Step Two...

It's time to get our ducks in a row for launch 2010.  Todd and I drove up to Bay Point yesterday and delivered more electronics to the boat.  Todd and the electrician will be completing their work Thursday and Friday, April 29th and 30th.  I'm glad.  Right now the boat is 'torn apart' inside.  The refrigerator is sitting in the middle of the galley.  I took a few things to add to my cooking assortment yesterday and had to climb on the counter to access the galley.  Of course, while I was in the 'stockade', I forgot to get a tape measure that I keep in the galley.  I wanted to measure our ottoman thinking it will be a good 'filing cabinet'.  So I climbed back into the galley only to find I had moved the measuring tape during our last visit because of all the climbing!  After I finished measuring, Todd simply took a piece of paper and laid it in the ottoman and said,"yes, that'll do!"  Getting ready is going to be interesting.

I took time to file through all our charts, Richardson's Chart Books and Waterway Guides.  We don't want to duplicate what we already have but do want to be careful to update if necessary.  The boat is still covered with plastic shrink wrap and with the temperatures outside hovering around 80*F, it was uncomfortable and we were glad to get done and lock up.

As we left, I put our new US Customs and Border Protection sticker in place.  At least we're ready for the Border Patrol!  Hopefully this year we'll remember to take the BPC number with us whenever we call in to Customs to check back into the U.S.  That's another adventure we had during the winter stemming from a trip to Leamington, ON, CA last summer.  Long story short, we forgot to take the number when we called to check in at the Customs Station on Put in Bay, OH.  Todd gave Customs all the info they requested, showed them our passports, let them take our pictures and that was that.  We got a letter from Customs while we were in the Florida Keys this winter that said we should report in 10 days or be arrested.  Todd called and found they had written down a wrong letter when taking our Ohio Boat Registration numbers.  The agent agreed had we had our BPC number, none of this would have happened.  Lesson learned, hopefully not forgotten!

We went directly from Bay Point to our mechanic at Mike's Dockside to review our work order list and make any additions necessary.  I think Rorey and Laurel are as excited about the trip as we are.  Whenever we come to discuss the trip with them, everyone in the shop drops in to listen.  It does make me feel good that our mechanic and his maintenance team want to see us have a good voyage.

Todd put together our list some time ago and it includes:
- New 8D batteries for both engines and changing out the third 8D battery for 6 golf cart batteries linked together to give us longer lasting power for our accessories (commonly called the house battery, it operates all our lights, the refrigerators and our Vacu-flush toilet system).
- Remove and replace water pump impellers in both diesel engines (Cummins 370 HP) and the Generator (Westerbeke).
- Replace the oil sending units since the starboard is not working.
- Adjust or replace the three windshield wiper arms and blades.
- Remove and replace the boat horns (trumpets).  We want to sound like a ship and not a duck with a bad cold!
- Bring the Glen Denning (engine syncronizer) back into operation.  It decided to quit last season!
- Clean the Airsep filters (important for diesel engines).
- Replace Raycor fuel filters for both engines and the generator.
- Replace the direct engine fuel filters.
- Test and clean all bulge pumps, replacing any that are sluggish or non-functioning.
- Check all hoses going to the sanitary holding tank, remove and replace any that may be leaking odors, check and reseat the connection into the hold tank itself, pressurize the tank to check for leaks, replace both vent hoses and permanently remove the Sealnad Saniguard filter.  The holding tank has caused us problems since we purchased the boat.  Ten months would be a long time to put up with odor problems!
- Replace the sending units on the freshwater tanks as well as the holding tank.
- Clean out sea strainers and replace glass cylendars if necessary.
- Put together a 'spare parts' kit.

It's a big list!  Rorey came up with more (new belts for the engines and generator, for one...it's good to have someone else thinking about what might go wrong!).  Todd is going to help Rorey and his maintenance crew as they go about this list.  When we are in remote locations, Todd will be the mechanic and he is anxious to know how to go about changing belts, impellers and fuel filters as well as any other knowlegde Rorey can pass on.

Todd and I are anxious to get in the water.  As the days lengthen and get warmer, we can only think of the boat.  This year there is so much more to think about.  There's a little twinge of anxiety with our excitement.

Getting Ready...

Since my last post, the boat has spent the winter all wrapped up in a blue plastic cocoon. During that time, Todd and our electricians have disassembled and rewired Ocean Breeze for all new navigational electronics. Once the plastic is removed in a few weeks, they will complete the installation.

We have upgraded the radar (Raymarine RD424HD), upper station GPS/chartplotter (Raymarine C90W Chartplotter housed in a NavPod), pilothouse GPS/chartplotter (Raymarine C120W Chartplotter GPS), SR100 Sirus Weather Receiver, AIS500 Class B Transceiver, Ray49 VHF Radios for upper and lower stations, upgraded Raymarine Autopilot, DSM30 digital sounder, Raymarine Satellite Dome (TV), Cam 100 reverse image video for monitoring the stern and a Cam 50 for the engine room. Still on the list is: getting a new matress made for the master suite (the old one goes to Shea's Sleep Shop in Toledo Friday!), upgrade the TV in the salon, rectify an ongoing problem in the bilge with our VacuFlush system, replace all of our bilge pumps, water pump impellers, 8D batteries (3) and generator battery, add 2 small inverters (for 2 computers and the TV), replace oil sending units, replace windowshield wiper arms and blades, new horns (really loud and big ones so everyone will think we're a ship), repair the Glendenning synchronizer, clean the AirSeps, replace Raycor filters and engine filters, add Hurly Davits and replace our upperstation canvas. New software for the entire course of travel as well as a myriad of charts and books will be purchased in the next few months. Of course, there's the usual prepping to commission the boat before it goes in the water (waxing, bottom paint, etc.).

Some of the work can be done after the boat is in the water and hopefully we won't be too delayed going in because of what has to be done before launch. As we click tasks off our list, I'll update our blog. It's going to be a busy summer with a departure date in early August.

Todd and I did attend the Fall Rendezvous of the AGLCA (Great Loopers) in October at Joe Wheeler State Park, Alabama. We came away with a huge amount of information and very excited about the adventure that is before us. We met wonderful people that had just started the adventure, well seasoned veterans doing the Loop again and people that haven't even bought boats yet but are thinking about doing the Loop (amazing!).

We spent February and early March in the Lower Florida Keys. We were fortunate to find a Boating Seamanship and Handling course offered by the US Auxillary Coastguard in Big Pine Key, FL. We last took this course in 1985 and found a lot of new material being covered now. Besides a great renewal of skills, we learned a good deal about navigating Florida waters which we look forward to doing in January, February and March of 2011! We also checked out many marinas on the Gulfside of Florida as well as the Keys.

Our excitement is growing. Every conversation with ANYONE is dotted with talk about the Great Loop and where our adventure will take us. The one aspect that seems odd to most folks is TIME. Time is to our advantage and we will take plenty of it as we move along the waterways. Looping is NOT for those in a hurry. We don't plan to run any faster than 7 to 8 knots and look forward to no more than 5 or 6 hours underway when we travel. The only exception will be the Big Bend in Florida's Gulf. That crossing will take about 8 hours.

These next posts will be mostly about what we are doing to get ready. I'm sure changes will occur and I will bring those to light as well. We, like so many, are dealing with some unknowns as we prepare. I hope you enjoy our voyage and the trials and tribulations ahead.

This is just the beginning...

The adventure is yet to come. The captain and I have enjoyed long distance cruising for quite sometime. Our current boat is a 1998 Bayliner Pilothouse 4788. We bought it in Graysonville, MD Oct 2004. It is our fifth boat. We bought it specifically to cruise the Great Loop.

Before the dream of the Great Loop, we had cruised the circumference of Lake Erie, the Detroit River into Lake Huron (along the Canadian side north to Tobramory), the Georgian Bay and the North Channel. We cruised the Niagra River and the West End of the Erie Canal. We also cruised through the Welland Canal to Toronto and the Trent-Severn Waterway. It was that one trip that we met the Loopers online and found them in a gathering at Petersbourough, ON, CA. From there the seed was planted and we began to read about the Great Loop.

Having made passage through the locks in the Trent-Severn with friends on their Silverton Aft Cabin Cruiser, we learned what 'locking' was all about and developed an understanding of the kind of boat we would want to use on the Great Loop. We had seen many Bayliner Pilothouses beginning with the 45. When the 4788 came out with no teak to maintain, I was in love.

Our first boat was a 1956 Trojan Cruiser with mahogany coming out the ying-yang! We spent the whole summer varnishing, sanding, varnishing. The next year we sold it and bought a 1963 Trojan Cruiser (ReeBee). It had a marine plywood hull (no need to swell the lapstriking) and teak decks fore and aft (that spells teak out the yink-yang!). I spent the whole summer striping and applying a mixture of linseed oil and turpentine. My knees felt like I should have become a nun.

We kept ReeBee for 2 years. The happiest day of my life was when we traded ReeBee for our first 'plastic' boat; a 1987 Bayliner Motoryacht 3288 (Camelot). It only had a smattering of teak to care for. However, the little Hino Deisel engines left the boat well underpowered. The captain wanted some speed. Camelot lasted 3 years and along came SundayTripper, a 1989 Bayliner Motoryacht 3870. It had twin Ford 305 engines and top speed was 18 knots. The captain was delighted. We kept Sunday Tripper for 14 years. It was a lovely boat but not what we wanted for Looping.

The captain began internet searching off and on from 2002 until late summer of 2004. We contacted a broker in Graysonville, MD and set a date to look at three Bayliner Motoryacht 45s. We went to Maryland with great expectations and were disappointed in the condition of the boats. Our broker took us to see one more boat, a 4788 that we had not seen on the internet. Once we were on this boat, we knew there was no turning back. This was going to be our boat.

We negotiated for weeks. Thank goodness for the Strobs and Honey Let's Get a Boat. I wrote down everything that went wrong with their boat and made sure that our surveyor inspected all these areas. He found problems in many of the same areas and the wrongs were righted before we completed the transaction.

The captain and the first mate now had a boat for Looping (Ocean Breeze)...and needed to bring it from Graysonville, MD in the Chesapeake Bay to Marblehead, OH on the south shore of Lake Erie. In essence, we would be starting our Loop without being 'Loopers'!