Now We Own a Sailboat!!!!

   It was now late Feb '11 and we had chosen our sailboat for our adventures. We signed all the paperwork and gave the check to the broker . We were now the proud owners of a 1971 Alberg 30. We were excited, to say the least. Our journey was beginning.  The boat was still located in Oriental, NC so that meant we would have to get her ready and make the 200+ mile journey up the Intracoastal Waterway(ICW) to Norfolk.

    Getting her ready required us to make a few trips to Oriental over the first few weekends of March ’11. Salacia had been closed up for about 10 months or longer. While she was in good physical condition and well equipped, she was a bit dirty  and damp inside. There was dust, dirt, mold and moisture to now deal with before we made our journey.  We found Sal to be very wet inside, water beading from overheads and everything else just felt damp. I am guessing she got like this from being closed up, the lack of maintenance and just not caring about her anymore.  Our plan of attack was to get her habitable and fast. We did not want to pay dock fees in North Carolina nor did we want our Sal 3 ½ hours away.

As you can see, she was wet inside! And her chainplates hardware was orginial.

    We traveled down to Sal for the first 2 weekends we owned her. We cleaned, scrubbed and cleaned some more. We removed all the cushions and set them on the dock to dry. We were very lucky during the initial visits the weather was just outstanding.  The skies were clear and the temps were in the upper 60’s to lower 70’s. We were able to open her up and let everything air and dry out.  She was starting to become a sailboat to be proud of.

Dark, dirty and damp she was! We fixed that!

    All of our research, travel and efforts had paid off. In just a few short weeks we were able to take her out and spend the night anchored out in the Oriental Town anchorage. Our Journey had begun. We were overjoyed. We had set our mind to something and accomplished it. We had an idea and we turned it into our reality. We were spending the night at anchor on our cruising sailboat!

Sal was all clean now and Crystal was a proud happy owner!!

We got a late start to the anchorage, but here we are headed out of the channel on our way over to Oriental Harbor

Here I am bringing Salacia and crew into Oriental

One happy sailor making us some eggs!

   We did it! We did it! We were now beginning our journey. Yes, we were and still are a long way from setting off, but we now were one very big step closer! We owned a cruising sailboat and had just spent our first night at anchor.

Physical Fitness, She's got it!!!!

    Many of you who know us and for those of you who do not, my wife is a fitness fanatic. It is not just a hobby but a way of life for her. She is by far the most dedicated person I know when it comes to working out and eating right. I will have to admit I am jealous because I just cannot keep up with her. She has endless amounts of drive to keep pushing herself to her physical limits. She has participated and trained endlessly for  triathlons, duathlons, ½ marathons,  1mile swims, yoga(almost daily)and crossfit and everything in between. By the way, all this after recovering from ACL tear over 10 years ago! She is a machine!

All warmed up and ready to ROCK!

    Well yesterday was no different. This was a new event for her, an event that was short in duration but would challenge her limits of physical fitness! It was called MetroDash. This event was a series of obstacles, one right after the other. This included tire flips, farmers carry, 12ft wall climb, rope traverse, concrete ball carry, monkey bars, sand bag carry…… I believe there was 15 all total. For more details check out www.metrodash.com.

Final Obstacle........scale an 8ft wall! No Problem!

    So how did she did she do? She killed it! As usual she was nervous! I never know why because I have seen her train! She kicked some serious butt out there completing obstacles many fit men could not complete! She did awesome! I am proud of her and even prouder to say she my beautiful wife! You are an outstanding athlete my dear and you should proud of your accomplishments!!

Here she is recovering with some cold water! She kicked ASS!

    What does this have to do with our sailing adventures? As many of you know and for those who don’t, sailing, especially offshore, requires a certain level of fitness and physical health. When you are hundreds or even thousands of miles from shore you can only depend on yourself and/or your crew members to handle whatever comes your way. These types of events and training for them prepare you, your muscles and your mind to be able to handle anything that may come your way. I have jumped onboard with training as well. I am nowhere near my beautiful wife’s fitness level, but I have been eating better and training 4-5 times a week for a few months now. I feel a lot better and the pounds are coming off. The wife and I have teamed up for an upcoming Toughmudder event. We will compete as a team! Check it out at www.toughmudder.com, so stay tuned! I hope I can keep up!

This is Funny!!!!!!

This is too funny!!! Wife and I shared a good laugh and wanted to share!

Why Cruising?

As I stated in a previous post we had some catching up to do on the blog. So here is how it all started back in the fall of '10.

   Why are we choosing this lifestyle? That is a good question and one that many have asked us. It was my very intelligent wife who asked herself the question “Is this it, Is this all we're going to do for the rest of our lives?”. What she was referring to was living the same life day in and day out, get up go to work, pay bills, stress, spend money, make new bills, go back to work to pay those off. There had to be more to living than just work and debt.  Yes, we had full lives outside of work, we very much enjoyed each others company and loved to do things together, but what about seeing places, traveling, meeting new people. A vast majority our lives and brainpower was being spent at work and that sucked! So the wife asked one day what I would think of living on a boat. I said really, why? She explained her reasons and I jumped onboard with both feet, having grown up sailing and loving it. We agreed that we wanted to simplify our lives and not be a slaves to debt and jobs. A sailboat would take us where we wanted to go, yes at a slower pace but also for less money and once we found a destination we could stay there as long as we wanted, our home was with us. Yes, we will have to work, we know that. Our goal is to just work enough to get by and live the cruising lifestyle.

We immediately started researching the cruising lifestyle. Lin and Larry Pardey became house hold names. We started scouring yatchworld and every other website like it, sailboat listings everywhere. We started looking at boats in the 38-42’ range. We found a Cascade Pilothouse sailboat locally we liked, but the boat was a project and things started to add up. So we kept looking. On Christmas day 2010 we were walking the docks at a local marina and ran into an older britishman, who owns a Luders 33. He said if you plan on cruising oceans buy a boat with a keel. He also explained to us the additional cost involved with a larger vessel.  I took his advice and we started looking at keel boats and started researching boats in the 30-35’ range. It seemed that everywhere  we looked the Alberg designs kept popping up as a solid cruiser and in our price range. We weren’t looking for speed, we were looking for comfort at sea and a solid base to build our cruiser at a reasonable cost.

That's not Sal!!!! Here is the salty looking Cascade we were looking at, nice boat but needed way too much to even sail.

One Feb ’11 day, I was searching Yatchworld, I typed in Alberg  and about 20-30 Alberg designs popped up. I saw this Alberg 30 and said "wow, what a nice boat for the money!". I then called my wife at WORK and told her about it. I followed that with a phone call to the broker. By that night we had a deposit on our to-be 1971 Alberg 30 pending visual inspection, haul out and sea trial. We traveled to Oriental, NC where she was located and took about a thousand pics. I was beside myself inside but did not want to let the owner and broker know. I pointed out this and that. We told them we would think about it and return for a haul out and sea trial in a few weeks. I knew inside that would be our boat.  She wasn’t perfect but she was solid and simple. I could see and get to everything! We returned 2 weeks later and hauled her. Everything the owner had listed was done and we took her for a short sail. My wife and I agreed this was the boat for us. She was capable of taking us where we wanted to go and she was cozy inside. Small, yes, but very functional .....did I mention cozy? She just felt right. Upon return we agreed on a price and she was ours……We were starting our adventure!

Haul Out time!

She had a nice clean bottom, rudder was tight and Indigo prop as advertised! We were happy!

Sea Trial time, Atomic 4 ran like a champ and she sailed beautifully for a few short minutes. It was cold this day, only 40 or so!

Our Children, well sorta

This is Boost, he's an asshole and a bully! He hates feet!

and this is what he does, I would venture to say he's a champion at his chosen profession!

Here is our little gentleman, Fred. He is the calmest of all our "children"

Here is Chynna, we'd let her say hi, but she'd pee everywhere. She is a bundle of nerves. Here she is playing her favorite game!

And then there is Nitrous, we claim him. But in his mind he is just staying with us until the food runs out. He's the survivalist of the group. Atomic bomb, bring it....he'll live off the cockroaches!

And of course , there is Max. He was our first. He was a licker and loved to swim. Unfortunately, we lost Max to cancer back in Nov '11.

This is our immediate family, yes we have grandmas, moms, dads, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and cousins that we love very much, but these guys are our children. They are wonderful companions and each one is an individual. They all love their treats! And yes they love to eat! Breakfast and dinner are their favorite times of the day! Yep, they are funny and we love 'em! These guys are the reason we have not yet at least become liveaboards. We realize that they will not all fit, even one of them would make the small living space of an Alberg 30 seem even smaller. This is why we don't plan on moving aboard for several more years. This will allow us to continue refitting Sal, while sailing her and spending quality time wih our pups. All part of our original master plan.

From the Top!

I am going to write this blog a bit out of order. I am going to start way back at the beginning and how we came to start this adventure. I will tell the story of how our Salacia was choosen to be our home and the adventures that got us to the current day and time. Once we reach the current day on the blog, we will fill you in on our journey as we are enjoying it. I will post random pictures of us, our family and of course our Sal along the way to keep things interesting.....so stay tuned!

This is a picture of the two lovely ladies in my life! This picture was taken before Salacia was ours. This shot( a favorite of mine) was taken the day we first visited Sal in Feb '11 for our inital inspection in Oriental, NC. Of course, Crystal and I fell in love with her and knew she would be ours and now she is! Stay tuned for the funny story that needs to be told about the day we saw Sal for the first time!