Packing to Go

This trip is only going to be for 4-5 weeks but we need to see how things will pack up for a longer trip since we do hope to make more of those in the future.  To that end, we both have organized our man-land and woman-land areas and made lists letting us know where all that junk is so we can find it once it's put away.  That sounds intuitive but it's not.  We took a few trips on Sanctuary before we managed to come up with a workable system.  Now all we have to do is put stuff back where we said it belongs!!

The companionway leading into the cockpit has a great spot for storing
small or quickly needed items.  This is the cover to the engines which is very
accesable once all the stuff is off.

One great thing the previous owners did is convert hanging locker (closet) space.
Instead of lots of rod space, this locker in the v-berth now has much more utile shelves.

I love lightweight, easy to place racks to add double decks in my storage areas.

I have a great pantry in the main cabin hanging locker.

The boat used to have a second head in the v-berth area.  Room now for more storage.

This hanging locker is just as you go out into the cockpit.  This is a convenient
place for foul weather gear, life jackets and the like.

Some pages of my woman-land list.  It has the item, how many I have and where I put it.

This area under the galley dish drainer holds quite a bit so I numbered the bins and
enter those on the provisioning list so I can find things.  Under this compartment is deep
storage for rarely needed (we hope anyway) spare parts.

I have diagrams to show where all the things on the provisioning list are located.
Happily, there is a lot more of these than I had on Sanctuary.

We plan to be out over Christmas so my handy-dandy little microfiber tree needed a place too.

Some of the stuff that needed to find a home.

We won't go hungry!

Amazingly, it's all put away and things look ship-shape.

Ready for bed with plenty of books to read along the way.

New and Improved

We (mostly David)  have been working to make Blue Moon "our" type of sailing home.  There were things on Sanctuary that we learned we didn't want to live without like strong solar capacity and cockpit showers.  Other things we wanted like bright and plentiful light for our aging eyes. So now we have them!!

The new shower in the cockpit fits neatly into the side.  This will allow us to shower
and easily clean the cockpit.  Especially nice after landing a fish!

Really great is the hot/cold water option.  After a swim or a really hot location
it is nice to have a fresh water rinse that doesn't freeze you.

Under the generous navigation table, we can easily find all our necessaries.  This
was an innovative idea from Sanctuary.  Those bins were made from spare wood but he had to
buy new stuff for Blue Moon.

This is a 50 watt flexible panel that can be easily deployed wherever the sun shines best.
With a ketch rig, the mizzen sail tends to shadow one or the other of the big panels so this
is going to be great an anchor.

The original panels were large but not for a 12 V systems so their output was minimal.
These panels in perfect conditions, put out about 15 amps of power.  Nothing being perfect,
however, we do get a steady 8-10 when the sun is shining.  The wind generator is a great add
to the generating mix.  The instruments are power hogs so this is needed.

We like knowing the time of day and barometric pressure so these were adds. Sorry for the glare.
We also added a fixture aft of the mainmast to give us light in that area.  We replaced a few 4 in.fixtures
with larger ones and all bulbs were upgraded to the brightest LEDs we could find.  A pricey upgrade but
well worth it.  Now we hope they last the published length of time!!!

The new, larger ports used to hit on a fixture similar to the one on the left side of the mirror.
This made full opening impossible and many head bumps resulted while brushing our teeth.
Problem solved with a new fixture overhead and removing the offending one.  David did a great job
of repairing the hole.  Once I decide what I want to do with the head walls, I'll make it all match.

Heeling under bridges

As we learn more about Blue Moon and how she can take us places, we still had to worry about bridge heights in our area, especially at high tide.  To solve the problem we decided to check into those bags that let you heel over (make your boat go sideways) to get the mast under bridges.  We had seen videos on YouTube of a very tall-masted ship going under a too short bridge. Fascinating to watch but no where does it tell you how it's done or where to get that cool bag.  So the research began.  Turns out no one actually offers to sell a bag large enough to make our boat lean over.  It took me several pages into the Os of Google to come to this conclusion. So next, I try to find a how-to-build your own bag site.  Again, many pages into the Os with no luck.  Fortunately, Sam,  a very talented member of our yacht club had made a bag similar to what we needed and another friend, Linda, had actually been on board the boat, Pelliroas, when it had been used and had taken pictures of what the thing looked like.  This led to more research into how much a gallon of salt water weighs, how many degrees of heel is required (there is actually a web site for this one with graphics that move) to achieve inches of height off your air draft.  Then David and I came up with a plan of what was needed and how to make the bag.  Another friend, Theresa, cleared out her dining room so Linda, Theresa and I could lay out the material, mark seam lines and generally hash out construction details. I then used her heavy duty sewing machine to make it all form a reinforced bag.   The first test showed that my seams were not water tight so off it came and lots of sealer was added.  We tested again, better but not good enough so more sealing.  Finally we achieved an acceptable degree of leak and we actually pulled off a 13 degree of lean giving us about a foot off our mast height, the most we would ever need so it was deemed a success!

How did we fill the bag and make the boat lean, you ask.  Good question.  First we had to add a spinnaker pole to the front of our mainmast.  This is so we can lift the bag high enough out of the water and get it far enough out to achieve the greatest angle of heel.  All of this was a weeks long process in and of itself.  Then with Linda's help, we had to learn how best to deploy and secure the bag so it didn't fly all over the place.  On Pelli, they had several crew members who could winch their bag out of the water enough to make it work.  We wanted to make it work with just the two of us and we just didn't have the combined strength so we opted with filling the bag from the top.  Happily, Blue Moon comes with a wash-down pump to clean a dirty anchor.  I'm sure the designers did not foresee our intended use.  After a few more trial runs, we were ready for the Brooks Bridge.  The pictures were taken by our friend Eric from on top of the bridge.  Once we made the complete trip to Pensacola, there was great rejoicing for sure!!!  It really is good to have smart, generous friends!

We were testing the bag in the slip since we had an empty space next to us.

We have to start adding water to the bag a fair distance out
 from the bridge to allow enough time for it to fill

You can see the mast start to lean.
 The pole gets the bag about 20 feet out from the boat.

You can see the boat in the background coming to check it out. 
Every time we've used the bag, we attract an audience.



Up close detail of the bag with the hose going into the top

Sunset and Champagne to celebrate many, many hours of effort.

Special Visit

We have been very blessed with a visit from our daughter, Mary and her husband Eric and especially our precious first grandchild, Genevieve!  We have spent the most wonderful 3 weeks getting to visit the kids and getting to know Genevieve. They live in Australia so all time is important and special.  We were thrilled to introduce her to the joys of Blue Moon.  She is definitely a sailor in the making.

Grandpa's teaching the basics early

Aunt Martha, Genevieve and Mom (Mary)

4th of July at its best

Not sure what they're feeding me

Dad (Eric) and very happy girl

Grandma and Genevieve

Hat almost fits

Sister going to visit and get more supplies

Lovely Family

Getting ready for bed

Beautiful ladies

Napping in the galley.  It was a perfect fit.

Sunset and waiting for fireworks

Tastes good, grandpa

Whoa, this things moves!

The New Adventure Begins

Since bringing Blue Moon home we have been working to make her our own.  David has worked especially hard and created some great results.  He is a master of designing useful things such as shelves and expertly installs creating things of functional beauty.  He spent hundreds of hours cleaning out the detritus of 32 years from all the cockpit lockers, painting them and carefully thinking through what items we need to have easily accessible and those that can live further down.  The lockers are now so functional as well as attractive.

This cockpit locker used to be just a big hole into which to lose things.  This shelf is shaped to fit the contours of the boat's stern.  It is reinforced and permanently installed using fiberglass.  David painted the entire area making it look fresh.

This area is over the batteries and removable.

One way to block the sun.

Doesn't get better than this!

Sailing around with all the canvas flying.

Just a bit of heel with about 15 knots of wind.