Meet Tilly

We’ve wanted a tiller pilot for a while now, and we finally acquired one for this trip. They are ideal for motoring or sailing in light wind and wave conditions. Basically you provide it with electrical power and in return it will uncomplainingly helm the boat on whatever course you tell it to. With Tilly steering (yes, we’ve named her) Matt and I are free to do sail work, wander the whole length of the boat on our watch, or work on whatever other task we choose. It’s a liberating tool and we wonder how we ever got by without one.

The photo shows a bird’s eye view of Tilly in action. (She’s the black thing with the buttons on top.)

Stuff

While preparing for this trip, I have been constantly dumbfounded by the amount of Stuff we’ve had to deal with.

First we had to rent a small storage unit when we put our house on the market. We needed a place to store excess Stuff to make the house look appealing and tidy. (And our house was only 650 square feet plus garage, so I didn’t think we had much Stuff at that point.)

Once the house sold we needed to rent a bigger storage unit to store most of our Stuff while we moved in temporarily with Matt’s parents.

Then when it came time to move our Stuff out to the Montana house we had to rent a trailer to help move all the Stuff. The truck, trailer, and MPV were packed to the gills and we still had to leave some Stuff behind. It was beginning to look like the Oregon Trail when things are being tossed out the wagons because the horses and oxen can’t pull the weight. While driving up some of the mountain passes there were moments when I thought that we might actually have to jettison some items because the vehicles were laboring so hard – we could barely keep up with the semi-trucks.

I have to add that during all these months a constant culling of Stuff was occurring, so we actually had fewer things than we started out with.

When we returned from Montana we still had Stuff in the storage unit that we hadn’t been able to fit in the vehicles. Fortunately we had a friend with a fairly empty garage which we could store this Stuff in. (Thanks Libbey!)

Then came the moment that caused some serious despair. We literally had a whole truck load of Stuff that we needed to fit on the boat, and the boat was already fairly full of Stuff. Matt said he had not suffered much serious stress these past few months until faced with this endeavor. It almost pushed him over the edge.

I’m happy to say that we did get all the Stuff stowed away and nothing had to be thrown overboard. This photo is representative of the way all our cupboards and lockers look, however.

In order to retrieve one item, it seems we typically have to move no fewer than five items to get to it. It makes our old 650 square foot house seem like an absolute mansion. But right now I wouldn’t trade our boat for anything. Who needs all that Stuff anyways?

Matt and I just wanted to thank everyone who came to see us off - it meant a lot to us. I only managed to take a few photos so I apologize if you aren't in one of these!

We had a sunny motor to Port Ludlow, and on our way a minke whale surprised us by surfacing very close to the boat.

This morning we woke up early and continued on to Port Townsend. Right now we are all cozy at the Point Hudson marina.

We have jumped right into projects. Matt is installing stronger locker door latches (on the package it actually says 'stud catch' and we are giggling about that).

I am playing the endless game of "Where is the (fill in the blank here)". So far I cannot locate our little video camera, and a USB cable for another camera. I am sure I will not be able to find many other things later today. I am always amazed at how easy it is to loose stuff in the limited space on a sailboat...

Thanks again for showing your support, miss you all!

This ain't no marina

You might be wondering how we ended up at a branding out in Montana when we're suppose to be getting ready to sail off...

We've been spending a few days out here storing our belongings in a house that Matt and his brother inherited from their father's side of the family. That makes them the fourth generation to own the place.

The house is located in a small, quiet cattle town just on the east side of the Rockies, and they still do some real cowboying out here. It fascinates us, partly because it's not something we grew up with. So when our neighbor Helen asked if we wanted to go watch the branding we jumped at the chance. There was a whole lot of mooing and bawling going on.

All work and no pay

This week is the the beginning of me being unemployed, but it doesn't feel that way. Instead of working at a library surrounded by books and wonderful co-workers, I am now working long hours (today was a 7am to 10 pm shift) with no pay, and the boss (myself) is rather demanding. Maybe I need to unionize...

Today I ran several errands to gather various materials and supplies.
Then I went to the boat and helped Matt mark the anchor rode so we'll know how much length we've put out when we drop anchor. (We used cable ties - simple but effective.)
I also did a fitting of the partially sewn sail cover for the main sail. Then it was back home to finish sewing the cover, which took me until the evening.
Then I cut out the fabric pieces for the propane tank cover I need to sew.

The photo shows the sail cover in progress. I prefer to sew on the floor to allow all that fabric to slide more easily through the machine. It's always a bit of a wrestling match. I hope I got all the measurements right, I'll find out tomorrow!

Fish out of water

Seeing boats in the yard, especially my boat, always makes me feel a bit protective. They look vulnerable and precarious, and it's obvious they'd rather be afloat.
We're having the yard guys do a bit of fiberglass work on the hull - closing up some old holes (from a non-functioning knot meter and an old transducer) and making a new hole for a new transducer - actually a triducer. This will hook up to a display and show us depth, speed through water, and water temperature. That will be quite exciting. Our old depth sounder wasn't very reliable and our knot meter never worked at all.
It's rainy and cold though, so the spots on the hull are from heat lamps to help speed the curing process of the fiberglass work. We hope to get her back in the water in the next day or two.

Barkley Sound adventures part 4

One day while we were out exploring at a low tide we found this sea cave, which was really more of a tunnel since it had two openings. It was cool but spooky and brought out the 10 year old inside each of us. "Wow, this is so awesome! This is the best sea cave ever!" "Yah! Cool!" That's Matt outside the cave. I'm glad the only things living inside this cave were very small sea creatures.

One of the many beaches we explored. Amazingly, on most of these beaches we were the only people around. Everybody else was out fishing I guess. (They do say the fishing is incredible here.)

We did run across mink on several of the islands. At first we thought they were river otters, but once we got a closer look at one, we discovered it was definitely a mink. They love to cruise the beaches looking for yummy things to eat.

This was one of my favorite beaches of the trip. It had rounded granite boulders, faced Imperial Eagle Channel so had great wave action, and also had sand and lots and lots and lots of little shells, many that were intact, many smaller around than a penny. The sand was covered with them. Treasures everywhere, and it was hard not to take any souvenirs!