Time To Take ITHAKA Out of Storage

It is time to bring ITHAKA out of the hurricane protected shelter.

Monday November 18th Jack and I flew to Orlando, rented a car, and drove to Ft. Pierce to find slip # 23 at Harbor Isle Marina. ITHAKA will call this slip home from November 22nd, until sometime late in February or early March. If you are looking for us, slip #23 is located just before the piers spit off into a Y at the marina. After locating slip #23, we went to the marina office to look at the new rug for the sun-deck (thanks bob for the heads up on sun-deck maintenance and time management).

Love that new rug!!!

Next, we drove on to River Forest Yacht Center (excellent facility-highly recommend-great staff-great service) to reunite with ITHAKA (Oh, Happy Day!).

Tuesday (19th) and Wednesday (20th) we took care of business. We worked around the boat and did some shopping.

Thursday, November 21 - We had hoped to move the boat today (alone), but weather did not permit. Instead we went to dinner at the Pig and Cow  Restaurant (never been to one before) and went to see the St. Lucie Locke on the Okeechobee River.

Friday, Nov. 22nd (partly cloudy, 30% chance of rain, winds 5-10 miles per hour , moderate choppy.

We moved the boat from River Forest Yacht Center to Harbour Isle Marina in Ft. Pierce, Florida. I worked the lines. Jack piloted the boat. As I am working the lines, the sky opened and buckets of rain poured out. This increased my motivation to acquire that fly bridge job. Before leaving RFYC Jack put 80 gallons of fuel @$3.65 a gallon into Ithaka. Our baby eats a lot, but we love, love, love, her.

Saturday, November 23rd - I am sitting on the sun-deck drinking coffee at 7am. ITHAKA gently sways back and forth in Slip # 23. LIFE IS SWEET!!!

Our Second Week on ITHAKA

Jack and I returned to Fort Pierce, Florida to move ITHAKA to Stuart, Florida for hurricane season. When we arrived, her new name was on her stern and the sideboards were being attached.

Picking the name for a boat is very much like picking the name for a baby. Once the name is selected, the tough job of selecting the font style, the letter color, shading and accents begins. At least with a baby, God makes the tough design decisions.

Five weeks ago, when we left the boat, Jack gave Dave (a guy who can repair almost anything on a boat) a list of TO DO's from the boat survey. The list was long and varied. Happily, Dave completed everything on the list. Great job Dave!!

It looks like we might have rain all week. We hoped for better weather. But, just being on ITHAKA, rain or shine, is quality time filled with joy.

Tomorrow, we move the boat to River Forest Yacht Center in Stuart, Florida. She will be in a hurricane protected building from June to November. Taking ITHAKA out of the water was a good decision. This years hurricane season is predicted to be a bad one.

Chris Caldwell from Captain Chris Yacht Service was hired to ride along on the move. His title was coach and crisis intervention manager. Jack and I were tempted to move the boat alone. After much thought and discussion, we decided to err on the side of caution.Thinking about our long term goal of completing the "Great Loop", we decided this goal should be factored into our decision to hire Chris to train and oversee the trip. So "Captain Coach" was part of the crew and ITHAKA arrived at the haul out without incident.

Jack piloted the boat into the sling and kept a watchful eye, as they hauled ITHAKA.

A boat that sits for five plus weeks in salt water picks up a lot of sea creatures. So, a good bottom cleaning and painting is scheduled.

After the haul out, Jack and I headed off to see some Florida sites. We took an airboat ride in the Everglades

Then on to Fort Meyers to visit the Thomas Edison and Firestone Homes.

This will be my last post until November, when ITHAKA returns to the water.

Boat Pictures

First Week on ITHAKA

After the closing, Jack and I spent a week on ITHAKA. What a glorious week it was. We hired Chris and Alyse Caldwell of Captain Chris Yacht Services to overview the boat systems with us and refresh our docking and navigation skills.

First Solo Trip on ITHAKA

Sara and I had a great time going up to Vero Beach and picking up the mooring ball. Everything went really well. Just like we knew what we were doing!  :-)

 

We took the dinghy into the marina office and then over to supper at the Riverside Cafe. Spent a beautiful night on the mooring ball and came back the next day. We even had our first "emergency" on the boat coming back into Harbor Isle. (Probably more of an "incident" than an emergency, but it certainly got my attention). I had the synchronizer engaged all of the way back from Vero to after I turned off the ICW at "188" and was operating in idle coming into the channel into the marina. Since I was still going 4.5 mph, I put one engine in neutral and proceeded on towards our slip.

As I was making the approach into the slip I put the starboard engine in reverse and the port engine in forward to position the boat like I wanted. When I went to bump the throttle on the starboard engine a little, or nothing happened. Tried it a few more times, but the rpm did not move off of idle. I quickly backed out and got back in the clear area of the marina and tried to figure out what was going on while I made circles. I decided that the synchronizer had somehow not disengaged from the starboard engine, so I re-engaged it and turned it off several times, but that did not regain control of it. I even turned the engine off and turned it back on, thinking that might do it. I still could not get it above idle speed. I decided that I could put it in the slip without having to go above idle speed on the starboard engine if the approach into the slip was right on. That is what we did. Sara did a great job handling the lines and we docked it ourselves without any help from anyone else. We were really proud of ourselves and we owe it all to Captain Chris Yacht Services excellent teaching skills and much practice.

Our beautiful boat, once known as Next To Me, was last owned and piloted by Bob and Cathryn. They completed the Great Loop in 2012 and  2013.

Jack and I can't say enough good things about Bob and Cathryn. Their kindness, support, honesty, and integrity made our boat buying journey a joy. They allowed us to come aboard their boat and ride with them for many miles as we left a rendezvous last spring.

Once we purchased the boat, they invited us to spend several days with them. They offered to point out those special things about the boat that usually new owners must discover by trial and error. They even gave us a lesson on how to get the dinghy up and down. Their only request for doing so many lovely things for us was the we "pay it forward", when we sell the boat.

Next week, we move ITHAKA to a sheltered Marina in Stuart for Hurricane Season. 
Sadly, we won't be back on her until after November 1st. We begin the Great Loop in the spring of 2014.

Journey to the starting date

This blog is primarily for friends and family interested in our Great Loop adventure. 

The Great Loop is a circumnavigation of one-third of the United States with portions of Canada optional. It is a journey of between 5000 and 6000 miles, roughly covering an area from the Atlantic Coast, to the North Channel of Canada, to the Mississippi River, to the southern tip of Florida. It commonly takes one year to complete the trip.

Jack and I met in 2005. As we discussed our hopes and dreams for the future, the subject of the  Great Loop became a discussion point. Jack had boating experience and I had none. Jack dreamed of boating the Loop and I was in awe of his dream.

So, together we moved toward the dream. We took local Coast Guard and Power Squadron Courses. We took trips to AGLCA Rendezvous' and Passage Maker Trawler Fests'. We met many interesting people and had great fun. Each experience offered knowledge and stories that fueled our enthusiasm. Of the many great presentations we attended, Captain's Chris and Alyse Caldwell of Captain Chris Yacht Service, caught our attention. We learned a great deal at their workshops and signed up for training on their boat. A week long training on the Caldwell's boat Sandy Hook (December 2011) really wet our appetite for the Trawler Life. So the hunt began for the "perfect" Loop Trawler.

I spent hours on the internet researching and educating myself about trawlers. Jack, being the sensible one, contacted Curtis Stokes, a boat broker. We met Curtis at several rendezvous' and Trawler Fests'. Curtis and his wife Gill took us to see three boats in Ft. Lauderdale. Then, we all traveled to the west side of Florida (Punta Gorda, Tampa) to look at more 36' to 45' trawlers.

On another boat shopping trip, we met Curtis outside Cincinnati. The three of us had a full two day trip looking at boats in Louisville Kentucky, Jeffersonville Indiana, Kentucky Lake, and at Pickwick Lake in Tennessee.

Last November at the Norfolk AGLCA Rendezvous, Curtis introduced us to our new looper friends Cathryn and Bob. Their boat "Next To Me" would be the one we would eventually purchase. But, that is a story for another day...

 Visit Cathryn and Bob's Great Loop Blog at http://olallabay.blogspot.com