Bits & Pieces Of Progress

Behold! Matt is the water filter king!

Yes! It feels like we are finally making some progress in all areas -boat, sailing, home, paperwork….. Now, hopefully we can keep up the momentum of 2 steps forward & only .5 steps back. I guess we really don’t have another option, seeing how we leave Santa Cruz at the end of September.

On an even more exciting note, we got to sail out & anchor by our pier! Always nice to be able to do this. Finally the weather warmed up to 70 degrees!

Zephyr making sure our course is clear.

Matt placing a sailboat to the side after he picked it up to move it out of the way.

The sailing started off slow & then we got going almost 6 knots. However, there is no photography on my end when I’m steering the helm.

I don’t know how long it’s been since we anchored out last. -Probably back in October. That is how long it has been too cold to do so.

Very nice to just relax for a bit in the sun. -Something we never do here. Our dock neighbors, Scott & Karen, came by on their super-dinghy. Fun to see friends out & about, even in the water!

We made it to anchor!

West Cliff

Steamers Lane

Chillin’ with my dawg.

The anchorage came with 5 foot swells. We had our rocker stopper onboard but we didn’t have the extra line we needed to set it up on the boom. It’s a little hard to explain so I will wait until we have it up & take photos to give you all a better understanding.

Anyway, I didn’t get much sleep. Matt got a little more I think. Although, we both woke up to a one larger wave that came along in the middle of the night. It woke us both up. -Although, I think that was mostly because I forgot to put a glass bottle in with the recycles before I went to bed & left it on the table. That will teach me to not clean up after dinner!

Beddy-by time.

As so it happens, much of the time in Santa Cruz, the gloomy clouds came in for the morning. After such a rolly night, I was hoping for at least a little sunshine. Oh well, I guess it made it easier for us to motor back to the harbor & get some work done.

Morning.

Working on getting the anchor up.

End of the pier on a serene morning.

A few days ago I was able to get into the galley to clean & oil the teak there. This means having to move a lot of stuff out of its place. -Which isn’t so bad since I want to re-organize it anyway. I wish my friend Jenn, who is a professional organizer, could teleport here to help me out. The truly fun thing is that Matt & I have different ideas of where things should go in the galley. In turn, there ends up not really being a home for anything. I guess the items in our galley do their own form of traveling in that way.

Tackling the teak in the galley.

Here is the photo I promised, from last week, of the solar panels that Matt re-affixed to our boat. This is Zephyr’s favorite spot to sit on the boat. So that works out well. 😂

Matt’s new configuration of the solar panels.

We got the tile for our kitchen countertop at home! Very excited to add it to our kitchen. Matt’s been working hard on the installation & I’ll definitely take lots of photos when it’s complete.

Bye bye butcher block! Hello black marble!

We have a new video up. Unfortunately I’m dealing with disappointment, as a bunch of video disappeared or came out as thousands of clips of photos. Wanted to cry but I think I was so tired by the time I realized this I had to figure out what I could put together for this week. So I made lemonade out of snippets of lemons. I’ve been working this last year on fighting my perfectionism. -Which is how I am able to upload any videos at all. Trying not to be too hard on myself & just learn from all the fun lessons that taking video has to offer. Add that in with sailing & you’ll never get bored!

Well, at least we have a decent thumbnail of our video.

Moving forward slowly in the right direction. It’s definitely easier to be patient when you’re constantly busy. In fact, I’m trying not to get that twisted to where I’m overwhelmed & start thinking that we’re never going to finish all that we need to by the time we have to leave. This is where certain things on our list are going to have to wait until after we’ve left or when we get back in the spring. (The perfectionist in me is thinking, “Well, if I pull a couple of all-nighters, I can definitely get everything done.” However, that is how I end up getting sick. I’ll just have to grit my teeth & let certain things go.

Sleeping on the job.

Thanks for reading! We intend to have more progress to show all of you next week. Until then, inspire people to smile!