A Dying Battery, A Bit OF Wind, & A Dishwasher

Matt trying to figure out what the hell is going on with the starter battery.

Starting to feel the forward momentum towards our autumn voyage! Very exciting! Our house is becoming more & more free of our “stuff”. We will keep it furnished but it won’t have all the messes that make it “ours” inside it anymore. We, actually Matt, is continuing to fix up stuff all over the house to make it more appealing. -So we can take photos of it. -So we can put it up for rent next month. -Well, advertise for it to be rented. We won’t be out of here until sometime in September.

One fun thing we discovered is that our starter battery is on the way out. It doesn’t seem to be charging, even when hooked up to shore power. I think the Universe decided that we weren’t spending enough of our hard earned dollars on MerSea. Well, we are solving that problem quickly. Matt picked up a new battery. -Which is much more comforting than the money would be in our pocket. I mean, what were we going to spend that money on anyway? Put it towards retirement?! Okay, so it wasn’t insanely expensive but it just is one of the many expenses we are starting to shell out for. -Because why be real sailors when we could be comfortable?

Montage of our sail from this last Thursday.

We got to go sailing again last week! The wind was a bit feisty, you could say. 23 - 28 knots. However, it seems like nothing compared to what we went through along the coast of Big Sur last autumn. I think the swell was about 5 feet. It felt really choppy though. Matt pointed out that these conditions didn’t seem like such a big deal because our bilge pump was working, we were close to our own marina, we didn’t need an autopilot & it was light out.

Not being too sure if the wind was going to increase or not, we decided to only stay out about an hour. Also if our engine didn’t start, due to the battery, we wanted to be able to notify Boat US as soon as possible in case the wind did get worse.

Matt did get to reef the sail though. It was the first time he did it while underway. Pretty impressive in the high winds!

Zephyr approves! -”Does this mean Daddy will have more time to play with me?”

I can’t speak for Matt but it’s been about 26 years since I lived in a place with a real dishwasher. We have had a few portable dishwashers that have been okay. But Matt installed this one to be as permanent as a dishwasher can be in a home. We’ve only had it a few days but I think it’s been a fairly nice addition to our household. Matt was the previous dishwasher here. So I’ve let him play with his new toy but I’ll load & unload it soon, to give my true opinion on it. One unfortunate thing that Matt did discover yesterday is that our dishes are too big for it! 🤣 However, he had just installed it. -I’m talking getting under the house into the crawl space kind of installing it. And getting slightly smaller dishes seems like a much easier fix than returning the dishwasher. See, things happen in the house too! I’m taking it as a sign that we’re just meant to be on the boat. Life on land is a pain.

This! - 7 Months Away!

Things we’re looking forward to most about our upcoming 6 month voyage, besides warm weather, are:

K: Being able to have some kind of view everyday - Pretty self explanatory. But having a view of the sea every morning after waking up is an intoxicating thought to me! I can’t explain how much I dream of this every day!

M: I look forward to: visiting new places and meeting new people. - It's funny but some of my go-to memories from past trips are simple things like finding the right tool or part at a hardware store, finding a really cool little natural grocery shop, or stumbling upon interesting things.

K: Meeting new people - While I will miss my Santa Cruz peeps very much, I am excited to interact with other cruising sailors who are basically wanting similar things out of life as us. And whose mistakes we can learn from. Not looking forward as much as the mistakes they’ll be learning from us.

M: Snorkeling, spearfishing and eating what we catch. - Food always tastes best when you work for it.

K: Simplifying life - Just like this explanation! 😁

M: The memories that this amazing adventure will come create.

K: Exploring new places - The trouble with having so much information out there on the web & other sources is that it can leave no surprises to be had when traveling. But you do want to know if a place is going to be interesting enough to you for it to be worth checking out. So what I like to do is read or skim over information enough to know if the spot is somewhere I think we’d like to go, write the place down & then just forget about what I might find interesting about it. -At least that’s what I plan on doing with this trip. We can afford to do this because we have a lot more time than, let’s say two weeks in Italy. It does depend a little bit on the place too. If there’s a trail that’s recommended to hike, I definitely want to know how long it is & if I should bring a snake bite kit with us. -Really hoping never needing to use that. Anyway, part of actually going to different places in person is to have one’s own experience there. -Not a replica of someone else’s visit.

M: The satisfaction of working together to make this all come together. - Months of preparation before, lots and lots of work during and also looking forward to our thinking after the trip. Will we be excited to be back on land in a house that has a lot more room than our boat? Will I be ready to jump back into my regular work? How will this change the way we think and act?

K: Practicing Spanish - I hope I have the courage to really put myself out there with espanol. (I just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to put the tilde above the n in espanol but no luck. See how dedicated I am?) I am practicing Spanish everyday on Babbel. I really like it. I need to take advantage of the free online classes they have so I get used to speaking it with people who may actually laugh at me. Matt is learning on Duolingo. All I know is that he is WINNING!

We will be going sailing again this Thursday. Hoping that the wind is a bit calmer than last week. -Same goes for the swell. The temps are supposed to be in the high 60s. So it is finally getting warmer! It’s funny that talk of the weather is no longer small talk when you become a sailor.

Zephyr preparing for life in the wild. He hasn’t quite gotten the camouflage thing worked out yet.

Thanks for reading! Next week we’ll be coming out with another video! I promise it’s a little better than the last ones! -I know, the bar wasn’t set very high. 😂 Learning little by little!