Our time back from our cruising adventure has not been unpleasant. The work position offered me (Dennis) when we returned ended up sending us all over the world (See Blog Rapscallions crew in India). What adventures we have had. From India, China, Germany, Alabama and California it has been exciting.
During that time there was also the Covid pandemic that had cruisers locked in ports or severely restricted for around 2 years.
Last post described returning Rapscallion to the great lakes and buying a retirement home. It has been 16 years sense our return and retirement is just around the corner. We are preparing Rapscallion for an east coast cruise starting in the spring of 2027, eventually ending at our home in Georgia where we can take periodic winter breaks before another leg.
There was a full page of notes of items we wanted to replace or add before leaving again. At the time we were thinking 6 months to a year and we would be off again. It did not quite work out that way, 16 years later i still have the list and almost everything has been marked off.
On our 2 week vacation we traveled to the top of lake Huron which turned out to be a long motoring trip with no sailing. This did allow a positive conformation on the sealing of the engines 3rd main shaft oil seal. The first 2 turned out to be cheep aftermarket versions. Digging deeper i found the proper Kubota seal.
The new bimini provides great sun and rain protection. A prototype shelf duplicating the corner helmsman seat gets the portable generator off the rear hatch and better directs the exhaust out the back of the cockpit. We have a RIB inflatable that takes up more of the forward deck so i had to re arrange the fuel and water jerry jugs to enable better movement up front around the inflatable.
Time off of work has limited us to a maximum 2 weeks off to travel Lake Huron in the summer and a weather event of 2 or 3 days can limit how far north we can go without it feeling like a delivery and not enjoying the trip. We have improvements and reinstalled the old equipment we have had in storage that we did a shake down this year to make sure all functions as intended.
We never made it north of Boston on the first trip and the pace going south was somewhat rushed so we have a lot we still need to see.
No comments:
Post a Comment