Life on board - so far

I will leave most the details and commentary on our maiden voyage as a family to Gregg. I'm just going to say it was a lot of fun. A little scary being out by ourselves, but fun and exciting. The Chesapeake off Annapolis on a Saturday is a lot like the river we lived on in IL - very busy - lots of traffic. Once we got out closer to the Bay Bridge, though, it cleared up a bit.

Quinn behaved very well - he sat down in the cockpit when we told him to, and he got to sit at the helm with Daddy quite a bit. He really liked going under the bridge. I was fine - no seasickness at all. I took a couple packs of Emergen-C and some of Quinn's Benedryl (couldn't find the adult - hadn't unpacked much before the sail) and that seemed to do the trick.

Since we arrived here in Rock Hall, we've been mostly unpacking, stowing and cleaning. We're finally to the point now that there are almost no boxes piled in the saloon anymore. We even cooked a decent dinner last night. The marina has a shelter next to the jetty with some gas grills and picnic tables so we went over there and grilled some steaks while we watched the sunset on the bay. A far cry from our first dinner cooked on board, canned black bean soup that I added some canned tomatoes to with slightly better than room-temperature margaritas (we didn't have any ice yet), but we did manage to find the tequila, chilled margarita mix and salt.

Anyway, at this very moment, Quinn is sitting at my feet, under the table in the saloon, naked, playing with his matchbox cars... so he's adjusting well to the boat. He loves his "very own sink and toilet and shower and bedroom". Although, he has a second pillow on his bed now and he is saving it for Abby (his girlfriend), whom he talks about several times a day. He misses her VERY much.

On our way...

Uggghhhhhh. Well, we had a lot more work to do on the house than we thought. We planned to get on the road by 7 p.m. Tuesday, but didn't actually get out until 3:00 Wednesday morning. We have relied heavily on neighbors and friends to help us stick to our schedule of driving overnight Tuesday night. The facility where were are storing pretty much everything we own closed at 7 .pm, so we were unable to finish moving everything out of the house. Our friends have agreed to finish that huge job for us. And, so we don't have to run the air conditioning non-stop or worry about the lawn getting mowed, our neighbor has very kindly taken on both of those jobs. Thank you so much Frank & Jen and Bud & Diane.

I have to add that this was by far, the most complicated move I've ever done. Usually, you just dump the stuff into boxes to unpack at the new house. This time, we had to make the following decisions about everything:

1. Do we need it on the boat?
2. If we don't need it on the boat, is it worth storing?
3. Is there room in the storage area for it?
4. If it's not worth storing, do we try to sell it, give it to neighbors/friends, give it to charity, or just throw it out?

Let's just say we gave away A LOT of stuff.

Anyway, after about 900 miles and 16 hours or so on the road, we are finally in Maryland, about an hour drive from Annapolis. We meet Fun Brian at the boat tomorrow at noon EDT for the walk-through. The weather Saturday morning looks like it will be the best of the weekend for moving the boat from the CatCo docks in Annapolis to Rock Hall, which will be our "home" for the next couple months.

By the way, the drive through West Virginia and Maryland was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

We're outta here...

We have a plan. We're almost done packing up the house and intend to be on the road Tuesday evening. After a brief pitstop in Ohio to visit Gregg's family, we expect to make Annapolis by Friday morning. It's about 18 hours or so on the road, but with the 3-year-old, we need to spread out the time he's trapped in the car seat. Quinn sleeps pretty well in the car, so if we do the bulk of the traveling at night, it should be fairly peaceful... or not.

So anyway, Fun Brian (our broker) will be in town to do the walk-through with us on Friday. Then Saturday (or Sunday, dependent on weather), we will sail the boat to Rock Hall, MD, where we have rented a slip for a couple months while we outfit the boat and provision (and get used to the boat).

Quinn's birthday party with his friends was yesterday... The kids seemed to have a great time. I'm really glad we were able to squeeze in a party for him - he's kind of freaking out right now. Every time he gets up from a nap, more things are missing. He started hiding his stuffed animals in his pillow case because he's afraid they're going to disappear. He's resilient, though. He'll adjust fine... and if he doesn't, we'll stop living on the boat. I think once we get out there, though, he'll love it - it's just really hard on him now.

Thanks for last night

Our friends here threw us a fantastic "Bon Voyage" party last night. So, I write this still a little hungover this morning. And Jen K. - great call on the food! It was excellent - the bacon-wrapped dates were terrible though... ;-) We can't thank you all enough for everything you put into last night, and especially Frank & Jen for hosting the bash! We're still laughing about "Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald" playing outside as we pulled up to your house.

And to Dave, you truly missed your calling. How you can be an attorney and write greeting cards with verbiage like this?:

front: "Why is it that we always wait until someone leaves to let them know just how much they're appreciated?

inside: "Because we're scum. But we sure will miss you and we hope you don't die."

And thanks to everyone for the requisite water disaster DVD's... Poseidon, Perfect Storm, The Final Countdown, and last but not least, Blue Water-White Death.

We will miss you all very much and we expect to see you on board at some point. Maybe when we're in the Bahamas in December... you know, when it's below freezing outside here and you're cursing as you scrape the two feet of snow and ice off your cars... you'll be calling... you know you will... Oh... that reminds me. Do any of you need an extra ice scraper? Snow shovel? Space heater?

Come visit us!