Chris here...
Well, work on Pelican has pretty much wound down. All of the major systems are installed, everything has been moved on and we're just waiting for the weather to improve before we cast our lines free and head to Norfolk.
Today or tomorrow we're supposed to do a checkout and seatrial of the new systems (autopilot, generator, etc.) I have to install a new starting battery and we need to find a new pressure water pump - our current unit is starting to intermittently fail. I'm confident we'll always have things to do on her.
Yesterday we finished the install of the engine hoist to pull our new 20HP off of our dinghy and raise it to the rail. It weighs about 120lbs so it's not easy to just pull it off and pick it up. The thing is enormous and obscures a lot of our view to the stern when it's on the rail, but hopefully it won't be there often once we move to nicer weather. We attempted to lift our new dinghy onto the foredeck of Pelican, but found that it was fairly near impossible to winch to the deck. I have to head to West Marine to pick up a few blocks and 100' of line to create a lifting tackle with some mechanical advantage. There's always something!
The kids are doing great with their homeschooling. They've finally "accepted" Kristen as their teacher, and have spent 4-5 hours each day for the past 3 days at "Pelischool". They really seem to enjoy the extra attention during their learning, and are gaining a much better understanding of not just the "how things work" but also of the "why things work". It's really quite cool!
We got a phone call from Casey's old middle school today letting us know that they would be closing early due to inclement weather (looks like quite a storm heading for the Northeast!). I told the kids that school was getting out early today. Kristen didn't appreciate me getting them all excited, and asked me to have our number removed from the East Greenbush automated call system :).
Outside of that, there's nothing too tremendously exciting going on here as we wait. It's raining out, and cold, and we're just looking forward to getting going! Based upon longer range weather forecasts, it looks like we may be traversing the ICW for the majority of the way as opposed to jumping offshore. This means that the trip south will be far slower than we anticipated as we will only be able to navigate when it's light out and will have to wait for bridges and high tides in places. Oh well, we'll get there yet!
If anyone has any questions, feel free to post a comment!
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1 comment:
Chris - glad things are moving along. I would suggest that even though slower, you really ought to stay inside at least until Morehead City. This is the wrong time of the year to play outside, in my opinion. And as you are working out the bugs with new gear as well as a new life style - a stress test on the open ocean in late December is probably a very big ask for any crew on any vessel. Best to you and the new school marm! Jim
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