Tag Archives: cruising family

5 day countdown!!!

8 Replies

All the tanks (water and diesel) are filled and we are ready to set sail! I just have to work 4, 12 hour shifts in a row and spend Wednesday buying last minute fresh food and last minute purging of items.  Wednesday night is our “send off” party at Galilee Harbor in Sausalito. We will be having friends and whoever else wants to join us in potluck style and live music (Peter B. and the Harbor Rats) shenanigans.  We will have an abalone shell set out for people to place a bite of their meal in, so that at the end of the evening, before we cut the lines, we will make an offering to the Gods of the Oceans.  After we “cut the lines”, we will head over to Horseshoe Cove (the little cove at the North end of the Golden Gate Bridge) to drop the anchor one last time in San Francisco Bay. Thursday morning, we will head out after breakfast with a max ebb around 8:30 am. If you happen to be on the Golden Gate Bridge, keep your eyes out for us! First stop: Half Moon Bay.  We will try to update our positions to both Marine Traffic and Farkwar. Click on the links to sign up for email position updates.

Our boat on Marine Traffic

Our Farkwar Map

We have been living “on the hook” for almost 6 months now. It’s hard to believe that this day is finally arriving! My commute to work for the last six month has been a 0.5 – 0.75 miles paddle to shore, then a 12.5 mile bike ride each way. Although challenging at times, overall it has been very rewarding and enjoyable.  Today is my last round trip ride from Sausalito!

Our Global Connection for Satellite Phone is on it’s way!!!

Leave a reply

We decided to go with the iridiumGo! through PredictWind. I think this is one of our largest purchases, yikes! After reading many blogs and reviews, this seems to be the best fit for us. Hope we’re right!

  • We’ll be able to get updates on the wind, rain, swell etc through the satellite phone and on to our computer.  We are familiar with other ways to stay safe with weather predictions, just in case technology fails, but having this aboard SV Shawnigan is super exciting.
  • We will have unlimited SMS (texts) in and outbound!  Yes, you can text us or we can text you while we are in the middle of the Indian Ocean! Or anywhere, for that matter.  We can also update our position on the map. See us on the map somewhere? You happen to be going there for vacation??? You can send us a message to meet up!
  • We will also be able to keep our blog (mostly) up to date!  With a few pictures here and there and some text to go with it, we will be able to post to the blog in the middle of a passage.

Part of our purpose in sailing around the world is to “disconnect”. So having this technology will add a element of practicing will power. Will power to not post or stay too connected too often, that is. Not that we don’t love you all, but we really want to experience the world as mush as possible and do it safely.

If you are totally stoked on staying updated and/or would like to know you can text/email with us almost anytime, and would like to help support the monthly Sat Phone $$$ please click here to donate! 🙂

Happiness is a clean bottom: 3 day Haul Out!

Leave a reply

It all began on a nice Monday night romantic sail from Sausalito over to Berkeley Marine Center haul out slip. The girls went with the Kiddoo Grandparents and Taj was asleep in the aft cabin.  I think this was the first time in too long that Christian and I actually sailed together, sans kids. We took 2.5 hours under full sail from anchorage to dock. The wind was perfect, but we were fighting a pretty strong ebb, so our average speed was 3.8 kts.

First thing on Tuesday morning the Berkeley Marine Center crew hauled us out. As soon as the boat was positioned on it’s stands, Taj and I took off for the day and Christian went to work. He finished sanding before noon and the first coat of bottom paint was on by 3pm.

omg, a picture of all 5 of us!

So happy to get her bottom cleaned!

First time Josie’s parents have seen a boat hauled out!

        

Wednesday included another coat of paint and the engine/propeller coupling removal to make some needed adjustments. We also put in another thru-hole for the water maker.

Water maker thru-hole

Thursday: another coat of paint, filing of the coupling for a slightly looser fit,  shaft removal and replacement to get the previous summer’s caught trip line fully removed, the drip-less stuffing box removed and replaced with traditional packing gland. We also installed a “tranny saver”, said a few words that shall not be repeated, and realigned the engine.

Shaft entry point damage from last summer’s trip line getting caught. Yikes!

                

                          

Friday: We were the first to splash for the day! After we came off of the stands and in to the slings, a few coats of paint were added on the areas where the pads were, a few moments to dry, and voilà, splishy splashy in 3 days! Captain Lauducci is AMAZING!!!

                                     

As soon as we hit water, all possible leak points were checked and all was good to go. Well, we thought all was good to go. After some fine tune engine alignments, we started the engine. To our disappointment the area around the new packing gland was getting too hot. Urg!!! … many other words….

After 2 days of wrenching on the engine at the guest dock in Berkeley Marina, Christian figured it out, phew! We were worried we would have to haul back out and go back to the drip-less system (which we really did my want on there). The culprit of the hot spot around the packing gland: aligning the engine and shaft on the hard. When the boat was returned to the water, the haul settled, therefore changing the position of the alignment by a whole half of an inch!!!  Having the alignment off that much caused way to much friction around the packing gland. Moral of the story; wait till your boat is back in the water to do your engine alignment.  Now I think it’s safe to say that we are pretty much good to go!

To Do:
We are just waiting on floating ground cable for our SSB (single side band) radio to finish installing out SSB. We need to finish connecting the water maker and start it up.  And we are also going to get the iridiumGo before we take off. Yay!