#27 Countdown to launch!

Good grief! This will be the last update before we untie the lines and shove off the dock from our slip, bound for parts (and adventures) unknown. Our planned departure date was November 4^th, just a few days away as I write this, assuming all goes well and it isn’t raining, snowing or hailing, as it did here last week. (Last minute update: Turns out the new engine for Black Sunshine is almost ready, so we’re going to have to delay a bit so that I can get the car running again and back in the garage. As of today that looks like maybe a couple of days delay. Which should be ok, we don’t need to be in Orange Beach till the 16^th and we’ve got a fast boat.) Once we are moving, you can find us with the new “where are we” link on the front page, top right.

The last few weeks seem to have accelerated, as if the planet is spinning just a little faster. I think we might just be a bit dizzy with all this. Here it is November already and it was just June a couple of days ago! There is definitely a sense of excitement here as we work on last minute things, almost a feeling of electricity in the air as if lightning is about to strike. Fortunately, thanks to a lot of hard work, the boat is pretty much ready. Cheryl has been busy organizing, deep cleaning, calling marinas, and otherwise finding a way to make all this work. I’ve been doing the final items left on the check list, such as calibrating the tachometers and installing a water filter on the sink so that my coffee is suitably life-sustaining. Now I’m packing clothes and putting up my tools, which I hope to barely touch this next year. My main goal, besides having a magnificent and safe adventure, is to get this boat around the Loop without having to work on it in any serious way. Oh, and make it without sinking. Not sinking first, then no breakdowns.

Recently I started moving some clothes aboard. The thing is, I want to look stylish as we travel, after all Cheryl always looks good so I need to keep up, but I have maintained the same look now for what, 40 years? Cheap tropical shirt, shorts in the summer, jeans in the winter. My closet is entirely tropical shirts. I own two or three solid color shirts, in case I have to go to a funeral or rob a bank. Every time I go in a store, no matter what I think I’m going to buy, I come out with another tropical shirt. Even my local Rural King now carries tropical shirts, so a run for plumbing supplies means another tropical shirt. So this should be easy, right? Grab a handful of shirts and go. Once I got started taking clothes to the boat it only took me about an hour, by which I mean more like a week. I took shirts, some backups, cold weather and rain gear items, and bam. Thought I was done. Then I re-thought things. I have rough working-on-the-boat tropical shirts, casual dinner type tropical shirts, and nice silky tropical shirts. How many of each? So I took some back home, took new ones to the boat, and repeat until done. By which I mean probably until the day we leave. As you can see in the photo I managed to cram my closet full. Then I decided I needed to take at least one Pirate shirt. After all, if you take boating seriously, it means a guy needs to be prepared. For some reason this cracked Cheryl up. She gave in on the shirt but drew the line with the sword.

It is kind of fun walking around the house and thinking about what to take along. My drums were ruled out immediately, not only for the space they’d take up, but because I’d like to make it all the way around the Loop with Cheryl aboard. We found a place for the scooters, which we’re taking in lieu of bicycles. Cheryl noticed that there’s a big unused space under the “hood” of the boat, just in front of the top helm, so we stashed them in there, tied down so they don’t move around. Even with the scooters there is still plenty of room for folding chairs, cushions, and all the things we already had in there. You’ll notice in the photograph that we figured out a way to tell Cheryl’s scooter from mine. The dingy is finally rigged and ready for action. Thanks to the kindhearted generosity of our friend Dr Jeff, we’ve got a great 15 HP Yamaha on a dingy rated for 10 HP, which makes the dingy fast enough to outrun most JetSkis. At least it feels like it when you hit the gas.

Looking ahead at the year we have a few trips home in mind, so we will be back now and then for a few days or even a week. I like that idea, that will give us a reset, a chance to remind ourselves of what it’s like to sleep in our own bed and take a long hot shower without thinking about water use. It will give us a chance to check on the houses, do those house-keeping things that need done now and then, and just to make sure all is as it should be. One thing I am looking forward to on our visits back is driving Black Sunshine. Trying to get that project done just adds to the frenetic feeling this last few weeks.

Cheryl has a different reason for trips off the boat: She is happy to announce that she is a grandmother for the second time, a healthy little girl named Lucy Collette. Already she’s planning some trips back to visit Lucy and her sister Charlotte.

It is all just a little surreal, thinking about being gone from my house for an extended period of time. I love my house and neighborhood, the library, small town life, the many things there are to do around here. Being retired is wonderful in that once you are free of the responsibility of showing up on time somewhere, that opens up time to do things that you don’t even consider while working. This trip is definitely one of those things. That’s all part of an equation we all make, all the time. On one side, embracing challenges in life, challenges difficult enough to satisfy our need for accomplishment and goal-achieving, and on the other side, enjoying leisure in a way so that it does not become boring. We spend our lives trying to manage that equation. Preparing for this Loop thing definitely pushes us over into the challenging side. But I think once we get going we’ll be able to enjoy the leisure side as well. I’m really looking forward to that.

There’s another equation important to boat folks. How much fuel does she burn? I know our burn rate at speed, which is just over 20 mph, but we haven’t run at cruise, which is about 10 mph, for long enough to calculate our miles per gallon and thus our range. Most of the Loop is actually run at cruise as there are no wake zones, traffic, etc, that keep you from running fast. Thanks to fellow Bayliner 3788 owner, Tony, who lives up in the Great Northwest, and some internet digging, I have an estimate for a probable fuel burn rate, which I used to estimate miles per gallon and range. With 6000 miles to travel, at cruise we will burn around 2400 gallons, and 2400 gallons at $4 a gallon is $9600.  I had estimated $12,000 for fuel, which will probably be closer to reality since prices will vary and we will go fast now and then.  That also means that at 10 mph we have around a 650 mile range, which is better than I had expected. As long as Cheryl doesn’t want to go water-skiing too often.

We have soaked up many AGLCA youtube videos, read all the books, talked to dozens of people, prepped the boat, and roughed in our schedule for the entire Loop on the calendar. Are we nervous? Maybe a little. Are we ready? We’re going to find out soon!

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”