And So It Begins

     Today, Sharon and I went to the boat.  Although we only went for the day, we did manage to do some work.  First, we had to take a load of "stuff" from our bedroom to the boat.  We had been using our bedroom as a staging area for the past 2 months, and it was getting a little crowded.  So we got to the boat and unloaded the truck.  While we were there I decided to run the bilge pump.  Despite being on the hard ,the bilge does get  water in it from rain, especially when it blows onto the cockpit and the lazarette hatch, which has drains leading to the bilge.  It hadn't been run since our trip in late December.  Well, we did run the  motor, but it didn't pump.  Upon further investigation I discovered the base housing for the diaphragm pump had split open, probably from freezing.  Before we can launch the boat this spring we need to repair/replace the bilge pump.......and so it begins.

T-Minus 8 and Counting

     Because we downsized in 2005, we do not have a lot of "stuff" to liquidate.  But nonetheless, the work  has started.  Our plan is to have a yard sale Memorial Day weekend.  The housing development we live in has a community yard sale every year.  This event has been held for 10 years or more and has a good draw.  Hopefully, we will have a successful sale.
     I don't know if our plans to secure a heated storage room will keep us attached to the dirt, but we will give it a try.  We realize that we can't be full time cruisers the rest of our lives.  We are hoping to be nomadic boaters for at least 10 years.  There are some possessions we are not ready to part with as we may want them for a home later on in our lives or to pass onto the boys. So we had decided to rent a 5' X 5' storage room that is heated.  However, Sharon's sister and brother-in-law offered a corner in their basement at just the right price - free.  Thank you D & L! Hopefully this will help preserve those items while in long term storage.   Most of the items we are keeping have been packed waiting to be placed in storage.
     Our home is starting to look a little barren.  Our art work is packed.  We have started pricing and storing items for the big "moving" sale.  The spare bedroom has turned into a staging area for different transition projects.  The wheels are in motion and they don't have brakes!
     We received our passports (book & card), and what were good photos when taken at the post office did not fair well with the actual fabrication of the pass book and pass card.  Oh well - that won't dampen our spirits when we are "who knows where".

     Boat projects are always on the priority list but sometimes you have to look elsewhere.  That's what happened in February with the 3 major snow storms.

    Hopefully winter will loosen its grip on the east coast, and I can get to the boat and start working.  I've started ordering some parts and materials for some of the smaller projects.  The larger projects need to wait until after the boat has been put over the side.
       

Mother Nature's Artwork

Another snowstorm and this one was truly a blizzard for us.  The snow started Wednesday, but the wind didn't start cranking until Thursday night.  This photo is of one of our shrubs in the flower bed.  The wind prevented the snow from piling up on the shrub, however the wind did cause the snow to fill in the voids.  I guess you could call it a "porcupine snowball".

Flashback (Closing Arguments)

     Sharon and I have visited the Adirondack region on numerous occasions, and each subsequent trip was better than the previous trip.  We discovered kayaking in the Adirondacks, which led to our mothership kayaking adventure in Alaska.  Kayaking will be part of our full-time cruising plans on board M/V Big Run.

     The Adirondack  Park exists because of the efforts by early conservationists when this country was still in the industrial revolution.  Commercialization of the land within the park should be halted. Private lands within the park boundaries should be purchased when they become available to ensure the park's survival.  Accessibility (motor vehicles) directly to lakes and remote areas should be kept at a minimum, reduced or stopped, as this type of development would increase pressure for additional services by those individuals that only care about their personal comfort . The park must be "protected" from exploitation by those who have no respect for what we have inherited.  Wilderness and remote areas need to be protected to maintain the ecological balance. The vision of those early pioneers must never be lost.
 
     If you have the opportunity to visit the Adirondacks, do your research and enjoy one of the Northeast's great outdoor experiences. Take nothing but pictures and  leave nothing but footprints.
       

Flashback (Let Your Imagination Run Wild!)

     We have mentioned numerous times about the designated campsites on the lakes of the Adirondacks.  Here is a photo of just one campsite that we visited on Little Tupper Lake.  The stone fireplace was placed here long before that area was developed into a designated campsite for paddlers.  Was the fireplace for cooking and heating of a trapper's cabin?  Did it serve as a centerpiece for a private hunting and fishing lodge?  Or did it witness the trials and tribulations of Lumberjacks?  We did find a few more ruins on other lakes that are also earmarked by just a stone fireplace, but those sites have been consumed by the forest.  So much history and nobody to tell the stories. 

The Icy Grip of Winter

     After speaking with the marina by telephone on Friday, Sharon and I drove down to the marina today to rescue the boat from ol' man winter.  Although Maryland's Eastern Shore had received 46" of snow between the 2 blizzards that hit the Mid-Atlantic in the last week, the boat actually faired very well.  Except for the 3' snow drift on the port side (see photo), there was not that much snow on the boat.

 

     The boat did suffer one casualty, the flybridge cover experienced catastrophic failure at the seams and had to be dispatched to the local dumpster.  That will seal the deal on a bimini for the flybridge sooner than later.

The photo below depicts the talents of Canadian Geese and their ability to walk on water.

     The tides come and go, rise and fall, but the ice remains.

Big Blue Skies

      The blizzard of 2010 has ended and the blue skies are upon us.  With 14" of snow on Saturday and 16"  of snow on Tuesday/Wednesday we are max'd out for places to pile it up.  Fortunately, we did not get the strong winds that were predicted.  Sharon and I have plans to go to the boat on Saturday.  I haven't talked to the marina yet, but to the best of my calculations they have received 40"+ of snow from the last 2 storms.  More shoveling to do.  Yes, I still love snow.

Well Deserved Break

 

     We started shoveling snow when the driveway had about 4 inches of snow laying on it.  We started at the top  of the driveway because they had just plowed the road and the entrance to our driveway was plowed shut.  3 hours later when we got to the garage the snow measured 9 inches deep.  In the above photo, Sharon is taking a well deserved rest.  The red stripe in the photo on the left is Grant's VW Jetta.  You can also see how heavy the snow was falling.  

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

     We just received 14 inches of snow this past weekend and are expecting another plowable (6"-14") snow event on Tuesday into Wednesday.  Bob is very happy to have our last winter in Pennsylvania filled with so much snow.  The photo shows Sharon standing in front of the garage door with a snow drift in front of her.

T-Minus 9 and Counting

     Of all the government programs available to make your life miserable, applying for new passports was quite painless, although we did suffer from the lighter wallet syndrome.  We had filled out the passport application online and then printed the application to expedite the process at the post office.  When we arrived at the post office, the only person ahead of us was filling out his passport application at the counter instead of using the table the post office had set up just for this purpose.  So, after a short time, this "gentleman" got the message and vacated the counter.  We were quickly attended to by a pleasant postal worker who reviewed the applications and birth documentation.  Unlike Sharon who has one birth certificate, I have a Department of State Birth Certificate, a Department of Justice Birth Certificate, 2 Documents for a Child Born Overseas to American Parents, a Birth Certificate from the U.S. Military Hospital and a Birth Certificate from Germany.  Yep, I was a Army Brat born in Munich, Germany and proud of it.  So I know who I am.  I got the documentation to prove it!.  Moving along, when the postal worker asked us why we did not answer the question about our immediate travel plans (country and dates of travel), we informed her of our plans to be full time cruisers.  She had difficulty comprehending the idea of living onboard a boat fulltime . So we tried to explain that we don't have firm travel plans, but that we did know that at some point we were going to leave the USA and travel by our boat to another country.  We just didn't know where or when.  You know, carried by the winds as if we have a sailboat.  We were instructed to write "None at this time"  in the answer block for travel plans.  So she took our pictures, made us affirm the application was true and that the picture she just took was in fact a good likeness of ourselves and sent us on our way. Hopefully, if Washington DC keeps its end of the bargain, we will have our passbooks and passcards in 4-6 weeks.

     As I discussed earlier, the galley is of the highest priority,  So we decided we needed a 23 bottle spice rack.  Where do you find a 23 bottle spice rack - you'll find it in your wood shop in the basement.  First we located 6.25 ounce spice bottles and then we located some No. 1 select lumber and one 4' prefabricate decorative wooden rail. A little table saw magic, some Aged Varnish stain and you have one custom spice rack.  The Aged Varnish stain is a very good match to the boat teak interior at a fraction of the cost of the real McCoy.
     In another preparation for our departure, I visited my dentist for one final checkup and due to Federal Law I am prohibited from discussing the outcome with anyone but myself!  Although I can say I have to go back.  Sharon has been lollygagging with scheduling her dental appointment. 

Flashback (More Than Just Lakes)

When kayaking in the Adirondacks, it's very easy to get into a routine of paddling just on the lakes.  However, there are many opportunities to paddle on rivers.  The photo above is of the Oswegatchie River.  I know what some of you may be thinking, but by New York standards, this is a river.  Anyway, the Oswegatchie Rivers meanders around, covering a lot of territory.  Distance covered by kayak versus distance as the crow flies varies greatly.  The river averages about 16 feet in width with vegetation on the banks that rise up 6 - 8 feet in height to create a walled-in effect.  After 2 weeks of paddling mainly on lakes and one or two " open rivers" that were of  a more conventional appearance, this paddle on the Oswegatchie was quite a departure from the norm. Very unique experience and highly recommended!

Top Ten Things I Love About Retirement

Borrowing from talk show host David Letterman - here is the official list of the top ten things I love about retirement - in reverse order, of course:

10.  No more driving in traffic jams.
9.  No more dealing with jerks in the workplace.
8.  No more strategic planning meetings.
7.  No more employee performance reviews.
6.  No more coming in Monday morning and having to answer politely to the same old tired question - how  was your weekend..........It was fine
5.  No more rushing out the door to get to work on time.
4.  No more having to answer the phone and speak to clients.
3.  No more dropping what I'm doing because the boss didn't plan ahead.
2.  No more endless meetings.

And the number 1 thing I love about retirement  -

Walking our dog Sky in the daylight!

T-Minus 10 and Counting

      Okay, the holidays are behind us.  It's time to get very serious about our transition work.  3 months have gone by since we started the countdown.  Where did the time go?  The time frame from Thanksgiving to Christmas is always at best just a blur because of all  the events, shopping and the excitement related to the holidays.

     The weather during December was gray and damp, although we did have 2 1/2 nice snow events.  So the weather presented an excellent opportunity to finish our customization of RecipeMaster. We did manage to get our recipes entered and have pulled a few from the internet as well.  One special acknowledgment -we  did receive the recipe for the "Abyssinia Special".  Thank you Kim and Eric. This recipe encourages us to make the run to Alaska, sooner rather than later. That's where the freshest ingredients (Halibut, Dungeness Crab) can be found.
     We did a backup of all our photos to CD's in addition to a backup on the external hard drive.  The CD's will go into storage and the external hard drive will be used on the boat.  All the photos and slides we had from the 35mm days were scanned by Sharon back in September.  Our wedding video, Grant's Baptism  video and videos from the boys early Christmas's have been transferred from VHS to DVD and copies were also made for the archives. Can you believe we still had videos on VHS, a little ancient, don't you think?

     Santa Claus helped equip the galley with some new utensils,  pans  and some collapsible items such as a colander and a dish rack.  The collapsible items will definitely help with the limited storage space onboard a boat.  Outfitting the galley is of the highest priority!
     

Frigid Sunrise

     We arrived at the boat on Monday afternoon only to be welcomed by very cold and "windy" conditions.  Fear not, we have a diesel fired furnace on the boat!  So, we opened up the boat, ran a shoreline connection, threw a few switches and hunkered down for the best mother nature could throw at us.  Monday night was cold but uneventful.  It wasn't until Tuesday that the fury was unleashed with sustained class 5 winds on the Beaufort Scale, which are described as a "Fresh  Breeze" at 18 -24 MPH.  Let's not forget the wind chill factor.  But then it gets better,.  The winds were to build into the afternoon and gusting to class 8 "Fresh Gale" at 39 - 46 MPH.  When I say the boat shook, it shook, which is not a pleasant feeling considering the boat is supported by anemic boat stands on each side. So the winds settled down last night and we arose to a beautiful sunrise this morning, 18 degrees and no wind.  Cool enough to ice over the water in the marina. Just in case you are wondering, the boat's plumbing system is winterized and the marina bathrooms are 100 yards away!  Pictured below is Sharon enjoying the frigid sunrise at 7 am today.