Dawn of the Road

I love road trips, even if they are North and it is Winter... 

With our bags packed, Travis is making breakfast as I noodle around the computer, checking last minute directions. We're on the way to Chi-town for the holidays. Did anyone catch the lunar eclipse? We made it a point to get up and watch and it was worth it. Smoky reds and mysterious greens, a nice way to begin the day. Hope everyone is blessed with peace and joy this Season and always!

Keepin' On

After four days of  steady onslaught  the wind has stopped, and is replaced by bitter cold temps. Low 30's, or about 15 degrees below normal for these parts. Grateful to have our footing again, we plug away in the cold, determined to make the progress that will allow us to leave these cold winters behind forever.

Travis has been making steady progress on MeVoy,  hooking up the electronics that we were gifted last year.  Just today he got the radar mast up, with our  GPS antenna, radar and LED deck light wired and ready to go.  He also hooked up the SSB  antenna, and the Loran antenna. We were considering  getting rid of the Loran, but since we had all the parts, we decided to keep it.  Top of the line 80's technology! Quite handy actually, as it uses radio frequency, instead of satellite, to pin point the boat's position.  Its the early version of GPS and chart plotter in one, much more difficult to use, package. That means solar storms have only us to fear, arrrrrgh...

Radar mast is going up

Radar, GPS, Loran, and SSB all hooked up!

Torn between staying aboard Tara and supervising on Me Voy, Chopper watches intently as Travis works on MeVoy a few slips away. 

Meanwhile, Tara's canvas is beginning to come together.  My deadline is Sunday, as after that the temperatures are supposed to dip even lower! Brrrrrrrrrr.

Winter Comes like a Lion

Don't let this picture fool you. Winter has arrived. And none of us are smiling about it!

Squeek, grrrr, plop, swoooooosh, thud thud... this symphony of creaks, groans, and bangs alerts us to the winds whipping outside. Today marks day three of sustained 25-30 mph winds. I'm talking around the clock wind, gusty cold Northern wind, wind that has turned our sink drains into miniature ice blowers as it pushes itself anyway it can into our rocking and squeaking home. Living here, like this, we are aware of every nuance of both the wind and water. Every howl, every roll, every jingle of glass bumping against glass is identified. We are the wind, we are the boat and we are the water. This intimacy with nature, even when She is not very nice, is awesome.

(Billy, the cat, disagrees with the above statement.)

In these conditions all work grinds to a halt. So we watch movies, read, cook, play music, draw, whatever. I mention this, because recently we saw a great video called Hold Fast . If you have about an hour check out these crusty-punk kids and their boat appropriately named Pestilence. Its a smart, witty, insightful and really really stooopid adventure.