Bon Voyage!

That’s what we’re hoping to say to Santa Cruz Harbor tomorrow morning at 8 AM! (Writing this on Monday, September 26th.) The time has finally come for our trip down to the Channel Islands! Yes! There was a ton or work to be done on MerSea in this last week!

First, Matt wanted to hook up our wind instrument. This was a bit tricky. It not only included going to the top of the mast but also getting a finicky wire down the middle of it to the deck. Then he needed to get that same wire down to where all the wires come out inside the cabin of the boat: The Bilge! No, I don’t think that’s a smart spot for a bunch of wire to be going into the boat either! But hey, water & wires, it keeps the theme of, “Sailing - if your sailboat isn’t dangerous enough, then you aren’t really sailing!”.

Well, after I made sure Matt was safely at the top of the mast, we had an issue where the wire got stuck inside! 😫 This was a tricky one. This is where having a mast that tabernacles comes in handy! So that’s what we did. We lowered the mast as much as it was safely possible & then Matt could look inside -which isn’t very easy, however, he was able to see where it was stuck & it was just out of reach. Yes! We thrive on problems that seem impossible to solve! So fun! At this point I was ready to forget about having a wind instrument & just hold up a scarf to the wind & figure out the wind direction & speed from that.

However, the two of us can be very good at brainstorming together & we did actually find a solution that worked! I can’t remember how many ideas we tried before the winning one came along but it finally did & we were very stoked on working half a day already on this project.

The first 3 hours of the day!

Matt tries to make a turban while similtaneously working on getting the wire pulled out.

It’s hard to really see the wire at the end of the pole but Matt wanted me in this photo because it was one of the ideas I came up with. I sometimes am useful!

What was the solution? Making a snare loop at the end of this wooden pole that we happened to have laying around. Matt put it in the mast & snared the wire! -This did take a while as it was hard to see where the snare wire was when it was inside the mast but he finally succeeded!

So after that fun project Matt fixed up the wiring in the bilge for the sailing lights. The wires were broken & very corroded. And now we have bright lights on our mast! -We’ve been wondering what was going on there.

In addition to helping Matt out a little bit, I made more holding nets to stop everything from flying around the boat while we’re underway. Zephyr was just exhausted by the end of the day! He definitely worked hard barking at birds! -They all flew right on by the boat - so he did his job! 😄

To help us not stress about the tides & getting under the bridge, we rented dock space for 3 nights. We were greated by a sea lion & Zephyr checked out the coyote decoy on the dock.

Love our home dock neighbors but it is nice to not have to worry about tabernacling & tides in the south harbor.

“I knew it wasn’t real. I just wanted to fake you out, Mom!” -Zephyr.

We did take MerSea out a few times for a sail. It was a bit important that we made sure the rigging was all good & that we didn’t forget how to sail.

Today we hustled around. I think we both wanted to desperately avoid having to go to West Marine & spend some “boat dollars”. However, it’s always nice to have those few things that make the boat “happier”, so we obliged. Apparently I also needed a Roxy zip up shirt with a hoodie & back pocket too. Thank God we went to West Marine! I could have left on our trip & never known what I was missing! Oh & Zephyr was given a treat also. See, we all benefit from an errand like this! Thanks West Marine for taking our money!

In the early evening, we decided that there were a few things that we didn’t need on the boat & took them to our dock locker via our dinghy. This also gave us a chance to see our loveable dock neighbors to say one last goodbye before our voyage. Oh & our dinghy planed!

Now that we have a dinghy we can photograph MerSea in all her glory!

Obligatory Zephyr shot!

So that’s all for now! Hopefully next week we’ll have a bunch of fun stories to tell from our first week on our voyage! Wish us luck! Thanks so much for reading!