SPLASH!

Hello all you land lovers,

We are in the water and living on the boat since last Friday. Or should I say we are living on half of a boat. We have no mast and no rigging. After inspecting the rigging we found several working rust spots that dictated replacing the rigging in about a year or so. We decided to do it at the start of our trip rather than in the middle. The good news is that the new rigging arrived at the boat yard yesterday and we should be put back together tomorrow, Thursday, July 1.

The other news is that we are having some canvas work down on the Bimini top so that we have screens and plastic roll up windows. As Joy says, we are building a porch on our floating house. This will give us more room when the weather is bad, the bugs are flying, and also keep us a little cooler in the hot weather.

Included are some pictures of High Spirits in the water and a future marine mechanic. Our regular mechanic is coming today for an educational experience for the both of us. Tuition at Rick's School of Marine Repairs is not cheap but hopefully will be useful in the future when we break down some place in the middle of nowhere.

I have discovered the art of sleeping on the boat. For me, it is waking up when the sun comes up which here in Cleveland Ohio is around 6 am. It is almost like getting up to go to work. On the other hand, my sailing partner, can sleep in the daylight, and gets up about an hour later. It is a very relaxing sleep as the boat moves gently in the night and the night breezes have been great.

Well that is it for now. We have a ton of jobs to get done in the next 3 days.

Joe