College football and the Garden Tour

Alabama vs. Tennessee warm ups. Final score Ala 34 Tenn 20.

My daughter Meredith and I love Alabama football. There really is just not much that will beat going to a game and watching them thump some poor unsuspecting team. They never seem to do it without looking completely inept for at least half the game, but that just gives me more to scream about.  

Maite, Meredith and Ben, avoiding the photo enroute to our seats in Neyland Stadium.

Maite is not a big football fan. Not at all. We came to Knoxville last weekend to see Ben and Meredith and to go to the Alabama-Tennessee football game. She came to the game to be polite. Ben doesn't like football either. Not at all. He went to the game to be polite since I had bought them each a ticket.

Half way through the first quarter, the score is 27-0 Alabama. OK, good having fun right? Ben and Maite decide to leave. I am a bit perturbed since I paid about $178/ea for their tickets, but hey that's cool. I really didn't understand. Even if they didn't like football, it's a spectacle! There are 102,000 screaming people dressed in anything from a formal Alabama gown to an orange burlap sack. There are T's and A's everywhere. What's not to love? Nevertheless, they left.

Front entrance of Monticello

On the way home to the boat from Knoxville we stopped off at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was his heaven on Earth, and he poured all of his creative energies into it. They had several tours going the morning we arrived. There was the House Tour, the Slave Tour, and the Garden and Grounds Tour. Maite and I both love history and we were really looking forward to going through the house, much like we did Mount Vernon last fall. The great discontinuity in Jefferson's life was that he wrote so extensively on the evil, destructive nature of slavery, yet maintained over a hundred slaves on his plantation. After his wife died, he even managed to carry on a romantic relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, having six children in the process, yet never acknowledge her or his children from that union. He did free those children upon his death but left Sally a slave the rest of her life. Upon his death those hundred slaves were sold as common possessions in order to pay off the considerable debt built up by the plantation through the latter years of his life. He was an obsessive record keeper, recording slave births, deaths, marriages, the weather, rainfall, levels of ice in his ice house through the summer, even the number of nails made in his nailery every day.

Leaves with bulbs and stuff

Little purple flower thingies

Anyway, back to the purpose of this post. After the Slave Tour, while waiting for our turn for the House Tour, we started on the Garden and Grounds Tour. This tour was not at all about the grounds, it was an older southern lady giving us a gardening lesson on the types of flowers, shrubs etc that were planted on the premises. "This is an annual". "Doesn't it have just the most beautiful leaves and small delicate violet flowers"? "You must trim this back but leave some foliage to feed the bulbs". "This is a perennial". I looked at Maite, and said this is killing me, where do you want to go now? She said, "I don't want to go anywhere". She saw the pained look in my face and said "College Football". I said huh? She said "now you know how I feel"! "The next time you want to go to a college football game, now you know what I feel like when I go with you".

Ok then. That set me to thinking!

Ed after a narrow escape from the dreaded "Garden and Grounds Tour"

Retiring on a boat, one spends much more time with your spouse than ever before. If you are like us, during our working lives we spent a great deal of time apart, doing our own thing, 'cause we had to. Kids, careers, meetings, lunches, often without your spouse. When you are retired you don't have to do anything apart. 

There are some activities that are just plain more fun without your spouse, and freeing them from the drudgery of doing something they hate just to avoid hurting your feelings is a gift.                                                
                                                            
Since I am usually the guy that puts all the hair brained trips together, this was an epiphany. 

Maite and the view on the back of the nickel

So from now on I will go to football games with someone else, and Maite will follow her gardening or whatever she likes with someone who is interested in those things when I am not. 

Giving each other space and freedom to pursue those interests that we do not have in common is as important I think as searching for and doing things we both like together. 

After all, absence does make the heart grow fonder.

Buenos Aires to Plymouth Massachusetts (Part 7) Landfall in the United States

A beautiful dawn as we leave St. Thomas astern

Our final trek to the United States took us from Tortola to Culebra (Spanish Virgin Islands),  then to Puerto Rico to clear in to U.S. customs. Moving west northwest across the Mona Passage, we skirted along the north shore of the Dominican Republic, then jumped up to the Exumas with a quick check in for fuel in Georgetown. We then sailed up the Exuma Sound, slipped across the bank south of Nassau then north and around Chubb Cay, before making a rhumb line for Stuart. Making the voyage was Maite and me, my son Benjamin and our captain and friend, Martin Tate. Also along for the first time was our golden retriever Tyler and our black lab Nala. We left on June 12 and arrived in Stuart on June 20.

Culebra (Spanish Virgin Islands) under U.S. Control

Compared to our trip up South America this was a breeze. I was amazed at how close Culebra was to St. Thomas. It was clearly visible as we passed around St. Thomas' northern shore. Once we cleared Culebra, Puerto Rico was visible in the distance, almost before we had left the Spanish Virgins. We cleared U.S. Customs and Immigration in Fajardo, but the highlight of the trip was the town of San Juan. 

Maite on the streets of San Juan

The town was bustling, and the Spanish fort guarding the entrance to San Juan harbor was fascinating. San Juan was the jumping off point of the entire American adventure for the Spanish. Most bounty loaded aboard ship was brought to the safety of San Juan harbor before staging for the trip home to Spain. Likewise, ships full of goods to sell or troops making the transatlantic crossing could always count on San Juan as a safe harbor, in which to resupply and rest before moving on to South American, Caribbean or North American targets.

Ben at the fort, looking at one of the batteries

View across entrance to San Juan harbor from the Fort

Looking northeast from the Fort at San Juan. A decorative graveyard.

The original entrance gate to San Juan, placed
in the fortified west facing wall.

Dry moat that kept attacking armies at bay in front of the fort

Maite just outside main entrance to San Juan used in the 17th and 18th centuries

The city of San Juan just inside the fortifications

Map showing the central position of San Juan in most of Spain's Caribbean campaigns.

San Juan was where all the galleons resupplied before heading home filled with the treasures of the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans. As such it had to be well fortified. It stood guard over the bay of San Juan and along with the tiny fort across the inlet, prevented enemy ships from entering and protecting the vessels within. It was actually used until WWII.

After San Juan we sailed along the north shore of Puerto Rico, across the Mona Passage and just off shore of the Dominican Republic before we turned north. We had been told that Cuban waters can be a hassle as both the Cubans and Americans take turns boarding you and that was something I would just as soon avoid. So northwest we went. We also sidestepped the Turks as we were told they were extremely dog unfriendly, and a doggy quarantine was right up there with being boarded by the Cuban Coast Guard on the list of stuff to miss. We started fishing again once we were clear of the Virgins and had success with several tunas, barracuda and lastly a blue shark just south of Nassau. We were warned about the risks of Ciguatera and even though the risks were very low for predatory fish like Mahi and Tuna we had decided to wait.

Spinnaker up, nice smooth run, until...

I have mentioned on previous posts that we are relatively inexperienced sailors. Nowhere is this more evident than when using our asymmetric spinnaker. During the passage between Puerto Rico and the Exumas we had a beautiful 15 knot wind from astern. We put up our spinnaker and we were rewarded by a steady 8.5 kts and a very calm ride. We were having such a good time that we put two trolling lines out looking for dinner. That when the s*** started to hit the fan. 

The spinnaker is deployed differently from all other sails in that its halyard is raised while it is ensheathed in a sock. The sock is then raised and the sail opens as it catches the wind. Most experienced sailors might tell you that it is usually a good idea to raise the mainsail while using the spinnaker so that you can blanket the spinnaker or block the wind and depower it while trying to lower the sock back down. Without the main up, this can be difficult if the wind increases at all. Now Jason will tell you that it is easy-peazy up to about 20 kts of wind, but that has just not been our experience. I look forward to actually sailing with him and learning his techniques. Jason's spinnaker techniques are similar to others I have seen on YouTube videos, but it always appears that the instructors in these videos are raising and lowering the sock in only a kitten's breath of wind. That I can do. For now I still consider myself a bit "snake bit" with the spinnaker. Read on!

Anyway, we were smoothly cruising along at about 9 kts and we suddenly got strikes on both fishing lines. We went instantaneously from a leisure cruise to being short handed. Ben and Maite took one rod and I took the other. Martin was attempting to douse the spinnaker and was asking me to ease the sheet while I was trying to land the tuna. Trying to turn off the wind, I also started the engines to help maintain heading, and push us down wind to "depower" the sail. As I was doing this, Martin appeared to be doing impressions of the flying nun on the bow, so I released the sheet, secured the fishing rod and went forward to help. Not a good idea as now the sheet was so loose, it wrapped around the flailing sail, grabbed the clue and ripped it off. Oops! The sheet then went overboard and promptly got wound up in our port propeller stalling the engine Oops again. We did manage to boat one of the tunas. We joked (sort of) that our new tuna cost about $120/pound. It did taste great...but honestly, not that great. The seas had really started getting bumpy so we held off on going overboard to free the prop until we could pull into a cove in the lower Exumas. The next day, after a quick jump overboard with a mask, the prop was freed in 5 seconds, so we were off again with both engines and only the spinnaker and my reputation as a sailor as casualties. 

Ben's million dollar tuna.

I have heard people say that God will never give you more than you can handle, or that He only hits you with a hammer big enough to get your attention. This adage can be just as appropriately applied to sailing. I seem to learn something every day. Some days I break stuff and learn a lot more.

Just south of Nassau, Ben got three strikes, each a bit bigger than the last. First a medium barracuda, then a very big barracuda. Lastly, he set the hook into the biggest fight he had on the entire trip. 45 minutes later, he brought a shark along side. Exhausted, it just hung on the end of the line...for a minute or two. Martin was keen on cutting the hook and freeing the shark, but the shark had other ideas. Luckily they did not include eating Martin's hand. Fishing hooks are made of tough stuff, too tough to cut with a pair of needle nose pliers. After a brief rest, with a quick twist of his tail he spun up and onto the line which he quickly bit through and he was gone. Sorry Maite missed the quick spin move, but we were all running for our lives and the camera got switched off. Oh well.

After skirting around several thunderstorms off the Florida coast and having night fall upon us, we slid into Stuart harbor and the 20 mile pretzel that gets you past a gazillion markers, the railroad bridge, a major highway and into the marina. Home at last!

The Chesapeake as a Playground

Maite single handed aboard Calypso outside Annapolis Harbor

Having a Golden on board means lots of brushings to
stay ahead of the hair.

Since the Annapolis Boat Show we have been working our way down the Chesapeake in search of adventure and warmer climes. Although it has not gotten any warmer, the stops have been superb. Immediately post show we had a smooth motor to Eric's home dock where we had staged for the show. We then returned to Annapolis and picked up our new and improved dinghy. Over the last six months we had noticed our APEX dinghy was very stern heavy with two aboard in the seat and would not plane. It also had no navigation lights at night and sometimes we forgot a flashlight to see by.

Trim tabs mounted on stern transom. Shocks push down

to lift stern during take-off then retract while planing

New dinghy boarding step/nav lights 

"Additional crew" for Calypso. Great attitude
 but not too good with lines. (No opposable thumbs)

We discussed this with the APEX dinghy folks from Fawcett's (where Antares buys their dinghies) we found that they normally installed trim tabs on the back of all the dinghies they sold. They also placed a wedge shaped gas tank in the bow locker to help distribute weight. Lastly, they suggested a bow step with nav lights, making boarding easier and providing lighting at the same time. They met us in the bay outside of Annapolis with our new and improved dinghy. We stayed that night in a small lake just south of Annapolis. Back Creek sits directly south of the show and was filled with snow birds and power boaters (it was the power boaters turn for a show in Annapolis). The next small inlet was recommended by Shaun at Fawcett's and sure enough it was perfect. In fact, the Gun Boat that had been docked just off our bow during the show was anchored there as well. The next morning we picked up "additional crew", raised anchor and headed for St. Michaels.

Maite atop light house at Chesapeake Maritime Museum

View of Maritme Museum from the Light House

Calypso docked in St. Michaels. Go there it's awesome!

Several hours south of Annapolis and on the eastern shore we entered the Miles River and St. Michaels. $1.50/ft per day, with internet, showers, free breakfast and newspaper is hard to beat! The Chesapeake Maritime Museum, the shops, the food all combined to give us a great first stop after a busy show.

One of the most interesting displays in the Chesapeake Maritime Museum was the light house. These days all of the buoys and navigation beacons in the Chesapeake are automated. With a near 400 year history of shipping here you can imagine that was not always the case. These structures stood on seven metal poles that were hand drilled into the 

Close up of Freznel lens that better focused light resulting
in beams seen up to 26 miles

muddy bottom at a slight angle for stability. Keepers lived here year round, maintaining the structure, lighting the light and winding the fog bell mechanism when called for. It was a very solitary life, as supply ships would visit no more than once a month to deliver food, coal and wood for their wood burning stove. In winter the bay would freeze over, but the tides still rose and fell lifting the ice with them, grinding away at the light house struts. Some failed under the pressure. 

The Freznel Lens pictured opposite was developed in France in 1823 to better focus light. It represented a great advance in the 19th century that greatly increased the range of each light. The lens is basically a series of prisms held within a brass frame each focusing the beam tighter and tighter. An open flame loses 97% of its lighting effectiveness, and even with a reflector mounted behind it loses 83% of its brightness. The Freznel lens focused all but 17% of the light in a narrow beam, making the light nearly 5 times brighter.

Ed out for his first spin on our new
Dahon folding Bicycles

Maite bicycling in St Michaels

Tyler and Nala on the deck watch lunch "happen"

Entrance to a "Dog Store" in St. Michaels.
Look familiar? They just "got us" there!

Victory Monument Yorktown, Virginia enacted by Congress 1783,
built during centennial preparations 1880

Moving south, we made overnight stops at the Solomons and Reedville, and we bypassed Deltaville altogether. We stayed aboard Calypso both nights so I have very little I can share about them, but they seemed rather commercial. We crossed the Potomac and the Rappahannock Rivers, then sailed up the York River to Yorktown.

View of the York River from the Battlefield where
Cornwallis made his last stand

Yorktown sits on the York River near Williamsburg on the opposite coast of the peninsula from Jamestown. It sits where the river twists suddenly to the north and narrows to only a half mile. Everywhere else it is nearly four miles across. A ways up the river sits Westpoint.

Calypso at City Dock Yorktown

Waterfront near City Dock Yorktown

As most of you may know Yorktown was the site of the last battle of the Revolutionary War where Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington and his French allies. Unlike the scene from the Patriot where Mel Gibson ran around with an axe, the battle was a battle of artillery not guns or troops. The design of the siege was brilliant and the victory is owed to the French artillery, French Navy, French siege tactics, and the seriously bad luck/poor judgement of General Cornwallis. Inexplicably, he abandoned his outer perimeter, and burned his waiting war ships that could have moved him to safety. The outcome was inevitable before it began. The National Park site was full of little historic surprises that weren't in the history books, just like many of the other sites we have visited this summer. 

Ranger talk explaining the short range of the British 6 pounder vs.
the longer range 12 pounders of the Americans and 24 pounders of the French
Shinny cannon in the foreground is a 6 pounder

Ranger describing the attack upon Redoubt #10

by the Rhode Island Regulars with unloaded muskets and fixed bayonets

led by Alexander Hamilton

Did you know that the reason the York River narrows and that Yorktown sits where it does is that it sits on the rim of a meteor crater caused by the 6th largest meteor to ever hit the Earth about 50 million years ago? Another interesting fact was that the only hand to hand battle was for the 9th and 10th redoubts (fortified hills with cannon on top). Alexander Hamilton led the stealthy assault on the night of a new moon, with the Rhode Island Regulars (the only division that was 70% African-American). Sneaking between the two hills in a natural trench he was able to surprise the British from the rear without firing a shot. 

The 6 pound field cannons of the British had an effective range of only a mile, while the larger 12 pound cannons of the Americans could reach 3 miles and were deadly accurate at about 0.6 miles. The Americans and French effectively stayed out of the range of the British while pounding them to death with there larger cannons. Moreover, using French siege tactics they focused their cannons across the British lines and hit the British cannons that were aiming elsewhere, turned on profile. As such the allied cannons criss-crossed the British line taking out their cannons with frightening efficiency. It was on the 19th of October, 233 years ago that the British surrendered. Cornwallis refused to present his sword personally and sent his second in command while he coward in Yorktown. Despite this, he was paroled through New York and sent to Britain to a heroes welcome. 

We are home in Tennessee this weekend for the Alabama-Tennessee game then back to Williamsburg and Jamestown! Our plan is to move through the Dismal Swamp on November 2 and be in Charleston by the 9th.

Annapolis Boat Show and the List of Questions

Entering the 2014 Annapolis Sailboat Show

I want to take this time to reach out to all those that visited us on Calypso during the Annapolis Boat Show. Thank you for your interest. If there are any additional questions or comments please post them on our blog and we will answer you! 

So many couples these days are weighing the pros and cons of taking up the sailing life, what boat to buy, how much to spend, considering walking away from major careers, adapting to retirement and wondering if is the right time. Many are wondering/concerned about the forced intimacy of living with your spouse 24-7-365 on a boat. I don't think there are correct answers to these questions, only answers that fit best with your own wishes and desires. It continues to astound me just how similar we all are in our thoughts, fears, and aspirations. I will try to answer the most common questions that were put to us during the show from our experience, what has felt right for us, so far. 


1. What do you like most about Calypso. What would you change if you had it to do again?

Maite likes the windows, the "livability", Calypso just fits like someone had designed her shape to fit the way we live. (Surprise, somebody did...his name is Ted Clements).  The boat is just so easy to sail, it's like she's a member of your crew. She often times knows better what to do than we do. We have toyed with placing a downhaul through the raceway to the rear winch, and I think that might be a good plan. We also chose to upgrade our mattress to a traditional queen mattress that fit just fine in the birth. It is a bit thicker but it is much more comfortable. 

2. Is living aboard what you expected? Is it more work than you expected? What surprised you?

Calypso 2014 Annapolis Sailboat Show

In any lifestyle there are things that are what you expected and things that are not. Living aboard is work, really more than I thought...not a retirement. I should have known this. I was certainly told often enough. Exploring, navigating, provisioning, cleaning, polishing, repairing, and more cleaning. The do list is never empty, ever. The biggest challenges are not sailing, that is the easy part, although there are levels of expertise in sailing as well that we are just beginning to explore. Long passages can seem like work, day sails or overnights are usually pure fun. 

Just a small sampling of Antares owners that attended the show. Laurie, Gail, Jason,
Salwa, Craig, Mary, Charles, Jeff aboard LiveWide 2014 Annapolis Show

 Another thing I was told, but was still pleasantly surprised by was that sailors are just plain friendly. The things you share in common tend to break down social barriers very quickly, so you get to know people very fast. Since you never know when you might need a stranger's help, you tend to be generous and very quick to lend a hand. It's just human nature. Most sailors are very giving people. I think that may be largely an act of self preservation, but it still really feels nice. 


We found that the genders can react differently to taking on the responsibility of cruising, the whole Mars/Venus, pink job/blue job thing starts with the way you view the world and yourself within it. Things that seem trivial to me are really important to Maite and visa versa. Both points of view are important and must be considered and addressed or you won't be sailing for long. It may seem that it should be obvious to your spouse that something is not working, but under the stress of piloting a very complicated piece of machinery, the intimacy of living in close quarters, and the different perspectives of the parties, nothing is obvious. The same process occurs onboard that occurs at home, except you are in each other's faces all the time, and the decisions you make together can be life saving or life threatening ones, so working on communication skills becomes very important. Find ways to address the concerns/fears of your spouse. Be generous. Work to make it a positive experience for both of you as often as possible.

3. How do you feel about retiring and leaving the workplace at 58 and 54 years old?

Rob Poirier (Co-president Antares Yachts)

Tough question. We both have times when we feel bad about not contributing. Being productive is part of how one maintains a sense of self esteem. It helps me to realize that retirement is never a matter of if, but a matter of when, so the struggle to move into retirement is universal and we are all bound to face it sooner or later.  Maite and I sometimes struggle to feel we deserve early retirement even though we would probably be too old to sail if we waited another ten years. Maite went several decades seeing me only a few hours per day, and I feel she deserves as much of my time as she would like before we are too old or unhealthy to have adventures. There are ways to contribute that don't entail an 7 am to 6 pm job and we are finding ways to be useful. I don't miss the 70 hour weeks.  Leaving a profession you spent 14 years to train for is a little unsettling but it has mostly been a positive experience.

  4. Were you an accomplished sailor before you bought and Antares 44i?

Huh, NO. We had done all the ASA classes, and had a two engine motorboat on a lake for eight years, so I had plenty of motoring and docking practice. We rented sailboats in the BVIs twice, a monohull the first time, a 44' Leopard cat the second. Also took a 440 Lagoon from Ft. Lauderdale across the Gulf Stream as part of one of our classes. That's really about it. We knew that was a weak spot and attended courses when we had time to build our knowledge base. I was an instrument rated multiengine pilot with about 2000 hours which also helped. Maite and I are both considering taking the 6 pack course and exam, just to improve our abilities, (and lower our insurance)!

  5. Is the support from the company as good as they say it is?

Jeff Woodman (Co-president Antares Yachts)

The support from our perspective is all that is advertised. For us, Rob, Jeff, Salwa and even Ted are tireless in helping us through this challenging process. Rob works the sales side, helps you with picking out options, sets up the Antares Univerities, and is the go to person before your boat is delivered. Jeff works the warranty side, and is the go to person when things break or malfunction during the first year. He is also the one who actually handles purchasing, oversees supply chain issues, payroll and so forth. Together they work very hard on your behalf and continue to do so far after the sale. In Argentina our experience was that Memo, Santi, Sancho, Pedro all worked equally hard. It is a foreign land and there are challenges for everybody, but they are on your side. There is tremendous goodwill between customers and company for a reason even though they cannot build the boats fast enough to keep up with the demand. 

6. Have your sailing plans changed since you started?

Maite "holding court"

We had a dream of learning to sail our boat in the Caribbean and U.S. east coast then circumnavigating when the kids were a bit older. What we have learned is that every time a choice of destination is made, a hundred are skipped. There are more than enough destinations in our cruising ground to keep us exploring for years. We are now willing to just go destination to destination and season to season avoiding longer time lines when things tend to change week to week. We may go through the Panama Canal at some point, but that is then and this is now. We have been through the canal by cruise ship and it is miraculous, but no more than sites we have already seen. Learning about my own heritage in Plymouth, the War of 1812 and the Civil War has been very cool and there is so much more in our own backyard.

7. Did you have any storms during which you were afraid?

Maite answering questions

Small concentrated rain storms (squalls) are a fact of cruising. You see them coming, reef in your sales and wait out the increased wind. That being said we have gotten into one or two without doing all of that and regretted that decision. Another example of knowing better, but trying to get by. That did create a bit of angst. 

Avoiding major weather fronts by picking your best "weather windows" is also the idea. Swells that you encounter at sea are caused by wind and grow the harder and longer it blows. It is therefore easy enough to have a clear day with large swells hitting your boat that were created hundreds of miles away. What is more important than swell size is there periodicity (time between peaks) and the direction from which they are coming in relation to the direction of your boat. "Head seas" are coming at you and your forward motion tends to decrease the time between each wave. Getting into seas like this is not much fun and can be hard on your boat. When the swells are moving the same direction you are, they tend to overtake the boat, but the time between each swell is longer and the ride much better. We have not ever been afraid that the boat would flip or sink, although we have often times wanted to be somewhere else because the head seas were beating us up. There have also been a few lightening storms that have concerned us, as a lightening strike can cause devastation to you electronics on board. We are new and very cautious at this point, so we have not been in any major storms yet. We have seen 10 - 12 foot seas on the beam (coming from the side), but nothing worse.

Whose got the biggest camera? Salwa, it's always Salwa

8. How do you know how provision the boat, how much to buy, etc.

Other owners helped a great deal here. There tends to be plenty of room for can food and dry goods, not so much for vegetables, fruit, and dairy. After just a bit of practice this becomes second nature.

9. Do you get sea sick? How do you handle it?

I was really concerned about this at first, because I knew that I got sea sick. I hoped I would acclimate and feel better. It affects people differently. Maite gets headaches, I get nauseated and blow groceries. Everyone has a favorite remedy that they use. I have learned to accept that it happens to me and not get all twisted up about it. When it happens it happens. We deal with it, but try not to make a federal case over it. That worry only makes it worse. Scopolamine patches seem to work the best for us, but everyone is different.

10. Do you like the galley down configuration?

Eric Maynard (LiveWide) and father with Jeff Woodman

Absolutely. This a marketing misnomer in my opinion. It is not as easy as up or down. The Antares galley is open to the salon, but down two steps to keep the mess away from the salon. If you are in the galley you are just as much a "part of the action" as if you were standing amidships. Most people would prefer not to have their kitchen inside their living room...they would prefer a house to an efficiency apartment. So it is with the Antares. The galley is laid out to be easy for two people to use at a time, but keeps the cooking, spills, dirty dishes and so forth out of sight from the salon. In a rough sea having a long thin space allows you to use your hands more while preparing food because you can wedge yourself with your legs. On most galley up designs, its one hand for holding and one for cooking. In the Antares the salon stays as your living room. I love it.

11. Are the dogs a bother? How did you train them to do their business?

Nala overseeing final preparation of Calypso for the show

Tyler overseeing final preparation
of Calypso for the boat show

Dogs are a bother. They shed, do their poo poo, have to go out at night. In fact they do all the stuff they do on land, but you learn to manage the process like everything else, and they are part of our family. We brush them more often to keep the hair down; we bought a small Dyson vacuum to stay ahead of the shedding, we put down carpet to keep them off the wood, and they learned to do their business on the trampolines where we can wash it away with the salt water wash down. We did not really train them, they trained us. The key was persistence and support. They got it in time. Now it's easy, peezy. (Nice term, thanks Jason)

12. Do you eat out a lot, or make dinner regularly on the boat?

We do eat out quite a bit in order to explore our new surroundings. We could save money by cutting back on this and on marinas, which will likely be the case in time, but for now we enjoy both.

13. What is watch like?

When the boat is making a crossing or passage and is moving, someone must be in control at all times. At sea the depth is far greater than the length of our anchor chain so anchoring is not an option. There are ways of "pulling over" but generally it is better if the conditions are OK to sail. Since there are usually only two of us onboard we must take turns at the helm. Two or three hours on and two or three hours off through the night. Passages are fun until you get exhausted, then they are just work. We tend to motor within the intercostal water way only during the day and anchor at night, while at sea we can sail round the clock.

14. Are we both equally comfortable at the helm?

No. Maite is fine on watch. She knows how to adjust course, set and reset the autopilot and plotters and trim sails. She is not yet extremely comfortable with docking or close in maneuvering. She is also not yet comfortable with decision making in selecting sail plan after big wind shifts. We still are working to master the process of dousing the asymmetric spinnaker. We have had real good help from several of the sailors in the fleet including Jason and Jeff, but we still lack some experience with this sail and I would judge our abilities as low passing grade at best.

15. What was it like having strangers walking through your home during the boat show?

Honestly that runs the gamut. There were some couples that reminded us so much of ourselves several years ago. There were others that you knew were not and never would be sailors. When people come aboard and just don't understand what they are seeing and can't appreciate the design, it's really OK, I was there once. When they come onboard just to criticize and are just ignorant I get a bit testy. When I was in their shoes there were couples that passed on their experiences and advice in a very humble and unassuming way. I lapped that up and remain grateful to this day. In some small way we are trying to pass that on. 

16. What did you do with all your stuff from you house?

We gave 23 car loads of stuff to the Goodwill. We gave a bunch away to my son's fraternity. We rented a 10' x 20' x 10' storage unit and stuffed the things we couldn't throw away into it. We return several times a year to take more and more to Goodwill. By the time we decide to move inland it will most likely have been largely given away to charity, except for our Yamaha grand piano.

17. How well do you keep in touch with your kids?

We talk to them more now than ever before. We travel to where they go to school and pay for them to come to see us, more than ever before. It was hard coming up from Argentina and Brazil, but after that it has been better than ever. Along the east coast we have cell phones until we get more than 10 miles of shore, then we have our KVH which gives great phone service at 50 cents/minute anywhere in the world. As our kids have trouble using the phone and prefer to text it can still be a challenge at times.

18. How much does it cost to live on a boat?

We have cut our expenses in half since moving aboard and that includes about $10,000 in captains fees and buying things for the boat on our way up from Argentina.

Now that it is stocked, we have lived very cheaply the last few months. Lifestyle choices such as anchoring or going into marinas, going out to eat or staying aboard, driving your boat at high rpm or using economical cruising settings, land travel, all these things influence how expensive it is to live on a boat. It will cost less than living at home, how much less depends upon you.

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We must give credit for much of what we have learned to those upon who's shoulders we stand, owners before us that have helped and encouraged us to get to where we are. Many are tireless in solving problems, improvising new solutions and sharing their hard earned knowledge with our community. 

Craig and Laurie are always the first on my list. They hosted our first Antares University in Grenada. I can remember the first time I walked aboard Alberta Crewed I felt as though I was being introduced to a couple of movie stars since I had followed their blog for so long. They also hosted our first major passage from Wilmington, NC to Georgetown, Exumas. Laurie's blog is always a treat to read, and gratefully she and Craig will be returning to Alberta Crewed later this year. That usually means she will begin to publish again! 

Eric is at the top as well. He and Carla have allowed us to hang out at their dock behind Eric's home and prep for the show since we reached the Chesapeake several weeks ago. They have been so gracious, with their time and knowledge of Baltimore and the Chesapeake. Many thanks to them! 

Mark, Sarah, Neil, Shaun, Jason, Gail, Alon, Mike, Ian, Phillipa, Ross, Ashlyn, Jeff, Rob, Salwa, Beth, Martin and Memo our captains on the legs from Buenos Aires, Steve and Linda from Seaman's Elixir who first got us serious about this adventure during the Miami Show in 2009, we owe you all more than we can ever repay. There are others we have met, that we look forward to getting to know better and sailing with like Ellen, Rand, Mary, Jeff and many others as, after all, our journey has really just begun.

I will get back to our trek toward Plymouth in my next post and try to get up to date soon. Currently we have staged Calypso and are waiting for a weather window to head south. St. Michaels first, then Williamsburg, Jamestown, then past Norfolk into the Dismal Swamp, Pamlico Sound and into the Carolinas. We considered Fredricksburg and Washington DC very hard, but felt we just couldn't give them the time they needed so they are the list for next year. We will be the boat in the Miami Boat Show in February, so please come visit if you are planning to come to the show.

Cheers!