Bye, Bye, Pensacola

5/16/13
Pensacola, FL
hazy and calm, light winds from the south

Left Pensacola around 4:30 p.m. yesterday and had a lovely sail into the night.  We heated up some leftovers and enjoyed some tunes with 1' seas and trucking along (motor sailing) at an average of 7.4 knots, so we were making really good time.  My (Saundra) watch was from 11:00-2: 00 am and there was absolutely nothing on the radar the whole way, calm seas but the wind was 30 degrees off our starboard so the "kicker" was a necessity.  Oh, and the autopilot is now working after purchasing a new compass.  And, that was after hours of Charlie brainstorming and 2 days with an electrician in Pensacola, then Charlie contorting his body into a tiny hole to install the new compass...yes, again, he is my hero.  Charlie took over the helm around 2:30 and I went below for some sleep.  But, around 3:00 I awake to the engine going off and finding out that the oil indicator was lowering.  After pulling off the engine cover, Charlie found that the "professional diesel mechanic" in Kemah, who checked our engine, did not torque down the valve cover and the gasket was not set, thus throwing oil all down under the engine. Not really sure how long all of that took, but finally got back underway and I woke up at the sea buoy to Panama City.  We docked at the Municipal Marina, got a shower, a Bloody Mary and some sausage and now we are retiring till who knows when.  Should be departing here tomorrow morning as we have a good weather window to make Tampa Bay.

Music in City Park

On the dock

Loving Pensacola, but....

5/15/13
Pensacola, FL
sunny and beautiful

Well, Pensacola, Florida is a beautiful place and Palafox Marina is awesome, especially John who runs the place, a very capable and nice young man.  We have read a lot of other crusing blogs which have mentioned issues with the all important "autopilot" and guess what...we are there, too!  We had issues with the autopilot (we haven't named it yet, but I feel that is not to far off in the future) off and on the day before we reached Mobile Bay, but now it is out.  So here we sit patiently waiting for the local marine electronics company to help us out, as well as Charlie climbing down into all the little holes and trying his best to fix things....he is my hero!  Hopefully, the next post will be on the water heading for Panama City.  Until then....

Are We Cruising Yet?

5/10/13
Pensacola, FL
overcast and windy


To all our friends and family, we are well and having a wonderful time so far.  Getting away from the dock in Kemah was a hard 3 days.  My parents came down along with our daughter, Haley, and our son, Sean. Haley, thanks for organizing our new home and Sean for taking the Ford back to Cat Spring, we love you more than you will ever know!  Saying farewell 3 different times was tough and when the lines were slipped a small sigh of relief was released.  So, has the adventure begun then?  We sailed to Galveston where all of our "tanks" were topped off and then Charlie said, "take those docking lines off and store them".  That's when it hit me...no more docking lines??? so I guess we are now cruising.

We left Sunday and it took us 3 days to get to Mobile Bay, Alabama.  We were blessed with great weather and calm seas, but we motored sailed the whole way.  As those of you who know Charlie, we ate quite well during those 3 days.  Night on the Gulf of Mexico is very lite up with rigs as you can imagine, but when we got into Louisiana waters the number of rigs seemed to double as well as shrimp boats and crew boats.  We arrived at the sea buoys to Mobile Bay and were met with a bank of FOG!  Never sailed in fog before...our radar worked wonderfully and I also got a quick lesson on the VHF radio.  At our intersection to the channel to the ICW going east, we pulled out of the channel and dropped the hook and sat that fog out.

As the sun burned off the fog, we got back underway and made it to the ICW.  We Texans were amazed at seeing trees on the ICW as that does not exist in Texas.  We later learned this was the "Redneck Rivera".  It was just beautiful.  We arrived at "Lulu's at Gulfshores Marina"....Jimmy Buffet's little sister Lucy Buffets place. We had to walk a long way to reach the restaurant due to the way the marina was laid out, but as I told these guys I am sailing with...we need to walk.  What an operation!  After a long deserved rest we refueled and headed on up the ICW towards Pensacola, FL.  The geography changes again and now we are in white sand dune beaches and large bays.  We called ahead to  Palafox Marina and reserved a slip were we sit at this post.  Very nice marina, floating docks and there is a Texas boat from Kemah, TX.  John, our 2nd mate, first class will be leaving for home tomorrow, what a great crew member!  Hopefully, John will rejoin this adventure somewhere else along the way.

OK, already...Let's Do It!

4/16/13
Kemah, TX
overcast and misty

The adventure has not begun, or has it?  We are still sitting in our slip at Watergate Yachting Center in Kemah, TX.  There was a big push to leave by April 21st, but it is not happening, still too much to do, mostly at home.  We have finished our refrigerator conversion and we now have a freezer.  Our cockpit is glassed in and shade cloth is all around.  Today we put up our Shade Tree awning, to make sure it fit (and it does), but there are still so many things to finish and BUY!  Long lists of things to do are composed, marked off as done and then another long list appears.  Where is the blue water???  We are hoping to leave by the first of May...so we will wait and work and see if that is the beginning of our "adventure".

Preparing for the Adventure

September 24, 2012....Well, I thought the outfitting would be finished in Kemah....boy was I wrong.  I think this boat thing is an ongoing "outfitting".  We did make the move to Freeport.  It was a 19 hour sail from Galveston, going against a current and a headwind.  In retrospect we should have motored, but live and learn.  Our good friends - Eileen and Les Pettigrew and John Trevathan made the trip with us.  Thinking that it would only take 9 hours tops, we sailed into the night and into the next morning.  Some problems with the navigation screen and the lack of wind direction indicator, but that was all of the problems with the boat.  She sailed beautifully.  Nighttime sailing hopefully will be less stressful with more experience, but the dark did make me a little nervous.  The stars were beautiful and the albatross that followed the slip stream of our main sail was an awesome sight for a good 20 minutes.  The mast light lite up the underbelly of the bird and it was just a little surreal.  Made for a good memory.

We are now moored at the Freeport Municipal Marina.  It is a secured marina behind a guillotine gate, which, in case of a hurricane would provide some protection from the storm surge.  We, again, are meeting some nice people, but the town lacks the expertise of workmanship that is needed to fix up a boat.  As we do more research into cruising, we are finding more and more things that we need to do.  And, the leaving date of March is looming, in the very near distance. But, we will not hurry the necessities that must come.  So, we continue to buy....you know what B O A T means? Break out another thousand.  So hurry out and get you a boat too, and live for an adventure!

Dog Days of Summer...July 31, 2012

My, my...how time flies!  Our dream has come to fruition, Island Sol is ours!  We did open a bottle of Moet Chandon and had a wonderful meal aboard our new "baby".  We can hardly contain ourselves....  Boooat!  June and July have been filled with almost every weekend aboard making changes and outfitting her for living aboard.  We are in Watergate Marina on Clear Lake and it is NOT where we want to be.  The marina life is grand and we have met some lovely people.  Hopefully we will visit Tom and Sharon (Cantamar V) in the Caribbean next Spring.  When outfitting is complete we will be moving to Freeport, TX to the Municipal Marina (behind the guillotine gate).  That trip will require a blog unto itself.

June 10th, Henry (my father-in-law), passed on to a better place.  What a man...he was 92 and had lived a very busy life. What do you say about the father of your husband?  There were times I wanted to "bean" him and then times I wanted to hug him.  He was not a physically emotional person, so there were not too many hugs in the 39 years that I knew him, but I know he loved us all.  I am hoping he is fishing for some awesome trout with his buddy, Milton, and that Kathleen will be frying up that trout later on.  I love you Henry!

Thanks to the Lord for all the blessing that have been bestowed on Charlie and I.  The adventure will begin soon.  More to come....

Memorial Day 2012

A blessed Memorial Day to all in the USA.  I am thinking of you, Bob Neal!
The adventure, or rather, the ability to have an adventure is about to come to fruition.  Our loan is complete, except for the $$$..."show me the money"!  After closing we have a 3 day waiting period, just in case we want to change our minds. No way!  So being the holiday and all, tomorrow is the day the $$$ should be wired and then transferred several times and then the Island Sol will be ours....glory hallelujah!

Charlie, you are my hero.  Your tenacity and perseverance has made that long ago dream come true.  You are the one! Hopefully the next blog will be on the boat with "White Star" in a fluted glass and big grins on our faces.  Until then....

On a second note...I have retired!  Not too sure about this retirement thing.  I have already found myself obsessively talking about language acquisition, behavior management and all things school to anyone who stands there long enough to listen OR when I actually hear myself and stop! Leaving my classroom for the last time I stood at the door and gazed across the room, saying "I was a good teacher".  Then the tears fell, just for a few seconds, and then out the door I went.  Teaching has been a curse and a dream for me.  Started out as, "well what else is there to do...oh, I'll just be a teacher".  After all they do get holidays, summers off and not much pay.  I truly didn't know shit about teaching in the real world after finishing college.  It was all learned on the job and in the trenches.  Back then, in the fall of 1972, in Houston, TX I got a job on the southeast part of town and began 3 days into the semester...that is a whole other story....and began a 3rd grade position with 36 black children.  The first words out of my mouth, was, "hi, my name is Saundra".  Oh so much too learn.  I was taken under the wing of a wonderful woman/teacher by the name of, Mrs. Vivian Bowser.  Her first lesson was, "tell them your name is Miss Schreider, honey". With many things in the middle, I ended with a endorsement in Early Childhood Handicapped and then finished as a behavior specialist working in a private residential placement center for emotionally disturbed students. It was a wild ride and looking back at it now, just 4 days into my retirement I loved it all and it has become part of who I am.

So, back to that top paragraph...a new adventure begins...ain't life grand!