5 kids boats with 11 kids for Halloween at Elizabeth City NC

Auto pump shut off

On the boat, we are used to traveling for a month or more on 150 gallons of fuel.  After all, we are a sail boat with two auxiliary engines.  Our patience for slow sailing has increased with a 3 knot cut-off.  If we are going less than 3 nautical miles an hour (maybe 4 miles an hour) we turn on an engine and motor sail.  Now we are driving 40 feet of house down the road with a V10 Ford Triton engine and no sails on the roof.   All the CPAs in the family were taking bets on our first fuel mileage, with a required report in.

 

As with anything, figures can be manipulated to benefit the presenter.  At our first fill up, the pump magically shut off at only 38 gallons.  That would be phenomenal fuel economy.  But wait, it shut off as we had charged exactly $100 and that is the max on one credit card transaction.    That has NEVER happened to us before at the pump.  Another $100 and we had our first official mileage report and a realization that we are now our worse environmental nightmare at between 7-9 miles/gallon. 

 

Now we are happy that the recession has caused a drop in fuel prices. 

Now, we love the fact that U.S. has the lowest fuel prices of the wealthy nations. 

Now, we creep over the border from Canada so we don’t have to buy fuel at $1.00 a liter (about $4.00/gallon for the math challenged). 

Now, Marc has now taken to Priusing, coasting down any and every hill in neutral. 

Now, our internet time is used searching for the lowest fuel in the area.  Where is Chavez when you need him?   

As the accountant, I have figured at fuel costs $.33/mile.  Every wrong turn I think, ca$$ching, ca$$ching.  So, we are hoping our carbon footprint can be averaged over the last 3 years and divided by 4.. right?

Heading west with no GPS

Goodbye Hastings.  On Saturday, August 8^th, after cleaning, fixing, and loading the “new” RV with food, we left Hastings Michigan heading west without a definite plan.   A new tradition was established.. honk at the entrance to every new state.  Bye Michigan, hello Indiana…. Goodbye Indiana, hello Illinois. 

Scott, my brother, turned 40 that day and we were meeting him off the highway in Illinois. We learned quickly to try to avoid toll roads.  With 3 axles, we had to take out a small mortgage to pay the toll taker.   Entering downtown Chicago,  the Express lane sign read, “no trucks”.  Our we now a truck… with 3 seconds to decide, survey yes, “YES”   After getting his first ticket in 20 years, Marc was extra sensitive to being a law abiding citizen in our new Tropi-cal RV.  So, onto the “local” lane we merged.   The first adventure of the trip occurred. ;
Black smoke was billowing in the right lane and cars were screeching to a halt.   With a car on fire in the far right lane, cars were slipping by in the left lane.   Just as we were getting by… WHAM, the impressive Chicago Fire Department showed up in force, parking their fire truck right in front us, cutting off the lane.   By now, the car was in full blown inferno with Marc saying… get a picture.  Chicago’s finest parked their fire truck in front of our perfect Eye Witness News photo.  I’ve never been the eye witness in Eye Witness News and now the picture was lost.. but I got the smoke and the firefighters in action.

We were so close, we got to chat with the firefighters and see the business man with his briefcase watching his car go up in flames.  One of the firefighters gave Parker a comment about playing his DS vs. watching the action.  New DS rules were put in place and within 20 minutes, we were on our way.

Land Lubbers

August 1st , 2009 was a milestone day. In the morning, we negotiated our first RV purchase, a 37',1999 National "Tropi-cal" model with 35,000 miles.Why did we BUY an RV you ask. Side-by-Side was "on the hard" at the Severn River Marina in Virginia awaiting a new transmission. Most boat yards forbid living on the hard. We have done it once and it is no fun and nearly impossible for the 3-4 weeks it was going to take to fix the boat. So we were officially home-less. Ideas were tossed around including rent an RV in Europe as the sailing plan there was squashed by the kids. Heading to South America was an option. Then sailing friends in Idaho (formerly Mima), who purchased an RV after sailing, invited us to visit and tool around in the RV. Maybe it was time to "See American First" as the original National Park travel slogan stated. Renting an RV was costly and, for the 4 weeks, would have been as much as buying one. Brad, my CPA brother in law and I approached the decision from a non emotional "run the numbers" approach. Brad asked to see my spreadsheet analysis of the cost of an RV vs. nightly hotels factoring in gas, depreciation and the opportunity cost of money. I'm still working on it. Inspired by our friends the Olson's who had tented camp for 3 weeks last summer, I suggested driving the 1996 teal Plymouth Voyager with 120K on it and tent camping. Marc just said, "It is about the experience, not the numbers." so off shopping we went.
After almost buying an RV in Virginia until metal appeared in the transmission fluid, we were spending every day looking in Michigan for an affordable, low mileage older RV. We checked Craig's List, walked through pre-auction lots, called dealers to no avail. Anything reasonable was trashed inside and/or water damaged and delaminating. Seems that Michigan's15% unemployment rate has lead many fore-closed families to move into motor homes as their primary residence. Feeling discouraged, we saw a large RV sitting in a used car lot in Caledonia Michigan, outside of Hastings. It looked entirely unaffordable but Marc said, "Let's take a look." Wow, it was not trashed, had Corian counter tops, tons of storage, TWO slide outs, palm tress on the outside and etched sail boats on the inside. On the down side, it had some evidence of water damage, non working batteries and was $7,000 outside of our upper limit. The sales guy, without asking, takes $5,000 off the price. After a 6 hour work over by a mechanic and a list of repair issues, we went in for some hard negotiating. 2 hours later we left with an insured, paid for RV but running late for Hannah's baptism. Then onto Angie's 25th class reunion.. Quite the day!

Reunited

Close friends. Sending out Christmas cards or wedding invitations our list of friends can swell to large levels. But when it comes down to the number of people you can call on for anything, anytime the number shrinks Those people who open their homes to you and tell you to stay as long as you need to, even beyond the standard "4 day" limit. Sailing, we meet other cruising who become "do anything" for you friends in a short period of time. Why is that? Maybe because we are all somewhat craving play mates for our kids and adult conversation from someone other than our spouses. Maybe we know that at any time we may need help in terms of a boat part, computer expertise or just an ear to vent to. Regardless, turning around and headed back gave us an to opportunity to be reunited with "shirt of my back" friends on Aly Cat, Pelican and Miakoda. They were "sorry" for our boat problems but glad the goodbye we said in the Bahamas was not as long as expected. Thanks Alyson, Lew and Caroline for opening up their beach home to us. The kids learned to surf in all of 5 minutes while the adults had a great time being schooled in Poker. Too soon, we felt it was time to head north.

One Big Bad U Turn

After 4 days and 450 miles into our trip south, between Cuba and the Cayman islands, we mysteriously stopped moving through the water. For 95% of the time, we had to motor with no wind or wind coming from the direction we wanted to go. We finally decided to drop the sails and punch our way to the Caymans using just one motor. The 140 miles left were going to be rough, bashing into building seas.
Waves had crashed on Sabrina's hatch and leaked through to the mess below. Had the school books not still been on her bed, the salt water mess would have been more manageable. Could this be a behavior changing lesson?
All of us we excited as we had not been to the Caymans before. From there we were going to refuel and cruise downwind to Panama. Fate had other plans for us. First, my laptop which had been developing vertical lines decided to add a large black stripe down the middle of the screen. At the last minute, we got a new lap top from Best Buy in Fort Lauderdale 5 days ago. Dell had a recall on the screens but we were too late. Never fear, Marc has the same laptop and I can get my data off. Two days out to sea, Marc's laptop gets a black stripe also. Two laptops down, two left. The kids computer had intermediately stopped powering up and we took it into Best Buy prior to leaving. They, of course, "could not replicate the problem". Now, it will not power up.. One laptop left. The new laptop however is Vista and non of the programs will work on it. Fate is trying to tell us something.
A sun shower looks good about now. Finally, the port engine stopped working altogether.
But, we have another engine.

Hot, tired and discouraged, we stopped the boat and called a family meeting in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Sabrina wanted to go to the Caymans. I was looking at Honduras or Guatemala but Marc that the best repair options were back in the States. Parker, thinking internet and friends wanted to go to States. Now we are have to BACKTRACK all of the distance we just covered and make it to North Carolina after stopping to refuel in Miami
After we turned around, we put up the spinnaker for a nice, comfortable downwind sail. 15 minutes later, the black cloud behind us was fast approaching. I just noticed the wall of wind heading our way rapidly. Marc ran forward and fought with the spinnaker sock to get it down, just in time.  Wind reached 48 knots and we were sailing only on the sail covers.

On the positive side, once we finally arrive in about a week, hopefully we can see the friends we left behind in the Bahamas. At least we weren't 1000 miles out on the way to Europe when this happened.

Crash at Family Island Regatta