Sorry the postings have been a little less frequent, we have had a few changes that I am still adjusting to. The first of course is me working - it is only about 10-15 hours a week, but the days vary (depending on when they have work that could use a third person), and second is Michael has been spending a lot more time at the boat, so he has commandeered my nav station ;-p
Today I am at the apartment, we took our whole bimini cover off to wash it and try to apply some water repellant. Unfortunately, when we put it in the washer, more of the seams popped.... so we will be visiting Bill and Stephanie again tomorrow, at least that is a positive!
We also finally got all the necessary paperwork to get Bean her drivers license! She has an endorsement that makes it basically a permit right now (she hasn't driven in 20 years, so she wants to get a little time behind the wheel before taking the road test), but we are all super excited for her. One more little bit of independence, and one more way she can help out once I start working full time again - running errands during the day and sharing the driving load with me.
In our free time, we leveled up on sailing! We went out last Friday afternoon once Michael finished working. We actually plotted a course down to Redfish island (only about 8nm, but the first course we have tried to follow instead of just messing around tacking and jibing). Once we got about an hour away (the wind was VERY light - we were only doing about 1.5kts), it was starting to get near dusk, so we had to decide if this was the time to try anchoring, or if it was the time to try our first night sail!
We went for the former and anchored out overnight by redfish island. It took us two tries to land the anchor, but we got it set. We have a chain rode, and we used two rope snubbers (one on each bow cleat) to take the weight off the windlass. Michael didn't sleep much because we were swinging quite a bit and none of were sure of how the anchor alarm worked, and just general uneasiness - gotta learn sometime! We came through the night with a bit of drift though, and felt super good in the morning. Bean and I had dropped an anchor twice in our 103/104 class, but it was just a small anchor attached to a rope rode, dropped it, set it, pulled it up, repeat, and then on with the day, so this definitely felt like an accomplishment to us.
We had our longest day sailing that Saturday, we made our way back towards Galveston and then just played around again for about 9 hours before finally heading it and calling it a weekend. It was an amazing time, and we definitely all felt good about. We are looking forward to doing it again soon - on Michael's next vacation if not before (November).
I've been working about 2-3 days a week, learning a ton and really enjoying getting the experience. I am understanding a lot more of the pieces I had read about in theory when I was first planning out my own system, but had never actually put into practice once we scaled it down. I have helped run lines, installed some Orion DC-DC converters, put many butt and lug connectors on, learned about ferrules and used them, learned about serial cables and their connection to the main brain in the Victron equipment, and just generally had a good time getting to know our friends better and solidifying and increasing my electrical knowledge. Oh - I also got my first paycheck! It felt so good to get a check again, it's been so long ;-)
Other than that, we met up with a long lost college friend who we had not seen in 20 years, and got to meet his wife (of 10 years!) for the first time. They are on a similar parallel journey to ours. They sold everything and boat a land yacht, and are currently on a trip from Florida to California with several stops along the way. It was wonderful to catch up with them, hear about their fun times, their adventures, and share a few stories. They should be coming back this way in February, so we are hoping to connect and maybe take them out for a sail on the way back through.
Anyway, I know my thoughts have been a little scattered here - I'll try to write more often so it isn't quite so all over the place next time! We are having fun and enjoying the adventures and looking forward to the future and all it has to offer :-)
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