FEB 19TH- Heading to Rabbit Island

We spent three nights here at Oak Harbor Marina trying to recoup from this illness. The relaxing helped Brett get over it before he got too bad. I am on my 9th day and still have a bad cough. But we are heading out this morning through the "Rigolets" where we'll anchor on the other side at Rabbit Island. Tomorrow we'll head toward Gulfport, MS where we can gather mail and get marine supplies.We have a cold front moving through so it will be a chilly night at anchorage. But with lots of long johns, blankets and the propane stove, we should be fine.See ya in Gulfport.

FEB 17TH- Splashed!

I made my first banana bread on the boat using a silicone pan. It cooked wonderfully, fast and it turned out pretty good!

We splashed yesterday morning. We are at Oak Harbor Marina in Slidell. We had water come into the boat on our way to the marina. We are not exactly sure what caused all the water to come in - it may have been a loose fitting on the engine exhaust or the bilge pump discharge syphoning water back into the boat due to our transom being so low in the water. We had to manually pump out just over 10 gallons of water from our bilge plus whatever the auto bilge pumped out from the engine room. The auto bilge would have kept the water in the engine room bilge but I had stupidly forgotten to turn the bilge pump back to auto after I switched it to manual. I was glad to experience this while so close to land and on a lake rather than offshore.Brett has caught what I have and we are both sick.

We'll be staying here till Thursday (at $50 a night!!) and then we'll hopefully be able to anchor out at Rabbit Island before heading toward Biloxi, MS.

FEB 15TH - Painting the Bottom

Catching up on blogs...

On Friday, between rain storms, we managed to glass the keel, strut and two thru hulls. I helped Brett cut up the fiberglass and pour resin. I have been very sick these last few days, with a bad cough and fever and haven't been able to help out as much as I'd like but Brett did manage to get the bottom paint on in an hour yesterday, again, in between rain storms. We laughed this morning as the news informed us that New Orleans had a record high of rainfall yesterday. The day we painted the bottom. LOL. Brett also got the new zincs put onto the shaft and the fixed prop mounted. Brett noticed that our boat has been continuing to shift slowly to port in the stands. He had added one stand on Friday and the boat shifted its weight to it. We had heard a popping noise Friday night and realized it was the chain holding up the stands under the boat. Alarmed, he and the live-on-premises manager propped two more stands under us. The manager called the travel lift operator yesterday and told him to come in on his day off and reblock us. After several hours, he showed up but said we looked fine and wouldn't fall over and didn't reblock. He said he would reblock us on Monday (his normal work day). Brett told him that we were splashing on Monday. Even though we had lots of extra expenses, the work seemed to go smoothly. I still need to re-paint our homeport on the boat but am waiting till hopefully this afternoon to see if I feel better.We ate at a small Chinese restaurant Friday night that, again, looked scary, but was excellent food. Turns out, all the locals ended up there while we ate.

Last night, for Valentines, we had leftover pork fried rice and eggs, cheesecake and Nyquil. yummy! We are anxious to get back in the water tomorrow and to continue our voyage. We are contemplating skipping New Orleans now, as there seems to be a shortage of transient docks- it sounds like the City Municiple Harbor we stayed at in July is closed. So we may go ahead and head toward the "Rigolets" and anchor at Rabbit Island before heading offshore.I added a link under Our Favorite Links to a photo gallery I joined up with under photo.net. I have been getting very low ratings for my photos but it's nice to get feedback so I know what to improve on. I consider these photographers to be the best of the best. I have our printer up and running and we hope to be able to sell photographs at some point to help us earn money.Oh, I forgot to mention. We gave up my bike in Mandeville... It would not fit under the dinghy and was impossible to sail with it on deck. Benny gratefully accepted the bike, promising to give it a good home. I cried because of the memories on that bike but it was better than just abandoning it at the marina. I hope we are able to find folding bikes soon.

FEB 13TH - ON THE HARD

Here are blogs I've done the past few days in the website..

We spent Wednesday prepping the boat for travel through the lake to Slidell, LA where we were to pull out for painting the bottom and fixing up the prop and misc fiberglass work. In the afternoon, I was able to find a vet to get Benny all his shots and wormed before we left. I had read Tuesday night that Mexico wanted this done a month before we got there so I was fortunate to find a vet that had time. Our new friend, Benny, was able to drive me and the cat to the vet. Before we headed to the vet, Benny took Brett and I to lunch at a great restaurant called "Sweet Daddy's BBQ". It was AWESOME food.After the vet visit, we snagged Brett and the three of us drove through Benny's hometown of Abita Springs. He showed us the springs and the old brewery where he bought us shirts and, yes, Abita Springs Beer. LOL. I couldn't believe I was going to have beer on our boat. It was extremely sweet though and we couldn't refuse. We found later, that he had bought us fresh strawberries to go with the beer.After Abita Springs, he drove us to Walmart in Covington where we all joined in with the crazy shoppers and stocked up on groceries. This was definitely the busiest Walmart Brett and I had ever seen. Brett and I split up and we got everything on our list at the same time Benny got his groceries. After Walmart, Benny suggested we stop at Cafe DuMonde. It was my favorite place in Louisiana and we dined on FRESH Beignets and Coffee. YUM!!! It was a great afternoon shared by a great friend who knew the town well.

Thursday morning, we got up and prepped the boat for travel. We left around 830. The weather was sunny, cold and calm. We backed out and hollered good-bye to Benny on his boat as we passed. After passing the breakwater into Lake Pontchartrain, we spent awhile calibrating the auto pilot's compass. To do this, you have to spin the boat in two-three circles. The wind had come up a bit and it was challenging to make our circles at just the right speed, but Brett expertly gunned the motor at the right times and we calibrated it perfectly. Then we set the rudder limit and our auto pilot was ready to go. Brett let me adjust the

sails and play with the auto pilot. The wind was blowing around 8-12 knots and we made about 3-4 knots of speed with the main. It felt GREAT to be sailing again. It was the perfect speed, with no heeling. We let the auto pilot do a bit of the driving while we played with the sails and made coffee. Benny did great and remembered everything. He did get a little sick as he wasn't used to it the last few months but after he got sick he did a lot better and even came out in the cockpit with us most of the trip.

After an hour or two, the wind let up. We were slowly sailing at 1 knot. At that rate, we'd make Slidell at 9pm, so we finally succumbed to the motor at around 1130. We used our new binocculars to find the channel into Bayou Bonfouca. The trip was a complete success and we found ourselves requesting the Bayou Bounfouca bridge to be opened at the haulout yard. As the traffic piled up, the swing bridge slowly opened and we made our way to the travel lift.

Within a half hour, our boat was being hauled out. The bottom looked in EXCELLENT shape. There was very little slime on it and only paint blisters. The keel looked in good shape. The prop was full of barnacles and the zinc was half gone. The travel lift operator hastily power washed the bottom for us and moved us to the DIY yard. They blocked us up. We soon discovered that we'd bought the wrong bottom paint! We ordered two more gallons of the soft sluffing paint and offered our expensive hard-sluffing gallon to the yard for a small price. As they blocked the boat we discovered there were no ladders either! Apparantly, they'd been sued so the ladders disappeared or were locked to other people's boats. After searching around, Brett scrambled up the side that was about ten feet in the air. He tied line to our new swim ladder and attached it to the stanchions. After a struggle, I was able to crawl up the ladder onto the deck.

That evening, the travel lift operator offered us a ladder to rent from another boat owner for $5 a day. We gladly accepted. I haven't been off the boat yet, though. :)

We discovered we also needed resin and some supplies. I was going to make my way to the West Marine but discovered they were closed down! We are both anxious to get the boat back in the water. We are ecstatic that the bottom is in as good condition as it is. The bottom paint that Jose had put on it three years ago still held up really well. But the feather prop that we had been using on the engine was extremely loose and was probably the cause of the vibrations we'd been experiencing when motoring. Brett replaced the feather prop for our fixed one in hopes that it would be easier on the new, larger engine.Today, it is stormy- Brett is trying to grind on the hull as I sit inside the boat, sick with a virus. I haven't been sick for months and the day we haul out, I get a nasty virus. ack. We hope to have the bottom painted tomorrow. We are hoping to "splash" the boat (put it back in the water) on Monday.

I have lots of new pictures for you including our table that is FINALLY cut down to fit our boat, our new chart holder, Benny's boat and more.

I'm sorry this is so long, it seems like there is always so much to tell ya!

A couple days ago, I rode my bike up to ACE and the car parts stores. It was very cold. I rode back and dropped the new purchases off. I have been searching for a rolling grocery cart basket thingy for months now and finally found that this ACE carried them but were sold out! So I took off on my bike again and headed to West Marine. But I took the bike patch and wound up half way to Covington. I turned back and headed down a road and then ended up on a main road with no signs. LONG story short, I got pretty lost and never made it to West Marine after the three hour detour. So I headed back to the boat, exhausted and SORE from the seventeen mile jaunt.

Brett got the radar mounted. That was so great to finally get done. After considering the expense of a new cable and calibration or a new mount, we decided to simpy move the existing radar mount lower to be able to use the cord we had. So Brett spent Friday up the mast, moving the mount and placing the radar on it. He ran the cable through the boat and mounted the screen at the nav station. So our radar is finally in.

We spent the night, in the dark, practicing using the radar. He also made me start the engine in the dark, which involves about 4 different steps. We tested all of the nav lights and they still work.

I finally got SOME of my jewelry organized. Most all of the earrings are now on the rack that Shannon bought me. The anklets, bracelets, pins and necklaces are still bundled into a small, fabric jewelry bag until I can mount another holder in the vee berth. Believe it or not, I didn't even keep half of my earrings!

We spent yesterday... go ahead and guess... yup- working on the boat. I finally got the nerve to pull out the sewing machine and cut into the vinyl for cockpit cushions. Brett reinstalled the windvane so it sat out of the water on the stern. We cleaned and organized the cockpit and deck, putting the mainsail back on the boom.

Our new friend, Benny, who lives on his boat just down from us, brought us wonderful steaks earlier this week and then gave us a brand new swim ladder in exchange for the sails we'd given him. What luck. We had been talking for a few days about the need for a ladder so we could climb into the boat. It was exactly the ladder we were looking at with an extra telescoping step. Benny and his son have also been helping us haul our garbage away, there are no garbage cans at this marina for some reason. Our generous new friend also offered us his truck to drive around for errands and even picked me up at the laundromat after we'd run into each other there. He ran Brett to West Marine yesterday.

Brett picked up a really nice life jacket for me that has a harness built into it. He got Benny (our cat, not our new friend) a small lifejacket, too, but it is going to need a major refit. When we pick him up by the handle, he just falls out of it. LOL. His belly is too soft for the straps. Hee hee...

We feel blessed by our new friend and have really appreciated all he's done for us. He refuses any payback, simply stating, "Southerin' Hospitality". Hopefully I can at least slip him some blueberry muffins before we leave. ;)

Benny, had invited us to go see a blues singer, Bryan Lee last night. It happened to be one of his favorite singers and he was playing just a mile from here. At almost 10:00, he picked us up and we drove to Ruby's Roadhouse. Just as we ordered our drinks (soda of course) the band started to play.

They were awesome. Really, really good. Benny bought us coke after coke as we sat enjoying the guitars and Bryan Lee's singing. His side guitarist, Greg Johnson was amazing and reminded Brett of his brother-in-law, Greg (same name!) This guy was amazing. We picked up one of Bryan Lee's cds and he signed it during their break.

After about four hours on our feet, the concert ended and Brett drove us all toward the marina. Not without getting lost first. I don't know if I told y'all or not, but Mandeville has been one of the MOST confusing places for us to drive. We have gotten lost almost every single time we've driven and, yes, even walked anywhere. We walked to McDonald's the other night on the bike path, about a mile and a half from here. In the dark, we passed by our street and had to turn back on a road to get back to the marina. So it was not surprising that Brett made a wrong turn and we had to double back last night. LOL

We've really had a great time while we have gotten tons accomplished on the boat. We'll be leaving in a few days to head to the haulout yard to paint the bottom of the boat and replace our prop.

Lots of Fun, Lots of Progress

On Saturday, we checked out the haulout yard in Slidell. On Sunday, we decided to drive back and see what was around for shops and hotels, etc. We drove down the old highway, 190 which our marina is on. It merged into rd 433 which is the road the haulout yard was on so we followed it to the Bayou where we crossed a weird barge-like bridge. When we reached Hwy 11, we found it completely blocked off. They were getting ready for a parade down Hwy 11!! We wound our way through the back roads of Slidell, trying to find a way across Hwy 11. We finally followed a woman out of a McDonald's parking lot across to another side street across 11. From there, we continued to run into road blocks for the parade on all the major roads. We finally found one road and it led us to Interstate 10. We followed the interstate until hwy 190, hoping to make our way back to the marina via 190 and to stop at a flea market we'd seen on the way to Slidell.Well, after driving a couple miles, we discovered the parade was on 190 too! They had blocked three sides of the main roads for this dang parade! We zigzagged through more side roads, following people that we hoped knew the way out of this crazy place. The suburban we were following finally pulled into a Burger King's parking lot and the parade went right by the restaurant. We succumbed to the parade, bought some cokes at the BK and sat for the parade. Brett stated several times, "We're cruising". I couldn't believe I didn't have one camera with us during this cool parade....Vendors crowded the roads with shopping carts set up as rolling stands to buy toys, stuffed animals, beads, colorful feather boas, crazy fur hats and all kinds of silly stuff. I decided we had to have something for Mardi Gras so I bought a purple/yellow/green boa and made Brett get a fuzzy black and silver hat with red hot flames on top and under the brim. He wouldn't wear it at the parade though, so we stashed the souveniers into a ziplock bag for Mardi Gras. We sat under a tree and watched the floats and bands go by, throwing gobs of colorful Mardi Gras beads at the huge crowd. We were definitely a minority in this little part of town, surrounded by thousands, but we felt secure and everyone was a happy union of parade viewers. It was cool. After Brett scraped some beads up for me off the road, we made our way back out and found the Interstate 10 again and then I12 which headed back toward the marina.

We took the LaCombe exit, hoping to find the awesome looking flea market we'd seen earlier. After backtracking twice, we gave up and headed back to the marina. The next day, we resumed our projects. I completely cleaned out the vee berth. We hauled the sails out from the boat, all 12. We finally settled on 4 sails to get rid of and 8 to keep. Brett offered the 4 sails to gentleman who lived on his boat a few slips down from us. He gladly accepted them. We finally had a ton of room in the boat and I got to work filling up the spaces quickly.

We spent yesterday finishing the organizing. Brett has spent the last few days installing the autopilot. He also tried to get the transmission seal replaced but failed again- the nut on the coupler won't budge, it's completely frozen.

Yesterday, I spent the day completely reorganizing the salon and the galley- I took out all of the stores and cleaned the galley from top to bottom. I had forgotten just how much food we had and I had just purchased more Monday! I also took the afternoon to spray the old red wind generator a white color with Fusion Plastic Paint. It worked great and we now have a white bladed generator instead of that awful faded red color.

We also spent time on Monday working on the cushions and getting materials from Lowes. Brett helped me with the cushion backs- We decided to staple the fabric onto the plywood that made up the doors as the sette backs. They turned out really good and it was way easier than sewing them!

We got so much done these last few days, I could write another 5 pages, I am sure.

The only thing that has been a problem is the massive amounts of garbage and no where to put it. For some reason, the marina got rid of the dumpster so now there is NO where to dump. Very frustrating. Especially because we returned the rental car yesterday.

Oh, Monday, we spent a couple hours talking to a guy who bought Brett's trimaran! He is in Florida and wanted to know all about Brett's design and building of the boat. We ended up selling him a couple of winches we had that would work perfectly for the little tri we had sold in 2006. He seems really excited to sail the boat. He sent us a picture of it. We are hoping that we'll hook up with him in Apalachicola and we can take him sailing on our boat and then we can go sailing again on the little tri! He has decided to call it a "Corbett 20". We're excited to see the boat again and can't wait to possibly even sail it.

Well I am sure there is tons more to write, but I have already written a lot for ya.

Lots of Fun, Lots of Progress

On Saturday, we checked out the haulout yard in Slidell. On Sunday, we decided to drive back and see what was around for shops and hotels, etc. We drove down the old highway, 190 which our marina is on. It merged into rd 433 which is the road the haulout yard was on so we followed it to the Bayou where we crossed a weird barge-like bridge. When we reached Hwy 11, we found it completely blocked off. They were getting ready for a parade down Hwy 11!! We wound our way through the back roads of Slidell, trying to find a way across Hwy 11. We finally followed a woman out of a McDonald's parking lot across to another side street across 11. From there, we continued to run into road blocks for the parade on all the major roads. We finally found one road and it led us to Interstate 10. We followed the interstate until hwy 190, hoping to make our way back to the marina via 190 and to stop at a flea market we'd seen on the way to Slidell.Well, after driving a couple miles, we discovered the parade was on 190 too! They had blocked three sides of the main roads for this dang parade! We zigzagged through more side roads, following people that we hoped knew the way out of this crazy place. The suburban we were following finally pulled into a Burger King's parking lot and the parade went right by the restaurant. We succumbed to the parade, bought some cokes at the BK and sat for the parade. Brett stated several times, "We're cruising". I couldn't believe I didn't have one camera with us during this cool parade....Vendors crowded the roads with shopping carts set up as rolling stands to buy toys, stuffed animals, beads, colorful feather boas, crazy fur hats and all kinds of silly stuff. I decided we had to have something for Mardi Gras so I bought a purple/yellow/green boa and made Brett get a fuzzy black and silver hat with red hot flames on top and under the brim. He wouldn't wear it at the parade though, so we stashed the souveniers into a ziplock bag for Mardi Gras. We sat under a tree and watched the floats and bands go by, throwing gobs of colorful Mardi Gras beads at the huge crowd. We were definitely a minority in this little part of town, surrounded by thousands, but we felt secure and everyone was a happy union of parade viewers. It was cool. After Brett scraped some beads up for me off the road, we made our way back out and found the Interstate 10 again and then I12 which headed back toward the marina.

We took the LaCombe exit, hoping to find the awesome looking flea market we'd seen earlier. After backtracking twice, we gave up and headed back to the marina. The next day, we resumed our projects. I completely cleaned out the vee berth. We hauled the sails out from the boat, all 12. We finally settled on 4 sails to get rid of and 8 to keep. Brett offered the 4 sails to gentleman who lived on his boat a few slips down from us. He gladly accepted them. We finally had a ton of room in the boat and I got to work filling up the spaces quickly.

We spent yesterday finishing the organizing. Brett has spent the last few days installing the autopilot. He also tried to get the transmission seal replaced but failed again- the nut on the coupler won't budge, it's completely frozen.

Yesterday, I spent the day completely reorganizing the salon and the galley- I took out all of the stores and cleaned the galley from top to bottom. I had forgotten just how much food we had and I had just purchased more Monday! I also took the afternoon to spray the old red wind generator a white color with Fusion Plastic Paint. It worked great and we now have a white bladed generator instead of that awful faded red color. We also spent time on Monday working on the cushions and getting materials from Lowes. Brett helped me with the cushion backs- We decided to staple the fabric onto the plywood that made up the doors as the sette backs. They turned out really good and it was way easier than sewing them!

We got so much done these last few days, I could write another 5 pages, I am sure.

The only thing that has been a problem is the massive amounts of garbage and no where to put it. For some reason, the marina got rid of the dumpster so now there is NO where to dump. Very frustrating. Especially because we returned the rental car yesterday.

Oh, Monday, we spent a couple hours talking to a guy who bought Brett's trimaran! He is in Florida and wanted to know all about Brett's design and building of the boat. We ended up selling him a couple of winches we had that would work perfectly for the little tri we had sold in 2006. He seems really excited to sail the boat. He sent us a picture of it. We are hoping that we'll hook up with him in Apalachicola and we can take him sailing on our boat and then we can go sailing again on the little tri! He has decided to call it a "Corbett 20". We're excited to see the boat again and can't wait to possibly even sail it.

Well I am sure there is tons more to write, but I have already written a lot for ya.

Reunited with Benevolence

We arrived to the boat around 3pm on Friday after driving all through the night. The boat is in great shape- Looks exactly like it did when we left. It definitely has that "boat smell" unfortunately from crud in the hoses- It is difficult to get rid of the smell unless you replace the hoses. But all is well. Not a DROP of water anywhere inside the boat. Everything works magificently. The bow did crush into the dock during the hurricanes but the anchor only scraped our hull. One board was pushed up on the dock and a little broken but very minor damage. It was a very cold night last night at about 31 but luckily we were able to plug in and have a small heater running. It was still cold though. All three of us (Benny, Brett and I) were all exhausted from the overnight drive. Benny even let us cover him with Grandma Virgie's wool blanket and he stayed under it most the night. We all feel a ton better this morning.

We ended up bring more stuff home with us than what we took away but a lot of it is boat equipment and we're excited to install our new autopilot, anchor, etc. We have way too many clothes and a TON of computer crap. We'll be spending the next few days organizing. More than likely, we'll be purging many items off the boat to simplify things. Yesterday, I started to clean up and put away everything in the boat. I washed all the dishes and started throwing out a bunch of food and garbage. Brett worked on the auto pilot outside. In the afternoon, we drove to Slidell to check out the haul out yard we'll be using to take the boat out of the water and painting the bottom. We met the manager and feel good about the yard. We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find the Goodwill to unload a ton of stuff we decided to get rid of but found it closed after an hour of running around. Frustrated by the amount of traffic and people in town, we made our way to Walmart. We found it just as crowded and annoying so we made a mad dash back to the quiet marina to escape to our boat. We were still exhausted and stressed from the drive down and the adjustments of living on the boat again. We ventured out into the busy city for dinner and to do laundry. Everything went better than earlier that day. We met a nice lady in the laundromat who owned a spa in town. It was interesting to talk with her. After she left, we played Pinball against each other as the clothes dried. It was fun.We spent the evening sorting through our mounds of clothes and discussing the next day's projects. It was warmer last night and we slept much better. Our motivation to get going toward Mexico was fueled by the possibility of cold nights with no heat for the next month.

Trip Down to Louisiana

After a lot of effort with Dell, I finally received my two lenses and flash for the camera befre we left. I was anxious to use the new wide-angle lens for the desert.

We left Oregon Tuesday morning, with a rental SUV completely jammed packed full of new boat gear and new hobbies. We drove down to Chico the first day, about 6 hours from Eugene. It went well and we had absolutely no problems with the Siskiou Pass that we'd anticipated. There was almost no snow, really.We arrived in Chico around 530 and checked into our hotel. After Brett's daughter, Melody, got out of class, we visited with her at a Chinese (Mongolian-style) grill called Hula Hula. We had great fun with her and were so happy we'd been able to stop and see her on our way back to the boat.

We got up in the morning and headed South. It took awhile to get through L.A. and we settled for a hotel in Blythe which was on the border of Arizona and California. The next morning, we left early and came upon Quartzite, AZ which is famous for it's massive RV Rock and Gem Show in January- Well lol' and behold, it was January. We stopped to paruse treasures, but we were going through too early and no one was open. It was like torture. We heard all about the gathering of RVers at Quartzite selling rocks and gems for a month. And we were finally here and it was closed for the early morning.We contemplated staying the night in Quartzite to spend the day looking but decided not to spend the money and continued on. We also passed through Tuscon which was holding massive Gem shows.

We drove through Arizona quickly, and before I knew it, we were away from the cactus. I had made such a big deal to have the new camera and lenses when we went through Arizona so I could take pictuers and I didn't take one picture. We really didn't stop other than to refuel. We thought that we could make it to San Antonio, TX that night but traffic in El Paso was terrible and by night we had only barely reached Fort Stockton. We made the decision to drive through the night so we could get to the boat in the daylight.

We got to Houston in the morning and had breakfast at Denny's near It was a rough night but we succeeded and by 230, we were passing the Mandeville Exit sign. Earlier that night, Brett had thrown out Benny's cat litter and so we had to go into Covington to get cat litter before we made the last two miles to our boat.

Louisiana on-ramp painting of frogs

Our exit!

Thought this was a funny sign

for you Oregonians- This sign was a few miles before Mandeville, LA exit.

Parasailor went over our marina!

Back on Schedule

Brett is doing well. He had his surgery last Thursday and is on the mend and rearin' to go. My last day of work will be Friday and we'll leave here Tuesday.

Last Saturday, we finally took a break and escaped to the coast for a day. It was wonderful. The sun was out and it was a balmy 53 degrees! We tried out the new camera and even the film camera I had gotten stuck with on Ebay. All the pictures turned out very nice. I posted them on my Picasa Web Album which you can link to under my PICTURES tab.I spent some time Sunday and rearranged and cleaned up my Picasa Web Album so it was easier to browse through. There are many new pictures and the old ones have been pretty much reorganized. So please go take a look when you have time.

I am having another nightmare with shipping of an expensive item again right before we leave. But there is nothing I can do (except harass the company) and I guess that comes with the traveling territory...

We will not be keeping our internet connection, it's just too expensive ($60 a month!) so we'll be stuck with relying on wifi hotspots again.

My aunt and uncle are moving into their new house which is great fun but I am afraid we'll miss it by a week or so. But he's a great photographer so I am looking forward to the pictures (Ray!)

We'll soon be on our journey and I am excited to get going again.

New Website

Please visit my website at www.benevolentwanderings.com to keep up with current pictures and blogs of our adventure!

New Website

Please visit my website at www.benevolentwanderings.com to keep up with current pictures and blogs of our adventure!

Setbacks for the New Year

The holidays are over! I am glad, that was the most stressed out I have ever felt. But we survived it and it ended up ok. This was a hard year for us, especially as of late but I am looking forward to a brighter New Year.

My grandmother passed away the week of Christmas which was very sad. She was in La Pine and none of us were able to get up there to see her. They are having a memorial for her in the Spring in Portland where my grandfather is laid to rest.

We have had a setback and won't be able to leave on Tuesday as we had hoped. Brett ended up with some emergency health issues that he has to see a specialist for next week to find out if he needs surgery or not. I was hugging my coworkers and friends good bye at work on Friday when I got the call. Amazingly, Chaim and Cindy scrambled quickly to arrange for me to stay on a little longer with OML while we find out what needs to be done for Brett. Everyone is thankful that this problem arose now instead of while we were on the road or on the boat. So we are packed up, ready to go as soon as the doctor clears him.

Meanwhile, I was able to order us a new anchor. We wanted a good anchor since most of our time will be at anchorages. We needed an anchor to hold fast during storms and while we are on land, away from the boat. Our three anchors are all fluke anchors so we really needed a plow for the terrain in the South. After a lot of research, we decided on the Manson Supreme rather than a CQR plow. Everything I've read has been positive about the Manson's, being a "next-generation anchor". It was actually much cheaper than a CQR but its supposed to be superior.

I also was able to pick up foam for the rest of our cockpit cushions, the settee backs as well as all the fabric needed to cover them for extremely cheap while here in Oregon. I was able to get very beautiful fabric for curtains/pillows and good vinyl for the cockpit cushions. Cockpit cushions are definitely a must after being out for a month with small ones.The cushion fabric is not quite my color preference but I have found coordinating fabric that will tie everything together beautifully. It will be very Tuscan looking. :) It is a luxury for us to have the fabric for the cushions, curtains and settee backs but it will be much more comfortable. The boat will look nice and it will make me feel happier about living in it rather than just having blankets thrown over the cushions. Brett agreed and didn't protest when I brought home the clearanced fabric. Micro Fiber at $3.00 a yard is a steal. So is the foam which was $58. I was quoted $280 at another fabric shop earlier that day!

I'll update more when we are able to leave. It's been a long stretch since I wrote last and I am sure I am leaving out something but I just wanted to touch base with everyone.

Wow- Boy, did it snow today! I was SO disappointed to not have any snow yesterday because we missed Elaine's graduation at her church and I didn't get any pictures I wanted to get. But as I used the bathroom this morning, I found no water. My first hint. As I was getting the gallon of water from the fridge, I looked out at the old Walnut tree by our cabin and it was covered in snow! I woke Brett and he spent a couple hours getting the water back up and running and getting a fire going in the other house that Rick and Elaine just moved out of. The snow was deep and the roads iced.


I pulled up my email and let my boss know I wouldn't be in today. (I realized later that she flew to New York on Sunday! They are having a horrible winter storm and I am worried her and Courtney are ok)
Though we were trapped, I enjoyed the day, taking hundreds of pictures. I'll post some on my PICTURE tab...

We picked up a Carbon Fiber tripod and it worked WONDERS today for the night shots and the landscape. I have to move fast for the birds, so I have to work on my camera shake.
(NEVER seen Benny in snow! He wandered around in it for about ten minutes!)

We've decided to drive back to Louisiana. It was a big decision as we lose a ton of money from the airline tickets but it was way easier and less complicated and less stressful to drive with Benny and the expensive equipment we're taking back. I am really excited. This will be SO much easier on Benny and for our equipment. We will also be able to pick up the folding bikes we've been wanting and drive them back to the boat. I am looking forward to the photographic opportunities on the road as well.

I am amazed how things are coming together. The boat is much more prepared than she was when we left her in August. And we are much more appreciative and grateful for the ability to live our dream.