Long time, no blog......

OK, maybe it's been a while since our last update. We did manage to get Sunshine up to Savannah, GA without serious incident where the boat is docked at a marina on the Ogeechee River a few miles off the ICW. We've made a couple of trips down there and have spent several days on the boat, cleaning, fixing, organizing and, mainly, just goofing around. We have also had lots of fun exploring Savannah which is a very cool place to visit.

Things should get a lot more interesting very soon, though. Right now, we're at home getting ready for the holidays and trying to figure out what people are supposed to do when they expect to be gone for 5 or 6 months -- lots to think about.

Ready or not, we fly out of Indianapolis on January 10th and will spend a couple of days onboard while we get things sorted out for our trip down the ICW. We'll keep going until the butter melts -- probably in the Miami area -- with a few stops along the way to visit family and friends. As we get farther South, there are more and more bridges to contend with, so we may get our courage up and go "outside" into the deep, blue water when we get closer to Miami.

Once we get to Miami, we plan to spend several days (or weeks) in the Biscayne Bay while we learn to sail. The bay is large enough that we should be able to make lots of mistakes without hitting other boats. From there, we'll head East to Bimini and the rest of the Bahamas (or South to the Florida Keys) for several weeks (or months). Yes, there is some uncertainty about our plans, but that's what's so great about them. We have no schedule that's a good thing. The whole idea is to do some exploring, learn about cruising and, most important, to have a good time.

We have enough doo dads and gizmos on board, that it will be difficult for us to get lost or to run into anything. We also will have our cell phones and should have some sort of Internet connection. Once we get to the Bahamas, communication may get a little tricky, but we'll find a way. They are not famous for their telephone or Internet service, but I'm sure we'll get by.

Finally, we promise to do a better job of keeping this blog up to date with lots of amazing pictures and fascinating sea stories, so please stay tuned. If you would like leaving a comment, we'd love to hear how you're getting along.

Best wishes for the holidays to one and all! Wish us luck!

Our next voyage....up the ditch!

Our very first re-fueling draws a crowd of admiring onlookers.

and

Nothing quells a mutiny like a few random beheadings early in the voyage.

Watch where you're going!

We hate that low steel.

The Captain is on break.

Our next voyage will start on June 13th and will take us up the ICW from Melbourne, FL to a spot on the Ogeechee River that is just South of Savannah, GA. Normally, it would take about a week, but we're allowing two weeks -- just in case.

We plan to leave Melbourne on or about the 14th and go to Titusville, FL where we'll pick up our friend and fellow PDQ36 owner, Rich. He will ride with us as far as Jacksonville. At that point, my brother-in-law and Navy veteran, Tom Harnishfeger, is planning to join us for the rest of the way to Savannah.

We plan to motor the whole way but might get brave enough to raise the sails if we can find a really wide spot in the ICW where we aren't likely to hit anything. We'll have several chances to improve our bridge raising skills along the way and we'll know a lot more about our boat and the ICW by the time we get to Savannah.

We will probably leave Sunshine in the Savannah area until we figure out where to go next. Another sailing friend who lives there has offered to let us "park" Sunshine behind his house for a while and we will most likely take him up on his offer. Savannah sounds like a very cool area to explore and, after we have spent a while there, we may well head farther North up the ICW -- maybe to the Chesapeake Bay area.

We have been warned about some mosquito-like bugs known as "sand gnats" that thrive in coastal Georgia. The locals love them because they eat Yankees and, then, the shrimp eat the sand gnats. In effect, the sand gnats turn Yankees into shrimp. We are going to try saying "y'all" a lot so that the sand gnats will think we're locals and leave us alone.

Wish us "fair winds" and stay tuned for the next chapter.

Captain Phil
s/v Sunshine

We didn't break anything!

We just spent a week on Sunshine at her dock in Melbourne, FL and, despite taking a couple of short motor trips, we didn't break anything -- at least nothing that can't be fixed. She is a fine ship and appears to be in very good condition with a LOT of extra gear and conveniences.

We had our first overnight guests: the Admiral's brother, Allen, and his wife, Dorie. We took them on a trip of about two miles down the Grand Canal, under a couple of bridges, to a marina fuel dock where we filled the tank and, then, and out into the Indian River which forms part of the Intracoastal Waterway. We experimented with lots of switches, buttons, knobs, and dials and, in the process, learned a lot about our ship. After some fooling around, most everything worked, but a few things (like the "flush" button for the head) need a little encouragement. There are so many "systems," gizmos, and doo dads on Sunshine that it will take a while before everything makes sense to us.

A couple of days later, we took another trip with Sunshine's landlord, Rod, who is an Annapolis graduate and an airplane pilot. He also knows the area very well was very helpful to us as we motored out into the ICW and ventured a little further than we had on the previous trip.

We were also visited by Jeanette and Kenny Thompson and their friend, Gunther, and enjoyed an meal with them at a local seafood restaurant. Gunther is a sailor and wanted very much to show us how to sail our boat, but we had to tell him that we weren't quite ready for that yet.

We also drove up to Titusville to have dinner with Roger and Bonnie Ford of s/v Kokomo and Rich Tanner of s/v Feral Cat. During dinner and for a couple of hours afterwards, we picked their brains unmercifully since their boats are also PDQ 36's and they had just returned the previous day from the Bahamas.

We were also visited by our Melbourne friends, Sam and Gina Densler, who own s/v Lady of the Lakes which is another PDQ 36 that they keep docked just a few miles away. We spent a few hours asking zillions of questions and Sam was kind enough to fix and/or resolve several issues that we had encountered on Sunshine.

It is truly incredible how helpful fellow cruisers (especially fellow PDQ 36 owners) are and we would be totally lost without them.

At the end of the week, we both felt that we knew our boat and her various systems well enough that we could make our way up the ICW under power. Again, sailing will have to wait until we get to a place that has LOTS of sea room for us to practice in.

Our maiden voyage was from our rented dock to a public dock which is across the canal and about 200' away. We managed to untie the docklines and get the boat underway without too much trouble but the drama began about one minute and 50' into our voyage when we managed to run aground right next to our freakin dock! It seems that no one had warned us that the opposite side of our canal was only about 2' deep. We were unable to get loose by gunning the engines, but managed to avoid calling for a Coast Guard rescue by the Captain jumping into the water and pushing the boat sideways into deeper water.

The birds and fish around our dock are amazing. Ospreys, pelican, ducks, and geese are everywhere along with dolphins, manatees and all sorts of things that go splash and plonk into the water. Unfortunately, we also encountered a bunch of "noseeums" that bite at night and leave itchy red dots all over your feet and ankles. A goodly supply of "Off" will be on our next packing list.

We took tons of pictures and I will post a few of them here. If anyone wants to see more, just let us know. Some of them will be of interest to no one except other PDQ 36 owners -- like the picture of the inside of our port chain locker or the one of our refrigerator compressor.

We hope to get back down to see our baby within a few weeks and, who knows, maybe we'll be brave enough to begin the trip up the ICW. Folks tell us that the average distance covered in a day of motoring on the ICW is about 50 miles what with the bridge openings and a few locks that have to be dealt with. At that rate, we could realistically expect to get to somewhere in the Savannah, GA area within a week. Wish us luck!

Chapter 1.5

We have bought our plane tickets for another trip to Melbourne, FL (Sunshine's temporary home) on April 24th and we'll be there a week as we try to figure out what goes where. We hope to do a little motoring around the canal and maybe the ICW and, if we get really brave, we may anchor out somewhere close by and spend the night. That would be our very first maiden voyage and our first overnighter. How exciting is that? We'll try to get some better photos of Sunshine and her surroundings to post here.

We're pretty sure that Sunshine doesn't have a gas grille for the cockpit yet, so that may be one of our early additions. That way, when you come to visit, we can grille you up some freshly caught fish right there in our new "backyard".

We're not sure yet, but we think that we have found an insurance company that is desperate and crazy enough to insure us. At least, they cashed the check I wrote for the first year's premium. The only bad thing is that they are an Eastern European company (Turdistan, maybe) so God help us if we ever do have a claim. After we have had a little more experience, we hope to find a real insurance company that will be willing to take a chance on us. Right now, I know I wouldn't do it.

Stay tuned and we appreciate all of your comments.....except maybe the one about the granny knot.

Captain Phil

The Sunshine story begins....

Sunshine is the name of our new baby, a PDQ 36 LRC cruising catamaran. The photo shows her during the haulout for her survey, which she passed with flying colors. We bought her a few days ago and she is currently docked on Grand Canal near Melbourne, FL. The only problem is that we live, for the time being, in Indiana. We are in the process of becoming fully retired and our sailing experience is limited to a three day charter in the Abacos several weeks ago. We plan to make several trips to Florida in the near future in order to become better acquainted with Sunshine and her various systems and, after we have mastered some basic motoring and docking skills, we will find a wide open area and slowly and carefully raise the sails and see what happens.

We appreciate all of the help, advice and encouragement that we have received from the cruising community. They are an amazing group of people who truly delight in helping one another. We are proud to be new members of their family. We have yet to meet a cruiser who wasn't willing to help us in any way possible and we would not be undertaking this adventure unless we knew that we can rely on the safety net that they provide.

Within a few weeks, we hope to have motored up the Intracoastal Waterway as far as the Georgia coast where we will stop in the Savannah area and catch our breath for a while before heading farther North. Once we find a good semi-permanent stopping place (probably at the base of the Chesapeake Bay), we will spend the rest of the summer exploring that area while we refine our sailing skills. When fall arrives, we plan to head for the Bahamas and spend the winter exploring that amazing part of the world. Then, when spring rolls around again, we will most likely head back up the East coast of the US and, then, repeat the cycle. At some point, we'd like to venture farther South into the Caribbean and maybe, some day, through the Panama Canal and beyond.

Sunshine is very well equipped and, once we figure out what we are doing, she should be very easy to sail. For the sailors out there, she has electric winches, a self-furling mainsail, a self tacking genoa, twin 18 hp Yanmar diesels, solar panels, a wind generator, radar, autopilot, watermaker, freezer and so on. It will take us a while to learn to operate and maintain all of these bells and whistles, but we are looking forward to the process. Her overall length is 36' and her beam (width) is 18'3". She only draws 3'8" which is perfect for the ICW and the Bahamas.

Are we crazy? Maybe, but - as Jimmy Buffett says - only time will tell.

Please check on our progress from time to time as we begin this new chapter in our lives. We will post some better photos of Sunshine and keep you updated as we inch our way up the ICW into the unknown. Once we have an idea about what we are doing, we hope to have many of our friends and relatives join us for cruises. For now, we really can't blame you for wanting to stay on shore.

Phil and Margaret McGovern