees) the lift coming off the sails is tending to heel the boat more and drive it forward less.

In this part of the world the weather is predictable enough for about 4 to 5 days to plan that far ahead providing that the plan is kept under constant review as events unfold. The first thing you need to know before you can plan what you are going to do is what the weather is going to do. The language of the forecasts is subtle, here are some examples that we have learnt over the past few weeks:

- Arctic High Pressure: Bloody Cold Air
- Intensive High Pressure: Very High Pressure which causes some pretty strong winds whilst it builds

In the forecasts you tend to get 2 to 3 days of detail (today, tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night, the day after). Then you get some longer term stuff that you need to listen to carefully for clues as to what will probably happen bearing in mind that the further out the forecast the more likely it is to be wrong.

- Breezy: Winds between 15 and 20 knots
- Windy: Winds 20 to 25 knots with higher gusts

Couple this with the synopsis and you can get a good idea for 5 days out. A weak cold front may pass over the keys late Monday or Monday night translates, along with the other information you are given, into you can expect the winds to come out of the NE or E (prevailing direction in the winter) and swing through SE, S, SW, W and NW through Monday and Monday night and swing into the NE later on Tuesday settling back to the prevailing direction. The strength is more likely to be 15-20 rather than 20-30 based on the assumption that it is a weak cold front and the use of the word breezy in the outlook. Translating this into a plan where we want to head West; we can move tomorrow (Sun) and we could move Monday early on then we need to sit tight for a day or so and let the front go through then we can carry on. If we want to go East then we would begin to move Monday and, if the wind stays in the close to 15 knot range we could move Tuesday as well ( or even sail overnight). Then we would need to sit tight or move in a direction which allows us to sail in the prevailing winds.

LOGISTICS & RESOURCES - Provisioning, fuel, water and waste disposal are all things which take more attention than they do living more normally. This is a large part of the 'work to live' element of the lifestyle. Katherine has a master list of provisions that should be on the boat, this she uses as a checklist from which to produce the shopping list. For example, a few days ago, she disappeared about 10.00 with Jess and Matt in the dingy with the trash we had collected since we were last able to get to dry land and re-appeared a couple of hours later with the dingy minus the trash but loaded with shopping ($253 worth). With some wine ($100) and a few more fresh things if we come across them ($50) then this will probably see us through now until we come back to the UK mid Feb, about a months worth. Last week on the way into the mooring field we stopped at the fuel dock and took on 95 gallons of water, 32 gallons of diesel and 5 gallons of petrol (for the dinghy) ($137 worth), again about a month's worth of fuel. A couple of weeks ago we had to take one of the propane tanks to be refilled ($20). Whilst well offshore (and following the maritime disposal rules) we pumped out the waste tanks. Whilst in the mooring field they get pumped out once per week as part of the charge ($100 per week). Anchoring is free so we expect we would only pay this infrequently.

SAILING - This is a gradual improvement really as we already have a fair bit of practice with this. The tricks we have learned are not to put too much sail up, how to trim the sails for comfort and to sail the boat as upright as possible. Handling the anchoring is again just a constant improvement though we need to get to grips with a Bahamian Moor (using two anchors). Handling under power and on and off docks and mooring balls we continue to practice though we have picked up a mooring ball twice in the last few weeks at the first attempt!! Except for the transmission failure there has been no docking incidents at fuel docks, bridges, etc., and we have dragged an anchor but not run aground to the extent we couldn't get ourselves off. The recent acquisition of achart plotter has made navigation and piloting very easy.

ENGINEERING - The boat requires a lot of attention though this I am getting better as we get the bugs out of it. We have just the HF Radio and Sailmail to sort now. To date we have changed the antennae tuning unit and most of the cabling. There has been some improvement but we need some more yet I think. I expect we will have to get a new one in the end and they are $1500. We are also thinking seriously about a cockpit enclosure which is a comfort thing really, giving us the ability to get out of the wind and rain but still be outside. I guess it's like a conservatory!!

SHAKEDOWN CRUISE - Although we didn't set off to have a shakedown cruise (a period of cruising followed by a period of changing/improving the boat and equipment and the way we do things) I think that is in effect what we have been doing for the last few weeks, we just didn't realise it until now. Here is a list of the main things we seem to have identified we need to change:

ON THE BOAT - We had done much of this since we bought the boat in 2006, there is a huge list elsewhere on the blog but essentially we had got the major systems working e.g. propulsion, electrical, plumbing, refrigeration and added some new stuff e.g. Chartplotter. With the benefit of using the boat the things we 'missed' were:

Radio: This is just about OK for voice and weather fax (weather charts transmitted as faxes which the HF Radio and Modem send to the computer which then displays them) it cannot handle the sail mail (e-mail). Yesterday we spent about an hour with the Sailmail people (they were great) and concluded that the radio, which is probably 20 years old, is past it. We are in the process of ordering a new one.

Anchoring and Anchors: Reflection on the dragging anchor incident has highlighted the following learning:
- Assume the anchor will drag so anchor where there is some room to recover before running into anything
- The risk of dragging is greater where the wind or the tide turns the boat for the first couple of times. I think this is what happened to us, the anchor was set but then unset itself and didn't reset.
- Anchor where you know the bottom to be good, if it says rky (rocky) on the chart then there are probably rocks on the bottom which will make the anchor likely to catch on them and more likely to drag!!
- Fortunately we were prepared so handled the incident pretty well

Ovefr the course of the past few weeks we have reflected on the anchors we have. We have a good sized Bruce which, when properly set in good holding looks like it will hold us in all but the worst conditions and we have a large Danforth which we had assumed we would use as a second anchor where we needed it (tight spot and/or significant tidal currents) and a storm anchor. Before Christmas we were going to use it as a second anchor because we were in a tight spot. I had never taken it off its mountings before and when I did I discovered it is VERY heavy (made from steel rather than the usual aluminum), good for a storm anchor but not good for a second anchor because there is no way that it can be used without a windlass. We have concluded we need an additional Danforth Anchor which weighs much less and can be used as the second anchor retaining the current Danforth as the storm one.

Cockpit Enclosure: The boat has a Bimini which covers the cockpit and keeps much of the sun off you whilst in the cockpit but offers no protection from the breeze. On days like today that makes it too cold to sit up there. We have had a guy out to price the modifications required to the Bimini to make an enclosure and expect to have this done whilst we are in the UK. This will make a huge difference

Compass in the Master Cabin: The anchor dragging incident has made us more conscious of having to monitor the position of the boat, the first sign of the anchor dragging is the boat swinging side on to the wind. This happens before the anchor alarm goes off which only happens once the boat has moved a hundred feet or so. Boats swing about at anchor in a stiff breeze anyway by up to 45 degrees to the wind, much more than this and it may be because the anchor is dragging. When you are lying in bed at night you can hear the wind and you can feel the boat swinging, but you have no visual reference you cannot tell whether this is just the normal swinging or whether it is the start of the anchor dragging. The answer seems to be a compass on the ceiling of the master cabin where we sleep so you can easily check whether the boat is pointing in the direction it should be or if it is not without getting out of bed to do it.

APPROACH TO SAILING - The weather here in the Keys at this time of the year is changeable. Over Christmas and New Year it was nearly 80 during the day and 70 at night and the winds were typically in the 10-15 knot range, pretty much perfect. Over the past week and in the couple of weeks before Christmas it has been closer to 70 in the day and less than 60 at night and for much of the time the winds have been in the North (cold) and over 20 knots. I expect it would have been slightly better in the Bahamas and next month and certainly in March it will improve. Although we should have known this and therefore expected and planned for it we did not. The result is that our expectations of when, where and how we would sail have been somewhat different to the way things have worked out. We need to expect to spend sometimes days where the wind is too high for comfortable sailing and/or in the wrong direction, and the weather too cold to sit in the sun all day. The extent to which you can go where you want, when you want and do what you want is significantly less than I had expected and this has taken some adjustment on my part.

COMMUNICATIONS - We have a whole range of communications kit with us ranging from mobile phones, internet capable machines and radios. That our HF is not quite right has been a pain and would be a show stopper if we don't sort it out. In the Bahamas and beyond it is really the only reliable source of weather information and affordable e-mail so it needs to be fixed. Mobile technology is wonderful but our UK mobile phone bills are too high so we need to find ways of reducing the use of these. The wi-fi antennae we have on the boat to try to increase the range at which we can get internet access has had limited success and we need to experiment with this as I think it might be that putting the antennae in the middle of a whole load of steel wires which make up the rigging may be the problem. Perhaps we need to try to put it lower but further away from the rigging

LIVING ABOARD - This is settling down nicely. Once you get into the rhythm (provisioning, maintenance, laundry, showers, cooking, etc.) then whilst the simple act of living requires much more work than it does on shore it is a pleasant way of life. There is plenty of time to read, blog and do other things). This and the rest of the activities above (sailing and looking after the boat) seem set to take less and less time and energy making more available for some new things like fishing, snorkeling, exploring, etc., etc.

FUTURE PLANS - We seem to be taking to the life of 'adventuring loafers' despite the differences between what we thought we were getting into and how it is shaping up in reality. I think we have the means to do it and we are going to give it a try over the next 12 months or so.

Woooowoooowoooo!

That's the sound the wind makes when blowing at 20-25 knots, an unceasing
woooowoooowoooo! Luckily it is not a 'nails on chalkboard' woooo or
someboday would have been pitched / jumped overboard by now. Actually we're
having a good time! It is very blowy up top, but for those who have been on
our boat you know how cocoony it is below, makes you just want to curl up
with a good book (or several!).

We have reached a final resolution on the HF radio, it is a paperweight with
no repairable qualities. After testing the software, the modem, the tuner,
the wiring, the antenna, the only thing left was the radio and after an
intensive diagnostic test and discussion with the technician at Sailmail,
the technical diagnosis was, "We're beating a dead horse here" which we
through painstaking research have translated to mean it's time to give in
and buy a new radio. Okay, fine, we've reached a decision (yipee!). Since
this is the piece of equipment that will get us a weather report no matter
where we are and, equally important, will allow me to email no matter where
we are, we're not quibbling about this particular purchase.

You wouldn't believe what it looks like up top - bright sunshine, wind
whipping across the bay, seafoam green water, choppy little waves with
little whitecaps on top. The wind has died down a bit, we think it's more
15-20 rather than the 20-25 it was earlier. We'll need to check
Windguru.com to see what today's hour by hour forecast is. In our learnings
about weather, we've found that the NOAA VHF weather forecast is good for
the next 5 periods out, today tonight tomorrow tomorrownight next day, but
doesn't really give you a longer view than that. NOAA's short term forecast
combined with Windguru (which goes out about 7 days) gives us a better view
for planning. Of course, the further you go out the less accurate the
forecast is, but it's helpful to know if there's potentially going to be a
front immediately after the current front, you might make different
decisions. We're looking for other useful weather indicators and rereading
our weather books.

It's interesting, we read every book on this we could get our hands on
before doing this and dozens of blogs written by those actually out there,
but somethings really aren't covered and somethings you just don't
understand until you're in the middle of them - they are too abstract from
day to day living. Here's an example we were talking about this morning, we
know that the weather in Florida in December and January can be rubbish, we
KNOW that! I spent 9 years living here and in the 6 years we've had the
Tampa house, we've spent many a day sitting out on the patio saying, 'Boy,
I'm glad we're not out on the water today!' So why would we not make that
connection - if the weather is crap on land, why would we think it is going
to be any better on the water?! We're very silly, I know.

Another topic of this morning's discussion was an assessment, would we have
been more prepared if we had started sailing when we were 12 and had years
of experience? The decision, in a few ways, yes, in most ways, no. We
would be better at sailing, but little better at cruising. Sailing is
different than Cruising. We would have spent more time on the water, but it
would be a continuation of our Tampa experience, being very selective about
when you go out and running back to the marina when the weather turns bad -
and paying someone to fix things when they go wrong. I sincerely doubt we
ever would have chosen to anchor out for 4 days in 20-25 knot weather if we
had the option of doing something else.

That said, it has been a great experience! It makes you think in ways you
never usually get to. You have to react quickly and intelligently. We're
living more 'in the world' or exposed to the elements more than we ever have
before. And we've discovered that the cushioned lifestyle we've been living
has made us more hesitant about doing things than we realised, more fearful.
The societal messages that we receive, thousands and millions over the
years, have made an impact on us. Don't do this, it's dangerous! Don't do
that, something could happen! Stay in your safe house in front of your safe
telly and if you want to be really risky, try a new restaurant - but be
careful, you might get food poisoning! You hear those messages over and
over until you're afraid to put a foot in the water!

I'm not confusing a lack of fear with stupidity - if you see sharks, don't
jump in next to them with a fish fillet! If the wind is blowing 30 knots,
don't go out in it! But being braver will be a big focus for me in the
coming year. Fear creates a very narrow, small and confined world. Bravery
opens up the whole world to you!

Back to day-to-day living though - Steve is studiously reading now and has
carefully avoided any mention of the Bananagrams tournament, but I know what
he's up to! Let there be games and movies and popcorn - woowoowoo!!!

Test Blog Post from Kindle

A big challenge is finding free ways to access the Internet, Kindle is always online and access is free if you can figure it out . Let's see if this works!

Cold Fronted In

I would say snowed in, but the snow was left in northern parts of the US and what we get here in the Keys is 'merely' the winterish remains in the form of a cold front. Lots of wind which churns up the water and makes it a very good idea to stay in one place. You can always find something to complain about and weather is good for that, but if we're not careful we'll exchange complaining about work and weather in England for boat fixing and weather in the Keys - let's not do that!

But there are similarities to being snowed in when cold fronted in, can't go anyplace, don't want to spend too much time outside (because it's cold!), have to find things to do inside. With the right perspective though, it's nice to have some time to get inside things done and we're making the most of it. And since this cold front isn't really that cold (not like Cayo Costa was!), we're just snuggled up inside with a big list of 'Things To Do On a Blustery Day':

- Plan our trip to the Bahamas, read the charts and map out the best route

- Make popcorn and watch movies (thanks, Jess!)

- Start my needlepoint project that Steve bought me two years ago for my birthday (from a great shop in Grassington)

- Drink hot cocoa in the cold sunshine

- Play guitar and saxaphone

- Get the $^&*(%$ HF radio sending emails and receiving weather faxes (I used to be an IT Director, for goodness sake, I will NOT be bested by a mere radio!)

- Do the business plan for 2009 (you didn't really think we would do NO business, did you?!)

- Make pizza!

And Steve has very kindly consented to a Bananagrams competition which commences tomorrow! This is to determine who is the ultimate resident Bananagrams champion. I contend that the title already belongs to me (nader and heil are legitimate words, aren't they? They must be somewhere!), but he's determined to have it! There will also be more cocktail experimentation, perhaps a hot cocktail?

Note to Claire while I'm thinking of it - the boat cookbooks have been fantastic! We use them every single day and the recipes are excellent - they'd even be very good for land-based cooking! And your blog entry made me laugh!

One Exciting Evening

We arrived at Newfound Harbor early yesterday and settled in knowing that we're going to have a blustery few days. There are a couple of cold fronts passing through the Keys this week bringing winds of 20 knots last night and 25 knots on Thursday / Friday. We anchored close to where we had before and had a relaxing afternoon pottering around and interneting while we had a signal.

The wind picked up, as predicted, in the late afternoon so much so that the little sailboat in front of us began dragging on its anchor and eventually pulled free and headed toward shore. The couple on the boat tried a variety of things including pulling up the two anchors they had out, starting their engine and then finally throwing out another anchor which stopped their progress towards the shore. With the boat under control, the man was able to untangle and pull up his anchors. A man from another little sailboat called over and offered them a bigger anchor.

We watched all this not being able to do much and actually when things are not going well on a boat, the last thing you want is a bunch of 'helpers' shouting confusing advice and getting in your way. You just need to focus on what you're doing without being distracted. We did learn a lot from watching (we've learned tons from watching on this trip!). The anchors on the little boat were small, small enough to be picked up in one hand. They were small because there was no windlass so they had to be light enough to be pulled up by hand. This is okay in fine weather, less than okay in 20 - 25 knots of wind. The man knew what he was doing, the woman did not so there was quite a bit of rushing from doing things which needed to be done on the bow and then back to the stern to deal with steering and the motor. We learned a lot about the reaction time necessary in a dragging anchor situation when the wind is blowing you onto shore, the reaction time is seconds not minutes.

After everything settled back down again, we went down below and analysed what had happened and what we each learned from it. That discussion evolved into what we would need to do and to have to react properly in that situation. And after talking through it for about 45 minutes the things that came out were:

- To have headsets on the table, tested and working
- To have flashlights also out, a head lamp for Steve and a handheld for me
- To set the anchor alarm with a very tight tolerance

And to be very clear and have talked through what the process would be if the anchor dragged:

- Headsets on
- Steve would immediately head for the bow and deal with the anchor
- I would throw the circuit breaker for the engine, start it and man the wheel
- I would start the instruments so we would know where we are
- Based upon what Steve encountered up front, I would move the boat in the required direction
(the Chart Plotter was on deck and plugged in because Steve was worried about corrosion)

We have a lot of confidence in our anchoring tackle, but it makes sense to be prepared particularly when heading for the Bahamas where the holding in some places is tricky. After spending what seemed like a excessively long time dissecting this eventuality, we finished our cocktails and sat down to a lovely clam chowder:

Sailboat Stores Clam Chowder

3 slices of bacon, chopped and fried

Add in and saute until tender:
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped

When tender, add in:
2 potatoes, chopped
1 can of whole clams (or fresh shucked clams if you have them)
1/4 can of the clam juice
Stir for a few minutes with the rest to cover with juice and start cooking

Pour in:
1 can evaporated milk
1 small carton heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup milk

(Evaporated milk tends to be sweeter than I like so I also add in white vinegar (2-3 tblsps to taste) and several shots of soy sauce which cut the sweetness) Simmer until the potatoes are soft and for about 10 minutes more, uncovered so the broth reduces and becomes richer. Enjoy with a glass of wine on a blustery night!

After dinner the wind had really picked up and we were up on deck checking things out before doing the dishes and heading to bed. As we looked around, we realised our anchor was dragging! The boat was moving very rapidly towards shore! We grabbed the gear, started the engine and ran to our places. Steve worked on hauling the anchor while I flipped on the instruments and tried to figure out where we were. It was now pitch black, no moon had risen yet. The boat swung around so the stern was into the wind so Steve had me back into the wind. The depth finder was showing a flat line which meant we were or nearly were aground. I continued to back up and we started to make progress in reverse. Finally the anchor came up and we rev'd it into forward and swung it around into the wind. As we moved forward, we could feel the keel hitting the ground, but Steve said keep going and we made it out into the channel!

With the anchor up and the boat under control, we turned into the wind and set the anchor down again. To make sure it was set, we rev'd the engine in reverse up to 2000 rpms and it didn't move. We were now quite close to the channel, but didn't care because we weren't dragging. Down below to finish the dishes and we rewarded ourselves with that great British restorative (no, not a pint!), a cup of tea!

I'm amazed at how things happen and often think they happen for a reason. If we hadn't had our 'What Would We Do If the Anchor Dragged Discussion' we would have been totally unprepared and it would have been chaos. We wouldn't have been able to see or to hear, and we would have been running around focusing on and trying to do the preparatory things like get lights, start the engine, get in place, realise we couldn't hear each other, etc., etc., rather than focusing on quickly assessing and resolving the problem. It was seconds, not minutes of reaction time. That conversation occurred 30 minutes before we encountered a situation where it was of incredible (perhaps even boat saving) value.

What did we learn? That we need to be even more particular about anchoring, a few minutes on a sunny afternoon adjusting an anchor drop which doesn't seem exactly, exactly right is far, far better than an hour or two resetting an anchor with the wind howling around you in the dark. That our rule about not drinking too much on the boat is a very important one (thank goodness we hadn't over indulged!). That talking through eventualities to the nth level of detail is time well spent and we'll be doing more of that in the future. That being meticulous about things pays off and we need to be more so than we already are. That laying out the equipment you may need may seem silly if you don't need it, but relieves a huge amount of tension if you do. Other bits and pieces we would have found or did find useful during this were:

Million candle power light (my flashlight was not strong enough to see far away)
Also need to have the Pilot circuit breaker on so I can see where the rudder is (this was less important, but would have been helpful)
Handheld compass (for down below anchor watching)
Handheld GPS (for down below anchor watching)
Chart Plotter

But perhaps the biggest learning was about our confidence and the change in our ability to handle these things. At the beginning of December, I would have lost it and been useless during this situation. Last night (except for a little 'Oh,no, oh,no, oh, no' to which Steve replied, 'What's wrong?! so I quick shut up!), I focused on what needed to be done and did an equal part in working to solve the problem. If Steve had had to run back and forth between the anchor and the helm, it would have been far more difficult for him. We were incredibly lucky to have seen what we saw which prompted a very good discussion so we were ready(ish) to handle a tricky situation. Somebody was looking out for us and for that I am very thankful! I'm always impressed with Steve's skills in these situations (although he still won't wear his Captain's hat) and the way we work together has improved even more. We are a much, much stronger partnership than when we started.

And the boat is fine and so are we.

Readings - Some Interesting Contrasts

Currently in the middle of three books - Bushwacked, on some of Bush's years in office and the damage done to America in those years, The Audacity of Hope by Barak Obama with his views on what's been happening in American government and what needs to happen to improve it, and The Art of Happiness by the Dalia Lama. Am only about halfway through each, but finding each very interesting in its own way.

Bushwacked covers Bush's activities during his time as governor of Texas (much of this was also covered in the author's previous book on Bush - Shrub) and how those same activities and approach have been applied to governing the nation rather than just a state. A lot of it covers how individuals have been affected. Reading it, although it has been written as a comedic expose, could make you cry.

When Bushwacked makes me too depressed, I switch to Obama's Audacity of Hope. Although he presents some dark pictures of government today - the great Senate debates in which the debator stands in an empty room with no listeners except for the C-SPAN cameras - "In the world's greatest deliberative body, no one is listening." He talks a lot about the influence of business on politics and I'm reading a lot lately in other places about the drive for separation of corporation and state. There is much which is about seeing both sides of issues and the perspective of people in this country. Should be really interesting to see how much of this he puts into play as he moves into the presidency.

The Art of Happiness provides an interesting perspective on finding happiness while living, which leads to some thinking on why the economies of the US and UK are the way they are right now. Individuals and businesses both contributed to this situation (although I would argue that businesses should have known better, being the 'experts'), by spending more than they have creating a house of cards collapsing when the right amount of pressure is applied. The Art of Happiness discusses why people do this, usually it is done to fulfill a need not being met elsewhere in one's life, usually this boils down to the pursuit of happiness. There was one particular point that really struck home for me in what the Dalia Lama had to say - there is a difference between happiness and pleasure.

Often times in today's society the two are confused and pleasure is pursued rather than happiness, and the two are quite different. Pleasure is having that second piece of cheesecake or the whole pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, pleasure is the feeling you get when buying that new car or a bigger house. Happiness can be health, fitness and is definitely financial freedom. Pleasure is finite and short lived - think of how long you enjoyed that last raise (statistically that enjoyment lasts about 15 minutes). Uncontrolled pleasure seeking often results in a reduction in happiness - bills piling up at the end of the month, stretching to make ends meet, weight gain. Happiness is a constant, although people are found to have differing levels of happiness. Levels of happiness can be increased or decreased often based upon one's approach to pleasure. A big learning for me was a simple question that I will use when making decisions, 'Will this bring me happiness or will it bring me pleasure?'

Dry Tortugas Bound

Heading out today for the Dry Tortugas. This is not to be confused with Tortuga of Pirates of the Caribbean fame. The Dry Tortugas are about 75 miles off the coast of Key West and the location of a much raved about national park. With some stops for sitting out weather, we think it will take about a week to get there.

It is the location of Fort Jefferson, a former fort and at one time a prison. The only way you can get there is by boat and besides the fort there are two park rangers - no fresh water, no place to put trash, nada. We have to bring everything we want to have while we are there, which actually shouldn't be that difficult because we've restocked the boat. What is there is a beautiful anchorage, some fabulous snorkeling and a definite deserted island feel - which is just what we're in the mood for!

Boot Key Harbor is very nice, but there are a lot of boats there! Makes for lots to watch and lots of noise - engines running to charge boat batteries and (my personal aggravation) generators, which unfortunately are run at all hours of the day or night (and sometimes all day and night!).

Along the way, we'll stop at some familar and new places - Newfound Harbor (where we're staying tonight), Key West (to sit out the cold front(s)), the Marquesas (if the coast guard will let us) and then a long day's sail (40-50 miles) over to the Dry Tortugas.

Red Book Next Steps - Turning Wishes and Dreams into Reality

We spent New Year's Day working on this year's Red Book, our wishes, dreams, vision for 2009. Then we set it aside for a couple weeks to let it 'furgle' (furgling is a Steve term for letting something simmer). Since it's set a bit and we're still happy (and excited) about what we've drafted, now it's time to get started turning our dreams into reality. Today we're sitting down with the Red Book and beginning to plan. For us this means taking each item we want to accomplish (the wishes and dreams) and breaking them down into what does Steve need to do and what do I need to do to make that item happen.

Here's an example. One of our aspriations for this year -is to get into the best physical shape of our lives (incredibly brave of me to put that into print, isn't it?!). We're mid 40's and now is the time to do it. This is a big and exciting goal, but left by itself it won't turn into reality. Very simplistically, it needs to be surrounded by lots of little goals that added together deliver the big and exciting goal. Each little goal baby steps you closer and closer to the big one. You also get a sense of achievement with every little goal you accomplish, knowing that you're one step closer and you're making progress on the big one.

So how do we get to 'best physical shape of our lives'? Some of it we've already started on our sailing trip. Steve has lost 30-40 pounds, I've lost an undisclosed amount. We're both more active and flexible than we've been in years. The foundation is in place with last year's goals. Now we have to do something that will take us to the next level. In our plan we want to spend a bit of time in England and Europe next year, we want to start the hunt for a place in Italy and we've been talking about doing a bicycle trip for a few years now so we're going to combine those with the goal of getting into great physical shape into a bike trip around Italy - on a tandem!

So how do we turn that into reality? Well, we need to be in England (buy tickets - K), we need to have a route (plan the route - S), we need train tickets to get the bike to Italy (research trains and buy tickets - K), we need to get in shape so we can spend all that time on a bike (work up to 25 miles per day on bikes - S&K), need a tandem (research and narrow selection - K, try and make final selection - S&K), book first night hotel and find list of potential B&Bs to stay at along the way (research, make reservation - S). Those are just a few of the steps which get us to achieving that goal.

For each goal we do this, then we each add our tasks to our individual to-do lists and then begin working on them. This may seem like common sense or what you read in all the books, but there are some things that make this approach different for us. We do it together at a time of year when it is exciting to set goals, we break what we want to do into small steps that fit onto the daily to-do lists, they're little so they get done. We get together to review the list and our progress every month or so which refocuses us on what we want to do (versus what those who may not have our interests at heart want us to do), and we check off what we've accomplished along the way which gives us the opportunity for a boost, "We're really making good progress on this one, aren't we?" or to infuse a bit more effort, "Whoops, haven't made much progress on that one, we need to..." And it is fun to get together once a month and go over our lists and see how much closer we are to doing the things we want to do! It keeps us working together on where we want to get to rather than drifting off in different directions. And the final thing that makes it different is most of the things we want to accomplish are really fun and exciting (we try to stay away from ho-hum goals), we focus on things that make us say, "Yes! It would be so cool if we could do that!!!"

That's how we take something huge and make into something we get done, year on year - great big wishes to reality and how we have fun with it along the way.

One Pair of Shorts - 80 Cents

On the trip back from Miami, we hit the outlet mall for some new shorts. 95% off, 80 cents for mine!

Bye Jess and Matt, We'll Miss You!

After a wonderful three weeks, Jess and Matt are off to the UK. It was really great having them visit and suprisingly having 4 people on a 42 foot boat works - nothing broke, nobody fell off!

Both Jess and Matt's sailing skills have grown to the extent that they were doing a lot more boating activities than washing the dishes (although they d

id help with those too)! By the end of the trip, Jess was driving the dingy by herself (with some adventures along the way)!

Last night we went to Castaways, a restaurant on one of the canals here in Boot Key Harbor. They have a dock so we just took the dingy and tied up while we had dinner. This was the prize for winning the cocktail competition - my choice and no dishes for anyone! Huge portions of local fish (and meat for the meat lovers in the crowd)

(Steve and I have decided we're just going to split meals from now on, they're definitely too big to eat in one go.)

They get the best rating you can give your guests - We can't wait for them to come back again!

Jess and Matt's time on Snowbird

Matt: As our time out here in Florida is drawing to an end, we thought it would be good to do a quick blog posting covering all the great things we have been up to over the past three weeks. Jess came out first on December 22nd and I joined the party after Christmas on the 27th so the first thoughts on Christmas aboard a sail boat will be all Jess' work!

Jess: My first week was great! We went to Key West, and got the boat ready for Christmas. My favourite part of it was sitting in the sun, using the dingy, checking out Marathon and exploring Key West (and of course Christmas). Christmas day was great because we opened all the presents on deck in the bright sunshine plus i got eggs Benedict and a full turkey dinner. The day Matt got out here we went to Miami and had dinner on South Beach at a great Italian restaurant but sadly i didn't see Horatio Kane during our visit. After dinner we went to pick up Matt at the airport, he looked really tired but very excited to be here.

The next day we drove to Key West to introduce Matt to the Key's way of life and get a bit of shopping done whilst we had a car and boot space! We also went for a cheeseburger in paradise and I had a Margarita at Margaritaville. Once we got back to Marathon we started our journey South with the goal of reaching Key West by New Years eve!

Matt: So after being kindly given a day of R&R off the back of my travel day it was agreed amongst the established contingent that they had been in the same place for too long and it was time to set sail. So on the 29th we sailed down to an anchorage called Newfound Harbour on Big Pine Key for a night and then it was on to Key West the next day.

We anchored just off Wisteria Island by the opening to the marina where we could dock the dingy when we wanted to come ashore. The next few days were filled with more shopping, eating, kayaking, sunbathing and tandem riding. The latter saw us hire two tandems and explore the town visiting the southernmost point, the lighthouse and having the biggest ice creams in the world. All this activity was interspersed with some great "on board" meals courtesy of both the kitchen and the BBQ and the highly competitive cocktail competition which was won comprehensively by Katherine... the only vote she didn't get was her own!!

All in all we spent four full days in Key West and had a great time with glorious weather throughout but, sadly come Sunday it was time to start heading North again.

Jess: After leaving KW we headed back to Newfound Harbour to stay overnight. It was a bit of a rough sailing day but we are sailing with experts so it didn't seem hard at all. I got to read my book on deck so I was happy. We stayed at the anchorage over night and then we were on to BAHIA HONDA!

We anchored at the Bahia Honda national park for 2 whole days. It was a great spot and anyone who goes there should ignore the books that discourage people from staying here. While we were here we went to the park and walked to the top of Flaglers bridge which is pretty amazing. We also went snorkeling and sat on the beach or in the shade for some of us.

You may wonder what we did in the evenings after the sun went down every night. After toasting the sun and competing in our cocktail competition we would play games. So far we have played articulate, bananagrams, and liars dice. So we kept just as busy in the evening as we did during the day.

When we left Bahia Honda it was a short trip back to Marathon but we got to sail there as well. Now we have made it to Marathon and back where we started all that is left is to pack up and head home. :( But I can say for both Matt and myself we have had a fantastic trip, probably the best ever!

Matt: It has been really great and although there is some grumpiness about heading back to the cold of England, we are totally relaxed and sporting good sun tans so its not all bad news!!

Lastly a big thank you to Katherine and Steve for putting us up (or should that be putting up with us!!) for the last two/three weeks. It has been great fun and we very much look forward to you visiting us in Windsor next month.

PS pictures to come later!

A Day at the Beach

Bahia Honda Day. We wandered around today, enjoying the park with its dual beaches. One beach faces the Atlantic and then you walk a short distance and you're

on a beach facing the Gulf of Mexico. There were lots of Man O'Wars (jellyfish) on the Atlantic side so we spent most of the day on the Gulf side. Jess taught us all how to snorkle and Steve was a natural. It's a skill we're going to need when we reach the Baham

as. The water was perfect (if a bit chilly, Joe!) and we were able to see fish, shells, sponges, coral and lots of other things

in the sea grass. There is also the remains of the old Flagler railroad bridge which you can walk up on and see the entire island spread out before you, and Snowbird patiently waiting in the harbor.

Bahia Honda

Tonight's anchorage is at Bahia Honda Park, one of the most beautiful beaches in the US. Jess and Matt have already been snorkling while Steve and I 'watched the boat' (code for read and snoozed on deck).

We had a great trip up this morning, skirting some nasty looking rain clouds. More motorsailing today up top while Jess and I made mayo for the potato salad.

Tonight is the final night of the cocktail competition with Jessie's
entry (finally!). Steve made his last night, a Burgundy Bishop -
winning the award for 'most intoxicating'!

Jess and Matt Have Control!

Today was Jess and Matt's day to run the boat! The morning started with a breakfast route briefing by Jess. The anchor was raised by Matt with Jess at the helm. We then headed out of Key West Harbor and turned east back to Newfound Harbor. The route is a familar one which is good for a first day running the show (rather than one where it's all tricky, shallow and new). The wind was from the east which meant motoring, but we were able to put the sails up for a bit to get some extra speed. Jess 'manned the helm' for most of the day watching the instruments and making steering adjustments based on the wind changes. It was windy and bouncing, but a nice day nonetheless.

I made Toll House Cookies and achieved hero status amongst the Brit contingent. Matt's on dinner duty tonight and Steve is making his entry into the cocktail competition.

Tandeming for Four

Jess took us to Pepe's for breakfast - wohoo, we love Pepe's! It was packed, but the food was great so we didn't mind waiting. After a huge breakfast, we rented the tandem bikes again and introduced Jess and Matt to tandeming through Key West. Southernmost Point, the lighthouse, the beach, the pretty houses, the marketplace, Mallory Square were all visited and then topped off with the biggest ice cream we've ever had! (Note to self, Steve and I have to start splitting these things, they are just too big!). It was a great day out, but very sad to say, we forgot the camera!

Jess's entry into the cocktail competition is deferred until tomorrow night because we used up all the ice last night and forgot to make more. She did do a very nice un-iced cocktail, but the judges decided it was an unequal playing field and allowed another submission - again.

New Year's Day

Happy New Year to all our Family and Friends! We miss you all and are looking forward to seeing you soon. Hope your memories of 2008 are wonderful and 2009 leads to many more!

The day started with completion of this year's 'Red Book' plan (details on the Red Book in an earlier post). Steve and I sat down together in the early morning with coffee and watched the sun come up and talked through the things we want to do in the coming year. Our main categories were the same, Relationship, Kids, Family (UK & US), Travel, Finances, Business, Houses/Cars/Boat, and Personal / Skills Growth, but the focus on the individual categories has changed or the approach to a category has changed. In Relationship, for example, the approach has changed from how do we make sure that we have a relationship when we're living in two separate countries and running around like chickens with our heads cut off to how do we keep the relationship special and not take each other for granted when we're together 24 hours a day. The business is shifting to a more property oriented one with kids involvement and we do want to spend some time in Europe this year so we've fit that in.
We're going back to England in February because I GOT MY UK CITIZENSHIP!!! So we'll spend about two and a half weeks over there visiting with Jess in Windsor, having a family party the weekend of the 21st - Italian Night, everyone is invited and for those whose gifts we couldn't get over there at Christmas (Claire and Chris, Ellie and Louis) that's where they'll be! Then it will be back to the US and we'll do the crossing over to the Bahamas (we're enjoying the Keys so much that we're going to 'gunkhole' or 'pootle around' a bit here between the time that Jess and Matt leave and when we go back to the UK). Eileen, we've really aclimatised to the Florida temperature and Steve shivers when it gets down to 60 so I suspect we'll be keeping the house very warm!

The plan came together relatively quickly this year, but I think that was because we had an initial pass at it during our Croatia trip where we talked quite a bit about what we would do 'after'. Although it takes a while to come to agreement on what we want to do, once it's agreed, that's what we both work together on doing rather than constantly trying to negotiate things while 'in the moment' during the year - much less stressful and easier on the relationship!

We then packed a picnic lunch, Jess blew up the kayak and we took the kayak, lunch and dingy over to Wisteria Island. We did a bit of kayaking around the island, had lunch on the beach and Jess tested out her snorkle. We saw a stingray swim by about 2 feet away and then very carefully did the 'stingray shuffle' back to the beach. Lovely day and we all got too much sun.

Jess's entry into the cocktail competition is deferred until tomorrow night because we used up all the ice last night and forgot to make more. She did do a very nice un-iced cocktail, but the judges decided it was an unequal playing field and allowed another submission.

The Competition Continues

New Year's Eve in Key West actually turned out to be a bit quiet for us. After a wander around and lunch at the Conch Harbor Restaurant on the waterfront, we did our grocery shopping (this is very interesting to do when you have no car to put the groceries in and you have to shlep them a half a mile to the dingy dock, lucky for us we had two extra shleppers with Jess and Matt!). We splurged and had the laundry 'done' - so nice when somebody else washes, dries, and folds! Back to the boat with out getting the laundry or the groceries or us soaked - a refreshing change.

We decided since we're on 'boat time' to celebrate the New Year when it changed in the UK, but then we realised that would be 7:00 and that would be just ridiculous so we settled on 9:00 which after we thought through all the different times zones settled on somewhere in the Atlantic (the Azores, perhaps?). It was an early evening, but with cocktails, champagne and a barbeque lots of fun. Matt made his entry into the cocktail competition:

Citronella Cooler

1 oz citrus vodka (can use regular vodka)
1 dash lime juice
2 oz lemonade
1 oz cranberry juice

There was no discernable leap forward in entry rankings (as Matt's cocktail was delicious) so the competition continues and we're eagerly awaiting Jess and Steve's entry, along with any virtual entrants!