Friday we moved back on board.  We have spent the last couple of weeks in a condo, just a fairly short bike ride from the boatyard.  We turned in the rental car what seems like weeks ago, and have been going everywhere on the bikes.  Now we faced the challenge of moving all our stuff – how many bike loads would it take?

We managed it in six trips, with Cherryl doing most of them!  While I pretended to be working on the boat, she made trips with the trailer.

Friday night we had a dedication for beautiful Grace.  We had a few close friends and family over (by way of the magic of internet) and had some great talks, prayers and even music in a small ceremony of committing this vessel to God.

Our stern thruster is now intact, our new Wi-Fi booster antenna is installed, we are updating some old outside stereo speakers that had rusted out, and the fiberglass repairs are looking good! (still not quite done, though)

Working on top of the arch

But one of the most fun enhancements we have done is upgrading the cameras.  When we got the boat, there were two video cameras, both in the engine room. Neither worked.  It’s nice to have an eye on the engine room while cruising.  We got one of them to work, but it was a pretty lousy picture.  And I wanted good rear-view cameras as well.  So we are upgrading them all.  I can tell the boat had rear view cameras on each corner of the stern, because I can see where they were mounted.  So we are doing that again, and adding an additional camera under the radar arch on the flybridge to look straight behind us.  All these cameras should help in both maneuvering  and cruising safely.

I recently came across some old pictures of our family’s first sailboat.  It was an Aqua-Cat; a small catamaran that was pretty sporty for the time… until Hobie came out with the vastly superior Hobie Cats.  So here we are at the Salton Sea, mid 60’s.  Now I’m in the mid 60’s.  Funny how fast life zooms!

I’m going to share some of the websites that we enjoy following.  Encouragement, Inspiration and Entertainment make them worth checking out!

Sailingtotem.com is a site about a family who have been living onboard their sailboat for over 10 years, with their three children growing up traveling the world.  They have recently crossed their outbound tracks- meaning they have circled the globe- just as their oldest heads off to college. The site is well written, and we feel especially close to them as we have taken classes from Behan, the author.

Gonewiththewynns.com is written by a young couple who lived aboard their motorhome traveling all over the US for years.  They then decided to go sailing – buying a large catamaran before even learning to sail!  They not only write about their learning and adventures, but have a YouTube channel where they post videos weekly.

Sailing-lavagabonde.com is mainly a portal to this cute Australian couple’s YouTube channel.  They started out on an older monohull sailboat, on which he learned to sail.  They have recently moved onto a beautiful new catamaran, purchased in France, and sailed it across the Atlantic.  The videos are very well done, and all the more fun for the Aussie accents!