Another Month Closer

Posts are currently sporadic so I suppose this is mostly just for me as a reminder later of what life was like with less than seven weeks of work left (yes! 7) and yesterday was the 2-month mark until we fly south to our new home.

I think that's the part I find the most unrealistic and maybe I'm struggling a bit, but the concept of flying off to my new home with just a couple of suitcases is phasing me.  I'm really daunted with the daily task (ok, I'll admit I don't do it daily although Henry would be happy if I did) of going through boxes and stuff to decide if its "keep - for the boat", "sell - garage sale", "donate" or "throw out".  I'd like to add "storage" to the list, but where and at what cost, and will I really care.  Not much has changed in a month, has it?  I'm still struggling with the storage question.  And yes, I realize that not everything is going in a suitcase as you'll see below.

So, here's where we're at today.  Henry has made a lot of progress on our list:

• Arrange shipping of personal items to Mowzer:  we've decided to send two shipments.  One will go from Toronto and will be made up of personal stuff that we have here in Canada.  We'll drive down, package up our allocated crate which will then be trucked to Miami and then put on a boat for St. Thomas.  The other shipment will be made up of stuff that we're ordering from vendors in the States such as the anchor, the water maker and the solar panels.  These will be shipped to a freight forwarder in Florida who will package them up on a crate and then put them on a boat for St. Thomas.  Both shipments will hopefully be scheduled to arrive around the same time that we do - mid-October.  The big advantage of splitting the shipments is that there is no point having stuff shipped into Canada where we'd have to pay duty and at least 13% tax, just to ship it back into a duty-free U.S. territory, and for the U.S. orders we will save a bundle on shipping if we consolidate them all into one boat shipment.
• Purchase of water maker, small generator, EPIRB and solar panels and arrange shipping to Mowzer:  shipping figured out as above and Henry is primed to place the orders.  Solar panels are elusive and appear to be in hot demand at the moment so they may end up being our nemesis.
• Health insurance - purchase coverage - arrange required doctor visits:  doctor, dentist & optometrist visits are completed or booked for September, insurance is still TBD.
• Boat insurance - purchase coverage: still to be done
• Sell the rest of our stuff, timing it so we have something to sit on, sleep on and eat off almost up until we leave or at least until I finish work:  more things have sold with good timing.  For example our bedroom set is sold but the buyers don't want it until October which is perfect for us.  Final estate sale is planned for October 4th and maybe a garage sale in September dependent on weather.
• Sell the cars:  still to do - anyone looking for a used Elantra or Rio?
• Get the house completely emptied and cleaned out ready for handover to the new owners:  final task still to be done.

Sometimes it's just easier to focus on the future and avoid peering back at the past and all the memories but the past keeps intruding with all the items that need to be decided upon.  I'm constantly confronted with my parent's and grand-parent's past and it takes me back to happy places.  But, like a boat anchor, unless I can lift those memories from where they have sat for so many years, I can't move forward, and move forward I must; and the memories can come with me.

So, with resolve, I look to little items that I can figure out pretty quickly and that gives me some momentum so I can deal with the bigger issues.

With Jim's help, we've figured out what we're doing with respect to computers and I've even sourced a little monitor that we can use with our Mac Mini that is powered solely through a USB cable.  It's just 16" on the diagonal so a little bit bigger than a laptop screen and can be used in portrait or landscape mode.  It weighs in at 1.2kg and when the stand folds against the body is only 3.6cm thick, so very easy to mount at the nav-station where we have just a little bit of space.  (There's that crazy Canadian bilingualism on measurements!)  This is an AOC e1659Fwu.

Also on the computer front, we've decided to replace our current printer with a wireless model that's a bit smaller and lighter but still incorporates a flat-bed scanner.  You might wonder what place a printer / scanner has on a boat but just being able to make copies of boat papers will be helpful.  I'm currently fixated on the Epson XP-310 again because of it's size (8"x18"x15") and weight (9lbs) and the fact that we've been very happy with our current Epson printer.

I've been doing some reading on TheBoatGalley.com about food storage containers and really need to wait on this until we're on the boat so I can measure up our spaces properly, but just having some ideas about what works in the rocky-rolly world of the live-aboard cruiser is a help.

And finally, I've been planning how we are going to pack our personal stuff for the truck/boat journey so that they remain dry, pest-free, and reasonably fresh for when they arrive.  I'm thinking of using quite a few of the zip-loc vacuum bags.  You know, the ones that you pack full of stuff and then hook up to the vacuum and suck all the air out so they're nice and compact.  Henry tells me I have a cubic meter to pack in and I only get half of it!

In a world that is obsessed with the 'super-size', it is proving quite difficult to not just down-size all our personal stuff, but also down-size the actual size of the items we want around us.  It's easy to find the next biggest TV/monitor but sale-folks look at you like you've got two heads when you tell them you're looking for something just a tad smaller than what they've got on display.

Getting Serious

Last November I posted that we had sold our house as Step #1 on our journey to live-aboard.  I suppose the story really started when we took up sailing in 2007.  Or, did it start when we bought Mowzer in 2009?  There are so many places this story could start, but I do know one thing for sure, now that the counter is under 100 we are definitely in the final days of life ashore.

It's been a whirlwind season of downsizing, selling and organizing.  While I've continued on at work at GENBAND, Henry's job has been to get us ready for our deadline which is now October 18.  Yes, we have plane tickets to fly from Ottawa to St. Thomas on that date so if it hasn't been sold, given away or otherwise disposed of by then, it must be fitting into a suitcase and making the trip with us.

Just for the record, here's what we've done so far and what we have left to do ... and I'm sure I'll remember something else as soon as this post goes up.

Done:

• First contents sale and sold our house - last November.
• Moved into Mom's house as renters.
• Sold many antiques and books to individual dealers.
• Held a number of garage sales to dispose of furniture and personal items.
• Henry has lined up a buyer for Mom's house with a closing date just as we wanted, in October.
• With the sale of the house, we have purchased our tickets to St. Thomas and a ticket for Jim to join us in St. Maarten at Christmas for a visit.
• Working with CYOA on the installation of a number of cruiser-required/friendly items on Mowzer:  radar, AIS, ... They will also be doing the updates needed to pull Mowzer out of charter with sails, canvas, engines, etc. in good functional order.
• Arranged purchase of new dinghy and engine in St. Maarten - to be held until we get there in December.
• Replaced toasted handheld GPS unit.  We got this shipped to me on a work visit to Dallas and brought it back at great savings over the price in Canada, and it fit under my personal exemption for duty payment.
• Pretty much furnished Caitlin's new apartment in Toronto - weekend trip to move her in.
• Sold Blew By You, our boat in Ottawa - this one was a huge worry to me since it's rather difficult to sell a boat just before winter in Canada.

To Do:

• Arrange shipping of personal items to Mowzer - good thing we'll be going through a change of seasons so it will be easy to ship summer stuff as we head into fall up here, and then ditch the fall/winter clothing as we leave.
• Purchase of water maker, small generator, EPIRB and solar panels and arrange shipping to Mowzer.
• Health insurance - purchase coverage - arrange required doctor visits.
• Boat insurance - purchase coverage.
• Sell the rest of our stuff, timing it so we have something to sit on, sleep on and eat off almost up until we leave or at least until I finish work.
• Sell the cars.
• There are a couple of items that I just can't find it in my heart to dispose of - will I really consider storage for them???  Not sure about this since it is frightfully expensive.  What to do with those really treasured items that just can't go to the boat and will I really care about them in the years to come?
• Get the house completely emptied and cleaned out ready for handover to the new owners.
• Finish up work in early October (targeting Oct. 3rd as final date).

This list is way too short and some of these will make up postings just on their own - I'm sure that Henry will have more to add so we'll grow it as the date comes marching upon us.

Back to CYOA

Book-ending the weather seems to have become a habit for us. We left the docks at CYOA a little over two weeks ago after a couple of days of squally weather in Charlotte Amalie and we returned today dodging squalls for the most part of the morning. The only other rain we have seen in the last two weeks was the squall that we got caught in on the sail up to Anegada.

Like a homing pigeon though, Mowzer made her way back to St. Thomas where we fueled up at Crown Bay before settling onto a mooring at Frenchtown Marina.

Approaching Charlotte Amalie we listened to the U.S. Coast Guard making securite announcements on the VHF that the main channel into the harbour was closed due to the International Sailing Regatta. It was quite interesting listening to the motor yacht behind us persuading the Coast Guard to let him enter so he could make his customs appointment for his passengers at 2pm, and we followed up with our own conversation as we maneuvered around the launch escort to confirm that we could enter via the East Gregory Channel. I actually found it interesting how friendly and casual the coast guard were on the radio; very easy to understand but quite a bit more conversational than I expected. On the other hand, getting the fuel dock to acknowledge our call took a bit more effort.

International Sailing Regatta action outside Charlotte Amalie harbour.

Coast Guard provides an escort through the action in the harbour.

We whiled away the afternoon in conversation with Jay discussing many of the updates and modifications we have on our list; he is a fountain of knowledge and full of great ideas.

The CYOA fleet looks poised like race horses.

Now, we're just getting ready to head out for our traditional last dinner in St. Thomas at The Pie Whole; wonder what they'll have on tap tonight?

The face of a happy, relaxed sailor thinking about what's on the menu? I think yes!

Exploring Coral Bay

After our strenuous day yesterday, we were definitely a bit more lazy today with nothing more on the agenda than a trip round to the east end of St. John and Coral Bay.

Coral Bay is a huge complex of protected bays that essentially face the south, some are in the national park and some are not. The easternmost bays (Long Bay and Hansen Bay) have good anchoring in sand and are fronted by small homes along the road. In the middle, the bays are part of the park system and in three of the deep fingers of Hurricane Hole are park day moorings. Finally, on the west side is Coral Harbour where the little town sits. This bay is chock-full of anchored and moored boats, many are live aboards and quite a number look abandoned. Along the perimeters are a number of wrecks that remind one that perhaps this is not the best place to sit out a hurricane.

We opted to pick up one of the park moorings for the morning and enjoy the solitude and serenity of one of the mangrove lined bays in Hurricane Hole.

We are now down to just a couple of days left on Mowzer on this trip and the next time we are aboard we will be deep in a refit to see us set up for living aboard. We spent the morning going over the boat and creating our refit/update list. It's quite an extensive list of new items and some modifications to existing, and over the next few months as we make progress I'll share what we do.

Funny little story: early in the trip we were irritated with ourselves that we didn't bring a tape measure aboard, wanting to take measurements along with photos to provide more detailed specs on installations. On the day that we hiked out of Savanna Bay, I was walking along the road, looking around at all the scenery and what should I spy discarded/lost on the side of the road but a 12-inch ruler. Brought it home, cleaned it up and it has become one of our essential tools aboard!

After all this activity we headed over to Coral Harbour and given that is it exactly two weeks since we visited Skinny Legs with Dave and Alex, we decided it was time for a repeat cheeseburger. We didn't take on the Johnny Horn hike so not sure we earned them quite as well, but they were still delicious paired with a nice cold beer. For Caitlin- do you notice Dad's t-shirt?

Rated #1 island hamburger by Dave, pretty good in our books too.

This little boat is smaller than our dinghy but is fully fitted with sails and rigging, a beautiful piece of work.

We returned to the blue cobblestone beach around Ram Head to pick up a mooring for the night and enjoyed a spectacular sunset at the end of the day. Tomorrow will see us return to the dock in St. Thomas with another fabulous three weeks under our belts and a few more lessons learned and decisions made.

Sundowner Painkiller on the foredeck.

Sunset over St. Thomas.

And Upwards We Go

Someone (ok, me) had the bright idea that we would climb up Bordeaux Mountain this morning because doing it in the morning when we were fresh would definitely be easier than hiking up the Centreline Road in the mid-day heat to get to the top. Well in theory that makes sense, but in practice I'm leaning toward them both being bad ideas...

The Petroglyph hike beckoned once again but only if we went up Bordeaux first! This hill (mountain?) is 1270' high and the trail to the top is about a mile long, giving an average ascent rate of about 20%. It took us an hour and I can tell you we were pretty happy with ourselves when we reached the Bordeaux Mtn Road at the top. Unfortunately the reward of smoothies we had promised ourselves at Chateau Bordeaux on the Centerline Road was not available for another hour so poor planning on our part.

We worked our way back down the Reef Bay trail to the Petroglyphs - drier than ever, and then carried on down to the remains of the Reef Bay Sugar Factory. We learned that the original name of this area was probably Rif, Riif or Riff after Rif Paret, an overseer on a local plantation back in the 1700s. Another bay in the area has also bastardized his name and is now known as Parrot Bay. As the sun climbed higher we made our way back home over the ridge towards Lameshur Bay. The 6-mile hike had pretty much done me in and as I browsed through our hiking book and read about the life of slaves on the sugar plantations I am amazed by the toughness of life back then. They awoke at 4am, working through the day in the searing heat, most likely naked with no protection of shade trees in the sugar-cane fields, hard labour all the way through until 10pm at night. Even after emancipation in 1848 freed slaves were required by law to stay on the plantations so it wasn't much of freedom and I don't imagine the overseers went any easier on them. All of the sugar mill/factory ruins that we find today have an air of sadness over them and one can only imagine the hardness of the life.

Along the way we spied lots of wildlife and greenery. We even caught site of a shy little mongoose but he was much too quick for a photo. Two weeks ago when we hiked with Dave & Alex on Johnny Horn, they commented that they had not seen a mongoose, which reminds me of a little riddle: What is the plural of Mongoose? (you have to get to the end for the Caribbean answer)

All fresh and ready to start our hike up the mountain

Our huge thanks to those who established the trails and those who maintain them today

Half-way up the views are stunning

There is art and humour everywhere to be found on St. John

Some of the folks we met along the way

The way down, if you please

The 2nd half of our hike. The first half is just off the map to the left.

False Pineapple - apparently produces an edible citrus-like fruit

The deer on the lower part of the trail were incredibly numerous

We made it to the Petroglyphs. In the wet season the waterfall would have us soaked at this point.

The easy, shady walk down to Reef Bay

Reef Bay Sugar Factory

Part of the old steam engine gearing.

Mangrove Cuckoo

The final crest with a view of Lameshur Bays (Great & Little).