STARTING OUT
We are planning to begin our great adventure in the spring of 2007 with a trip up the Columbia (This adventure did not pan out). We sold our house in the spring of 2004 and began living aboard full time while still working. Rick will be retiring the end of 2006 with Sheri cutting the strings in April 2007 (Rick retired December 2006 but I did not get out until 8/17/07).
The last two years have been spent with Rick learning/upgrading/changing/fixing/modifying all systems to his liking and Sheri learning to sail and learning how to successfully 'live aboard'. I began my learning with the language. Rick has patiently been teaching "Sailing as a second language". It has taken a while but I think I am doing pretty well with most of the terminology. I now know port and starboard, I know that once you bring rope onto a boat it is no longer 'rope' it becomes 'line' and each 'line' has a different name based on what it does, i.e. halyards haul the mainsail up and down etc., a winch is not a female serving drinks at a bar, and I even know what the 'bitter end' is!! (Go ahead, ask me!) One thing for sure, life is never boring here!
I was really amazed at what little adjustment I went through when it came to leaving the land dwelling and living on the water full time. There were minor adjustments to cooking, like no oven; weekly trips to the Laundromat, where I met a wonderful lady from Russia and have had many awesome conversations; and no hanging space for my work day clothes; we bought a small hanging bag and hung it in the spare berth. Overall, the blessings have far outweighed the adjustments needed.
Rick's most recent project has been to build and install a post in front of the wheel that will have a removable captains chair on it. The design is such that when at anchor, we remove the chair and put a cockpit table on the post for dinning! How cool is that! He has also built a rack to hold two more solar panels to increase our power generating capabilities. Some other minor (LOL) projects will be painting the decks, buying and installing a new water tank and replacing all the windows at the lower level with tinted acrylic plastic. (very tough stuff)
Eight months and counting!! I will try and keep everyone updated as things progress, but the intent of this web site is to keep family and friends updated on our actual cruising once we take off. Once we leave you will be able to see pictures and read updates on all our adventures.
Oregon is a beautiful place to live. Here is a view from Tigger at the docks:
And if you hadn't noticed the snow on the treetops, take another look! So, here's a couple other pictures from the winter of 2006/2007 and one reason we decided to head south!
As much as we love Oregon, when it snows at the coast it's time to go south!
August 29, 2007 - we are off and running!! (sailing). See the photo galley for a few pictures some friends took of us leaving.