Leg Two Summary

Sunday, January 9, 2000

Back Home Again

As promised, I am going to conclude leg #2 with a summary of this leg, and plans for the future. I'll start this now, and see how soon I can finish it.

The first thing I must tell you is that as I write this I have a huge smile on my face. The leg from
Tierra Verde to Ft. Lauderdale was an awesome trip.
I have memories that I will never forget. As I said , we have made most of that trip before, but for some reason, this time it was more dramatic. I think there were two reasons for this. 1-We are on a slower pace, and have more time to enjoy the scenery, and the surroundings. 2-On our previous trip we never went below Stuart, FL., and the trip south to Ft. Lauderdale was just spectacular. Even if you were not a boat lover, like I am, you would still be very impressed.

Leg #2 highlights;
* The weather was near perfect. When we first arrived it was sunny, and lower 70's. As the week went on it was sunny, and in the 80's. It rained twice. Each time for only a few minutes, and neither time did it stop us from anything. So far we have completed two legs, and spent 5 weeks on this trip, and the weather has been almost perfect the entire time.
* I enjoyed the crossing of Lake Okeechobee more this time. Why? I don't know, but it was great.
* I really enjoyed being in areas that are easy to get "boat stuff" done. If you can dream it, someone in the area can make it happen. During the trip I ended up canceling the contract with the expensive marina that we were going to stay at, and instead we are keeping it at a boat yard for half the cost.
The boat yard is certainly nothing to look at (and that's being kind), but they can handle any repairs, and we won't be on the boat anyway.
* Having Carl aboard was an extra treat. He took all the pictures. He kept everyone laughing with his quick wit. And Steve, Carl, and I got to talk a lot about business.
* I learned that, whenever we can, we need to allow the first day of the trip to be "a shakedown day". (or at least only go a few miles the first
day) There is too much to be done to think you can just show up, fire the boat up, and take off. Having time to start off properly makes the rest of the trip, go much smoother.
* I learned that you should not run your 24 volt charger all the time.
(that's the one that charges my engine batteries) When the guys from Cruisers Yachts came down and put in the new charger they told me to shut it off when I'm not on the boat. No one ever told me that before. Maybe that's why it burnt out while we were at Tierra Verde, and we ended up losing a day to charge the batteries. I'm not sure, but it's shut off now, and when I get back to the boat I'll turn it back on.
* I'm really getting to know the boat, and I love it. It offers us enough space, handles like a runabout, and has many of those big boat features that normally come on boats much larger than ours.
* If you remember, the one thing I wanted to do was enjoy this adventure, and not be worrying about what I was missing elsewhere. It is a delicate balance with a new company, but so far this is working. I stay in touch with work early each day, and then concentrate on the voyage. Doing it this way allows me to enjoy the boating moments. It's already obvious to me that this is more than I dreamed it would be, and I don't want to look back and know that I wasted some of it. When we meet people along the way, and they hear we are making "The Great Circle" many of them tell me that this is one of their dreams as well. They are always commenting that they wish they could do it like we are doing it. Yes......Deb, and I are very fortunate.

Statistics so far on our trip?
* Days 31
* Miles 1,928
* Engine hours 192
* Gen. Hours 288
* Fun lots
* Memories can't count 'em
* Cost worth it!

What's next?
Well first of all the boat comes out of the water this week to re-do the bottom. Boats that stay in the water like ours have a bottom paint on them to keep things from growing. We are not sure if the bottom paint was bad, or the application was wrong, but ours is pealing off, and so it needs to be totally stripped off, and new paint put back on. We are also having some other warranty work done while we are gone. Nothing major, but it's good to keep up on this, rather than find someday you have a long list of things that don't work.

We will be going back to the boat for a long weekend in March with Deb's sister Ann and her husband Les. It will be a good time to follow up on the repairs, do some PM items, and visit Ft. Lauderdale again, before leaving in May.

May 12th is the date we have planned to begin leg #3. This will be a 2 week leg that should get us to Charleston, SC., the first week, and then to Norfolk, VA. the second week.
Leg #4 then gets us to New York City.
Leg #5 to Rochester, New York.
Leg #6 should get us back to our slip in Ottawa, IL., by August 6th. In between each leg I will come back to work for 2 to 3 weeks to make sure I keep up on things. We'll see how it goes, but that's our plan.

I hope this last note finds everyone is doing fine. Thanks for all of the e-mails. Once we get back to see the boat in mid March, I'll send you an update.

BK.