The good people over at Sailrite are currently having a photo contest regarding projects in need of repair.  First place takes home a $250 gift certificate good for use at Sailrite.  Needless to say, between Sabrina making new cushions, modifying the dodger, and the repairs needed for the bimini, we’re getting VERY familiar with Sailrite, and we’ll definitely put that $250 to quick use!  So vote HERE.  Our entry is titled “Bimini Repair” and uses the picture below.  If the hyperlink didn’t work, here’s the full path: http://wildfireapp.com/website/6/contests/139662

Nermal watching the birds

For those of you that may be unfamiliar with Sailrite, they sell everything you need to repair sails, canvas, and cushions (to mention a few things.)  Not only that, but they provide in-depth videos on how to use their products to make do-it-yourself repairs or products, and most of the instructions are FREE. Naturally, we gravitate to high quality products which are designed for the DIY-er that also include free instruction… so we spend a lot of time on the Sailrite website.

Please stop over to Sailrite and vote for us, if we win you’ll get to follow along as we repair our bimini and prepare for mounting our solar panels above it!

With fewer than three months to departure, our lives are full of questions: where to store scuba tanks, how exactly will we mount the solar panels, where will we even BE in six months?

And… can our cat swim?

We discovered the answer to that last question bright and early this morning.

Nermal is a relatively new addition to the crew. He was one in a litter of stray kittens born at Bohemia Bay  last summer. He was very friendly and joined the crew in November as a “foster kitty.” At least one of us planned to find him a permanent (landlubbing) home. I repeatedly pointed out all of the extremely logical reasons why we should not have a cat on board: fur, limited space, a litter box, added travel complications… fur. Brad convinced me that we should keep him “just a little longer.” My husband knows me well and quite quickly, I was in love and our kitty had a permanent, floating home.

Except for the occasional snowball we brought inside for entertainment (yes, we got a little bored with no TV and plenty of snow last winter), Nermal had no interest in the outdoors when it was cold. But since summer has arrived, he enjoys hanging out in the cockpit, chasing spiders and watching the sparrows try to nest in our mast (that’s another post entirely).

So early in the morning, I usually let him hang out, leaving the companionway open and checking on him every few minutes. So far, without incident. This morning, though, I checked on him one minute, and he was sitting primly on top of the coachroof. I went back below to make coffee, popped my head up no more than a minute and a half later, and he was gone. I frantically scanned the empty dock and listened to the early morning, mid-week silence of the marina. My heart dropped into my stomach. I turned and looked around the water, and there he was, swimming like a little orange otter in the middle of the fairway. I ran down to the dingy dock he was heading for and forced myself to pause before diving in after him (the dead fish floating 3 yards away helped). He was moving like a little speedboat and didn’t appear to be struggling, so I just encouraged him until he was close enough to grab.

Both of us drenched and relieved, we climbed the ladder and headed back to the boat for a bath and some treats.

So now we know our cat can swim like an otter, and being sea-loving people, we couldn’t be happier. Maybe someday he will even follow in the pawsteps of this feline trailblazer and enjoy fish from a different perspective!

I hope the kitty and I have both learned something from this. For my part, I’m revoking unsupervised outdoor privileges for now, and I’m moving “Make Cat Rescue Net” to the top of the TO DO list.

We’re told that a dinghy is one of the most important pieces of equipment a cruiser brings along. Previously I’ve written about some of the things that I want from a dinghy and how we have tried to figure out exactly what we’ll need in the future.

When we purchased Joint Venture, a dinghy and outboard were included. The dinghy was a West Marine 9′ PVC high pressure air floor that fully rolls up into a small, easy to carry package. (The dinghy would actually fit into one of our lazarettes.)   The outboard was a 5hp two stroke Mercury.  Originally we thought this dinghy was nice, it was easy to store and lightweight, but the dinghy wouldn’t go fast with two people, so we never used it, and we put it into storage.

An additional problem with PVC dinghies is the fact that they don’t last long in bright sunlight, therefore they aren’t recommended for long term use in the Caribbean. Over the winter we found a used Apex 9′ dinghy made out of “Hypalon” on Craigslist.  This dinghy still rolls up but has a folding aluminum floor that hopefully would help it move faster than the PVC dinghy with our 5hp Merc. I inflated the Apex a few weeks ago to see if it would hold air long term, and it did!

So, over the last week I dug our outboard out of the storage facility and blew off the dust.  After a few tweaks to the engine and some new gas, it is running great! (This was actually shocking, I even bought a carburetor rebuild kit and didn’t need to use it, I’ll save the kit for later.) 

But we have another problem, the new Apex just isn’t big enough or fast enough for what we think we need.  The Apex was a step in the right direction, it’s scary fast with just me in it, but with two people the top speed is only 6mph. That’s not going to work if I’m trying to bring ice back to the sailboat on a hot day! The Apex would be the perfect dinghy for a short ride to a restaurant on the Bay, but we don’t think it’s going to work for us.

Here’s what we want from our dinghy:

• Small, lightweight and easy to manage
• Suitable for scuba diving (two persons, two tanks, etc.)
• Enter areas where the sailboat can’t go due to depth
• Grocery runs, and runs to shore for up to four people
• Ability to explore an island from a single anchorage
• And…. Affordable $$$

The biggest problem with our list above is that a bigger dinghy that will move fast and work for scuba diving is not lightweight or affordable.  So we need to strike a balance, and that’s where we are now.

Our friends say that a cruiser’s dinghy is their car.  Right now we need to figure out if we need an SUV or a hatchback.

One member of the crew hates the noise of the engine and prefers that I row the dinghy:

Nermal hated the engine noise

(Special thank you to icanhascheezburger.com for the above pic which has been slightly edited to reinforce my point.)

Recently I’ve expanded our online presence, we have this shiny new blog, new email addresses, a domain name, and I’m trying to sell everything we don’t need on eBay or Craigslist.  One thing is a constant throughout all these areas: scammers.

I can’t tell you how many iPad 2’s I’ve won, how many people want me to pay me to write blog articles for them, or how many people guarantee me that I could rank better in google searches! It’s amazing because at some point, they must turn a profit on those things, and I wonder HOW?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a product of the internet age. I couldn’t live without google. I follow blogs. I prefer emails to human interaction. I have signed up for every “reduce paperwork, receive your documents electronically” that I can possibly find. And we have this blog to keep friends and family informed on our adventures. So, I’m not afraid of someone stealing my bank accounts, and I’m not frantically dialing “LifeLock” to Relentlessly Protect My Identity.

But I just can’t shake this feeling that the internet is one huge scam waiting to happen. Even legitimate people respond to local Craigslist ads with emails like, “Will you deliver this 200 miles out of your way for a $40 item?”  Guess what? “NO.”  And don’t get offended when I say, “NO.” My ad says, ‘local pick-up only,’ learn to read carefully before you try to purchase things on the internet. Maybe these people are the ones responding to a nice Nigerian Prince who is looking for someone to help him move a large sum of money?

Most recently a guy in Australia tried to purchase my ski boat. (This may come as a shock, but the deal fell through….) The eBay ad clearly stated, ‘US buyers only, buyer responsible for pick-up, cash due at pick-up, etc.’  Yet he felt compelled to purchase the boat, and he got offended when I wouldn’t accept anything other than cash!

And that’s why I’m annoyed, even legitimate people are coming across as frauds. It’s hysterical to read articles on how best to sell things on the internet, the most frequent answer is ‘don’t.’ I want to believe people are honest (just like by boat buyer in Australia), but the overwhelming trend seems to be that they aren’t.

So be careful out there, trust your instincts, and if you ever get an email from me saying that I’m locked up abroad and need money, be sure to call me to confirm.  Follow this guy’s example:

And never forget the best use of the internet – poorly captioned images of cats doing funny stuff.

“99 days left till we leave on our cruise, 99 days left to go!
No time to be lazy, try not to go crazy, 98 days left till we leave on our cruise!”
                 (Yes, I realize I might be leaning towards the crazy side….)

The days keep slipping away, I try to maximize what gets done, and plan ahead for what comes next, but it is a daunting task.  Something I realized is that when I say, “We’re leaving in 3 months” it sounds like a lot longer time frame than “We’re leaving in 98 days.” I don’t know why “3 Months” sounds better, but from here on out I think I’m going to say that.

I received some good news this morning, the carb rebuild kit for our dinghy outboard and the alternator and pulley kit for the Westerbeke diesel both arrived. I’m ecstatic about receiving the alternator parts because that means that I can finalize some things on our diesel engine.  An added bonus is that I get to work inside in the A/C in this heat!

More to follow tonight with pictures of the alternator installation with our brand new serpentine pulley set.  This 160 amp system built by ElectroMaax and coordinated by Cruise RO Water and Power will definitely be worthy of its own blog post!

Also, we just passed 200 unique visitors in our last 30 days! I can’t believe that we’ve had that many people stop by, hopefully we can keep things interesting for the next 98 days until we shove off.  Upon departure I hope the posts will just about write themselves and the pics will be far more interesting than engines, alternators and gelcoat repair.

Stay tuned because in the next couple weeks I’ll be rebuilding my first carburetor.  Those of you that know my mechanical prowess should realize that this should be worth a laugh….

Our countdown clock doesn’t care that the heat index is 105° and that the Weather Channel strongly suggests that I stay inside. With only double-digit days remaining, it’s time to start checking items fully off the list.  I have a lot of projects that are halfway there, the goal is to get them fully to the finish line.

This is a tough job when the heat is high, but I have a few things that I can finish up inside the boat.  We’ll see where the day goes, but hopefully at the end there are fewer things on my ultimate to-do list.