Thought you might like a toe update, because I know you haven’t been sleeping well thinking about ME doing all the work on this big ole boat while Ben lounges in bed sipping his rum.  hahaha

 

I’m happy to say that he DID make it 3 full days off the foot.  By day 3, he figured he was going to start doing boat projects or I may just find a way to sink this boat- ok, back to my mother’s need for exaggeration…but it did get him up on his feet when I said that!  Day 4 he was all over the boat in the morning fixing things I didn’t even know were broken, when finally at lunchtime he says his foot is done (after I recommended 3 times that morning to sit down and elevate/ice the toe!).  Day 5 was the same story, day 6 he ran an errand on land (yes, that means he went shopping at West Marine), day 7 was more (unknown) boat projects which brings us to today’s moving day!  The good news is that we are now 100% sure that his foot isn’t broken – the swelling is gone in his foot and he can actually walk (and quite well the day he had to go to West Marine, I might add).  The bad news is that the ugly toenail is still clinging on for dear life and hasn’t fallen off yet.  Oh dear Lord, there is still yet to come the part I dread the most…the nail-less toe.  Can I handle it????  Can YOU handle me not handling it?    (side note, when I studied in Mexico one of the students didn’t have a big toe nail and I could never look at his feet, it was horrible.  I’m a wimp, what can I say?  I’ll never run a marathon because I like my toenails too much…and I hate running, LOL)

Change of subject here, but pre-toe-accident we gave our landlord notice that we were moving out by the end of the month.  We finally rented a storage unit so it’s time to cut ties with land living for a while…Yippeee.  Well, then Mr. Dive Master has to go and break his freakin’ foot (ok, just a toe) so we told the landlord (also our friend) that it may put a damper on our Jan 31st move out date.  Yesterday we got the call, the dreaded call….the “I found a tenant and you have to be out on time” call.  I had done my best to take 2 car loads of stuff to “the unit” this past week but that didn’t even put a dent in our stuff…aka..CRAP!  Today we did manage to get the bedroom mostly empty and the unit half full…which is good!  We still have 1 1/2 rooms to go and 1/2 of a unit left….which is bad.  But the trash man cometh on Monday so that will help us say goodbye to many belongings (not enough in my humble opinion!) and hopefully, err, definitely by the 31st we will be out of there and have the place cleaned up…well, we’ll be out at least, sorry Scott!

 

In honour of my friend Britt’s birthday (Happy 29th for the 10th time Sportcoat!), I’ll acknowledge that “it’s a rough life I’m living”, hahaha.  I remind myself in times of frustration that the inconveniences of boat life is what I signed up for.  The problem is that I wasn’t really aware of all those inconveniences. I thought it was going to be like it is in movies…romantic, fun, relaxing.  We’ve all seen the tan, fit people scrubbing the sides of their boats at the dock, sipping on A beer, with a smile on their face, no care in the world, right?  HA!  Ok there are times when it’s relaxing and most times it actually is fun (and I’m not romantic anyway) but it’s definitely not an easy, care-free (or inexpensive) lifestyle.  I’m getting used to all the “inconveniences” and the GREAT news is that this toe-issue has taught me to be much more self sufficient on Buckeye… for which I’m soooo thankful.  I CAN make water without Ben’s help (and without getting so frustrated I decide to wait until he gets home to do it himself!)…I can start both engines with no issues now, I can run the generator on my own, I can even fill up the bombona (propane tank and apparently that word is not English but I don’t care, it’s called a bombona damnit!) and figure out how to transport it (the bombona) along with a load of laundry and a boat load (literally) of Costco items 100% on my own.  It may take me longer than he could do it on his own…but I CAN DO IT!  I put the dinghy down and hauled it 1 whole inch out of the water without help.  Yes you read that correctly, 1 inch….that was all I made it.  But in my defense, it’s 100+ pounds and even though I really AM “strong like bull” it takes 2 bulls to haul the dinghy up.   Although the dinghy is still not my friend, she is no longer my enemy (please don’t get me started on the outboard though).  Bring those waves over her bow, I can handle them (ok be kind with the waves Neptune please!).  Give me a boat load of stuff to haul on my own and load up from the bucking and crashing dock…I can do it.  Make me (with my horrible shoulder than can’t raise heavy things  over my head anymore) empty all those heavy Costco items onto the boat and secure them.  I CAN DO IT (although I complain the ENTIRE time, and I MAY even shed a tear!).  I can do this boat thing….for now.  I still am hoping for a healed toe asap.  I CAN do it, but it’s so much easier when Ben does it for me, or at least with me!!!! 

 

So until the next mis-adventure (shall we call it a Smith-adventure and we all get the point now?) we bid you smooth sailing (and we still need to get the poop tank pumped out, but that’s a story for another day). 

Several weeks ago I was photographing a friend’s new office (www.drdavidgreen.com) and he mentioned that he was recently certified to scuba dive!  So I said “congratulations, call Ben to dive you with you, he’s always looking to go diving!”  So a few weeks later there we are at the dock loading up his car with his tanks and weights and all that I-don’t-even-know-what-it-does-but-it-keeps-him-alive stuff for a 2 tank dive.  “Bye, have fun, don’t get dead” my usual pre-dive adios, and he was off for a spectacular day!  The weather could NOT have been better!  Sunny, 80 degrees, calm seas, great visibility….a divers dream day!  Around 2 I called to see how the day was and when I should pick him back up at the dock.  He says to me “oh the dive was great, it was beautiful.  I think I broke my toe though”.  Ummm, excuse me?  But he didn’t get dead so he gets bonus points for that!

Apparently he loaded up the tanks in the back of his truck and when he opened the trunk, out one rolled and bounced (literally bounced) off his left big toe!  OMG!  Do you know anything about dive tanks?  Well I don’t, but I DO know that they are heavy, so heavy that I can not lift them (and I’m strong like bull!).  Let’s just say for the heck of it that it’s a steel cylinder weighing around 50 pounds…and it landed squarely on his big toe!  (cue the crying NOW)   Well, being the uninsured that we are, after much discussion (and facebook posts) we decided to wait a few days before going for xrays – nothing can be done for a broken toe anyway and it wasn’t out of alignment so, fingers crossed, we can fix this on our own with time, ice and…RUM!

We are now on day 3 of this, and the swelling is just ever so slightly better.  The toe is the most disgusting thing I’ve seen (sorry Ben, but it really is!)…black (not purple or black and blue…just black!*) and I’m sure at some point the toenail will fall off (cue the puking NOW!).  He’s in good spirits (RUM spirits, that is, haha) but I think the hardest part is getting the man to lie still for a while!  He’s got more ants in his pants than a 2 year old..but with my constant nagging (and possibly a little reprimanding) he has been in bed with his foot elevated and iced for 3 days now.  So, guess what that means?  Yes, woo is me, I’m doing EVERYTHING around here.  I always knew he did a lot to maintain the boat on a day-to-day basis but I’m now finding out just how much!  Not to mention I’m taking care of him, running up and down (3 whole stairs) to get him breakfast, lunch, dinner, ice, advil, rum…you name it and I’m on it!  Plus I do have a business to run, right?  So, (back to the woo is me part) I’m pooped!  I need this toe to be fixed so I can be lazy again!  OMG it’s so much work to live on a boat!  Who’d have thunk it?  Oh, and Bonnie, you always said he was born 80 years old, well now he has the walking cane to prove it! 

*Ben says I exaggerate for effect, it’s not actually black.  (yes it is, although I DO take after my mother in the exaggeration department, sorry Mum, it’s true).  His words “it’s not pretty”.

Yes, you read that title correctly, we finally took our first trip!  Where did we go, you ask?  BOYNTON BEACH!  LOL  Sad, but true.

I had offered to babysit our friends daughters and we figured since it was a holiday weekend with no work going on, we would motor down the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway for you non east coasters), anchor off our friends house, dingy on over to play with the girls, spend the night down in Boynton on the boat and slowly make our way back over the weekend. Piece of cake.  We consulted the charts and the waterway guide and made sure we were well prepared for the bridges, the depths, the time it would take to get down there…we were READY!

We left the mooring around 1ish, motored on down successfully through 5 bridges (only got yelled at by 1 bridge tender…don’t ask, I think she must be a Gator fan!) and arrived in Boynton around 4:00.  We checked out several places to anchor and not one of them had enough depth for us, but on the bright side we don’t have any barnacles left on the bottom of the boat now (haha).  We decided our only option was to anchor much further north than originally planned…which meant I couldn’t dinghy to go babysit.   I was prepared to jog the 2 miles to their house when Bonnie and Pete, our super heros, came to the rescue and dropped off a car near where we anchored so I could drive to our friends for the evening, and not have to get my exercise in after all!

I know, it’s not much of a “trip” but it was our first time cruising this far south in the ICW, and our first time anchoring solo (yes I was nervous and yes we did it perfectly on the first try)!  Even better is that Brutus did not pant one time, even though he didn’t take his xanax – we are on a roll with this cat!!!  We stayed for 3 nights and had a great time!  The trip back to the mooring ball was (fortunately) uneventful (unless you count the sailboat that ditched us in line for the bridge opening then almost hit the bridge!).  We stopped to fuel up and attempt to empty the holding (poop) tank (unsuccessfully) and landed back on the ball just in time for happy hour! 

It may seem sad that a trip down the ICW was a huge confidence builder, but one of us (I’m not going to name names!) is a nervous boater and needs to take baby steps.  Now (s)he is ready for a real trip!  Next stop….Miami in February (baby steps, remember?).

Until next time, here’s hoping for smooth sailing (and an empty holding tank soon please!).

Have you missed me?  I know it’s been sooooo long since I posted, sorry about that.  Life gets busy, you know how it goes.  Anyway, are you ready for our big news?

Brutus took his xanax 2 days in a row!  Yes, THIS is the big news and it’s incredibly big news to us!  We have tried everything to get Brutus to take his xanax so we can finally take him out sailing (last time he went for a sail, he pee’d in the boat if you remember).  We tried putting the pill in a pill pocket…he ate the pocket and spit out the pill.  I smothered it in laxatone (his favorite), he did the same, spit out the pill!  We tried to mix it with soft food and he ate all around the pill.  We shoved it down his throat, he foamed at the mouth, gagged himself and threw up the pill.  Nothing worked so we gave up and just decided he’s going to have to be miserable (we thought about getting rid of him but I just can’t part with him) and we’re going to spend the next 10 years cleaning up cat pee.

We had been off the boat for 3 weeks, leaving the cats at the apartment while we were in Columbus (freezing our butts off, BTW).  We finally got back to the boat yesterday and Mr. freaky cat Brutus was doing his usual panting panic attack.  Side note – getting him out to the boat is the worst experience ever!  He pushes and chews on his carrier so I have to sit there pushing his head back into the carrier so he doesn’t push his way THROUGH the carrier!  He’s incredibly strong for a cat.  I think I’m the most nervous of the 4 of us in the dinghy!!!  So where was I?  Ah, yes, panting Brutus.  He finally settled down for a bit so I gave him a greenie (hard kitty treat) and he actually ate it so I had this BRILLIANT idea to take a bit of a sticky pill pocket to glue the xanax to the back of the greenie…

IT WORKED!   (insert a very loud HALLELUJAH, PRAISE THE LORD here).  The best news….I successfully gave him another xanax-pill-pocket-greeenie treat this morning (insert another very loud HALLELUJAH, PRAISE THE LORD).  It’s the little things in life, you know?  I know what you’re thinking.  Seriously, your cat has a prescription for xanax just so you can live on a boat?  What is wrong with you people, and more so what is wrong with your cat???  My response to you is simply…welcome to my life (I wouldn’t change it for anything BTW!)

I think it’s time to keep him permanently drugged and get this boat sailing again!

http://www.facebook.com/v/2746060652206

If you’d like to watching one of his panting attacks, here is a HORRIBLE video (it’s sideways, sorry) but you can hear him panting (which we used to think was cute until the vet told us it was NOT good for cats to pant!!!) then you’ll see he flinches at a tiny little noise, then can’t stop licking his chops (he likes to eat when he’s stressed so this is a calming reflex for him)…this is all pre-xanax.  Normally he meows at me when I ask him if he’s a good boy or if he’s ok, but he was not in a meowing state of mind yesterday.

 

So here’s hoping for smooth sailing soon!

I can’t believe it but 9 years ago today, Ben and I were on our first date.  We were eating Mahi Mahi and sipping cold beers at a fun restaurant on the water in Boynton Beach.  I’m not sure which happened first, me falling in love with Ben or me falling in love with the on the water lifestyle.  But one thing’s for sure, I was hooked on both from that night…yes I actually would have run off that night and married him, had he asked, which he didn’t.  But fortunately he did ask me out again, and the rest, as they say, is history.  On that very first date we were talking about what we each did for a living…me a branch manager of a bank and him a sales rep in the pharma industry (my mother in law always called him a drug runner!  LOL).   He LOVED his job, I HATED mine….so much so that had I not met Ben, I would have moved back to Ohio in a heartbeat!!!  I told him my dream job was to be a photographer, preferably on a catamaran sailboat, taking people out on snorkeling booze cruises.  Well, although he loved his job, if he HAD to pick a dream job, it would be a dive master…and his real dream was to live on a catamaran sailboat and sail around the world (and not work at all).

10 months (to the day!) later we got married in Honduras…just the 2 of us and a bunch of strangers.  We had a simple sunset ceremony overlooking the ocean and Ben went for a dive the next day…as I lounged in a  hammock.  We got home from our wedding-moon, moved into our big beautiful new house and settled in to our new married life, still in the same jobs…me coming home every night practically in tears, him bounding out of bed in the morning so excited to go to work.  Somehow we managed those first years in opposite places and I finally moved on to a new job…which lasted a whopping 3 years until the company closed (yes, it was a sub prime mortgage company so yes I had something to do with this whole mortgage mess and housing crises..please don’t remind me!).  Ben encouraged me to take my photography hobby and take a stab at turning it into a business.  Afterall, I wasn’t going to find a job in banking at that time, and he made enough money to cover the bills so what was the worst that could happen?  It turns out, that encouragement changed both of our lives!  Here it is 4 years later and now he’s my marketing guru/2nd photographer/pack mule and we live on a cat!  We just sold our beautiful first home together, and all of our belongings (and kitties) are either in our little apartment or on our beautiful catamaran sailboat, Buckeye!

It may have taken 9 years, but we set a goal, worked towards it, had lots of bumps and bruises along the way, but never lost hope to someday be living our dream together.  I thought it was a pipe dream when I said 9 years ago that I wanted to be a photographer on a catamaran!  And look at us now!  We’re not there yet, but we’re so much closer than we honestly thought we would be after 9 short years.  Hopefully in the next 9 years we’ll have completed both of our new goals…Ben – sail around the world…Katie – photograph the world and publish a book about it.  If I know us, then I’m pretty sure we’ll accomplish both of these!

So here’s to the man that changed my life.  I remember that first date like it was yesterday and every time I think about how we dreamed of one day having the life we now have, I can’t help but smile and get excited for our future together!  Thanks for your encouragement of me and the photography business – it wouldn’t be a growing business year after year without you.   Thanks for being my pack mule, my marketing genius, my everything.  Bahamas in October, here we come!

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Ben and I participated in our first race this past weekend!  I wrote a short article for our club’s newsletter so thought I would post it here as well!

2011 Hillsboro Race

Last year, 1 month after joining PBSC, I participated in the Hillsboro Race as a spectator on the Race Committee boat, to photograph the start – my first time at any sort of sailing race or sailing event.  It was nerve-wracking, fun, bumpy and wet…but I learned a lot and was grateful for the opportunity.  Since that race, my husband Ben and I have purchased our first sailboat, moved aboard (along with our 2 cats, Sammie and Brutus) and signed up to race this year – our first race, and our boat’s first race.  We sailed down with everyone Friday morning and got completely soaked!  What a rain storm we sailed through – and a very prominent wind shift.  Not having much sailing experience yet, I have never noticed a wind shift quite so sudden before.  One second it’s out of the southwest and then it flipped to the northeast…in about one second!  Foulies on, we were all still soaked to the bone and had pruny skin for hours after the rain finally let up.  Finally arriving at the party, 9 wet and long hours later, we were ready to blow off a little steam!

Saturday morning we were up and at ‘em early with everyone, and off the dock by 8:45am.  Ben, Tom, Karen and I puttered out and talked tactics.  I had set some pretty lofty goals for our first race:  don’t hit anything, don’t fall overboard and don’t be the last one across the finish line.  Yep, we’re serious racers alright, haha!  Fortunately we had our ringer on board with us, Tom Sheeran, with 30 years of racing experience, to teach us some tactics!  15 minutes out from the start of our fleet and we figure it’s finally time to put the sails up and turn the engines off.  To reach goal number one (don’t hit anyone) we stayed far back from the starting line while the other fleets made their starts.  Ok, 5 minutes from the multihull start, here we go!  We’re counting down the seconds and I’m so anxious, I can’t wait to cross that line!  Start time and off go the 2 Corsairs – bye guys, see you next year!  Um, we’re still not very close to the starting line.  I know I didn’t want to hit anyone, but still!  Ok, a minute later we finally cross the starting line, tack and head out to the Gulfstream (or the Jetstream as Karen liked to call it!).  I knew it was going to be a bumpy ride and it did turn out to in fact be the bumpiest ride I have yet been through…and the longest sail I have yet been on.  As we were approaching Palm Beach, one of the Corsairs passed us on the way home back to Hillsboro!   4:18:30 we finally crossed the finish line, accomplishing all of our goals!  And the bonus, we weren’t last in our class (ok, the 2 multihulls behind us disqualified, but still it counts for something, right?).  Just like last year, it was nerve-wracking, fun, bumpy and wet…and I learned so much and am so grateful we had this amazing opportunity to improve our sailing skills.  A big thanks to Tom and Karen for being great crew!  We know our Lagoon 380, Buckeye, won’t be winning any races anytime soon, but we’re going to keep on racing for the fun, and to improve our skills.  Who knows, one of these years we just might place 3rd right behind those 2 Corsairs (haha)!

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It’s been about 2 weeks since we brought the kitties aboard.  The first few days were nerve-wracking for all 4 of us, but then they seemed to settle down and become comfortable exploring both indoors and outdoors.  We are actually able to leave windows and doors open and know that if they want to go outside they will, and come back in when the boredom sets in (or a noise spooks them and they go running into their hiding spots!!!!).

Two days ago I was working away at the table in the salon and Sammie was being usual frisky self….inside meowing, outside exploring – just totally bored to tears.  Next thing I know, she’s down in our cabin on top of the dresser watching Ben pick out some clothes from the closet.  All of a sudden there was a HUGE CRASH and 2 cats came sprinting across the salon.  I look down and see the closet door feel off its hinge (we still have no idea how that happened) and Sammie is limping away – she couldn’t put her back right paw down.  We pick her up and feel around and she handles it well so since there’s no blood, no apparent broken bones, we decide to give her a day or 2 to shake it off and see if she gets better.  It doesn’t impact her too much, she goes about sleeping all day like normal, eating, drinking, etc…. and by the evening she is walking slightly better.  The next morning while she’s still hobbling around, Brutus decides to forget where his litter box is and pees in the salon….exactly what we were afraid he was going to do!  I bought some kitty spray cleaner and some pee deterrent to spray everywhere, cross my fingers and hope it doesn’t happen again.  6 am this morning Ben hears him digging around so I jump out of bed to find him…he’s just playing, but I don’t want to take any chances so I spray the deterrent everywhere again.  5 minutes later, WHILE THE DETERRENT IS STILL DRYING, he pees in the salon again….then saunters down to his room and finishes up in the box!  What a little shithead!  I know he’s a sensitive guy so I’m assuming that Sammie being injured has stressed him out, causing him to pee anywhere he wants.  Needless to say, we’re a little concerned about all of this and are hoping that as Sammie heals, so will Brutus’ bladder.   Just when we thought they were our well-adjusted boat kitties!

As I sit here typing this, they are quiet as can be sleeping peacefully!  Sammie on top of the closet and Brutus on the floor of our cabin.  Good thing they are awfully cute otherwise it might be time to teach them how to swim! 

 

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8 1/2 months after buying the boat, we officially moved on to it!  Yes, even the cats!  This past week we were hoping to have company in town but unfortunately  that didn’t work out.  Since I had scheduled a light work week for myself, we decided to make the most of it and move onto the boat and get most of the house stuff moved into the apartment!  There are very few things left in the house, so few that every room now echoes!  Home phone is shut off, no more satellite or internet, so we’ll be bored to tears if we go back….better to stay on the boat where we have TV and internet! 

After getting most stuff stored in the apartment, we decided it was time to bring the kitties aboard the boat – I didn’t think I could stand one more night without them!   Off we went to the house this afternoon, gathered up all their belongings, stuffed them in their kitty carriers and off we went.  I sat in the backseat of the car with them while Ben drove.  Poor Brutus meowed the entire drive, but as soon as I took them out of the car and started to carry them down to the dock, not a peep was heard!  Into the dinghy they went and off we puttered (with our working outboard!) to Buckeye.  Carefully I lifted them onto the boat and brought them straight down to what is now their room – the forward port cabin.  I opened up the carriers and Brutus jumped right out but them realized he was not at his normal house so he immediately started panting.  He has asthma and excitement causes an anxiety attack which brings on his asthma which leads to panting like a dog.  Sammie tried to stay curled in her carrier where it was safe, but I plucked her out and put her on the bed where I had all of her blankets spread out as well as her little kitty bed.  2 hours later and she’s still hiding, curled up next to the litter box, trying to make herself invisible and hoping to will herself back to land.  Sorry Sammie, your stuck!  Brutus, still panting, has been exploring the entire inside of the boat and actually seems to be adjusting quite well.  Hopefully the anxiety will settle down in a few hours and he will go back to breathing normally.  My fear of one of them accidentally being dropped in the water, or having a heart attack from fear, did not come true, so we’re all safe aboard the boat and learning to adjust to our new floating lifestyle!  Maybe tomorrow we’ll put them in their harnesses and let them out into the cockpit.

We won’t be sailing for a little while, so here’s hoping to dry kitties!

 

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The house is finally listed for sale and we’re just weeks away from moving on to the boat!  We found a cute little apartment in downtown West Palm Beach that we will rent starting March 1st.  We’ll begin moving our stuff into the apartment, as well as the cats until the boat is 100% done for them to join us.  But at least this way they will be closer to us, and we can ride our bikes the 5 miles to the apartment to check on them more often.  Plus it will be a good test of how they do in a new environment.

 

The wind generator is all hooked up (getting it up is another story but there’s a few photos below!) and making power along side the solar panels, yeah!  We also have a refrigerator!  It’s so nice to not be living out of a cooler!  Ben did a great job hooking up the fridge – I have to say I’m impressed with what he has learned these past few months!  Next up is another haul out so we can finish hooking up the water maker.  Then it will be time to organize the boat and figure out where everything is going to go so we can move on it!  But we’re making great progress.  We bought new pots and pans and dishes, which will take up less room than what is currently on the boat.  Soon we’ll be meeting with the cushion peeps to get me my new cushions and curtains!  Yeah!!!!  So, one step at a time, we’re starting to live the dream! 

 

We went sailing twice this week, that is a first for us…2 days in a row!  Tuesday afternoon we headed out to the 3 mile mark so we could dump our holding tanks and get the smell out of the bathroom!  Another first – I raised the sails while Ben was at the helm.  I’ve never raised the sails on Buckeye before and OMG that alone is an amazing workout.  It took about 5 solid minutes of cranking and cranking to get the main set, but finally I got it (or at least enough).  We sailed for a few hours, then decided to try out another first….setting reefs in the main – which we accomplished, yeah!  It was a beautiful day, perfect for sailing.  Wednesday the winds and seas were a smidge stronger (by my wimpy standards) but out we went for another sail.  We practiced reefing again and sailed on some new points of sail.  So while we are by no means experts (yet) we are learning new things and becoming more and more comfortable sailing the boat.  I think we’re ready to plan our first trip to the Keys!  Now to find the time.

 

Did I previously mention we’re having more outboard issues (the engine on the dinghy)?  We are outboard cursed, I swear!  A few weeks ago it starting running hard and not starting right, but it was still running.  Thursday we loaded up after a nice 2 days on Buckeye, got settled in the dinghy and it wouldn’t start!  5 minutes and a worn out Ben later, it still didn’t start so we had to row across the ICW to get back to the dock.  Fortunately, the winds were light and the tides were pretty slack so we made it back in only about 20 minutes…another great workout!  Holy moly, maybe if we keep up this sailing and rowing thing I can finally lose those 10 pounds!!!  Poor Ben does not share my rowing enthusiasm though, so he’s off to take the outboard in for servicing and see what is wrong with it! Welcome to boat life, there’s always something that needs fixed. 

 

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As you know, our beloved boat came with a not so beloved name (for a boat) – Sebastian.  We knew right away her name was eventually going to be Buckeye, so after many delays and 6 months later, she is officially our beloved Buckeye!

Ben and I had researched the proper way to appease the Gods of the Sea and Winds so as not to create bad karma on our new home, and finally settled on the perfect ceremony!  We were so happy to have our great friends aboard to help us christen our baby.  After the ceremony we rafted up with more good friends, Cal and Marty (and Tallulah) from Carpe Vita and had a great time partying on both boats with 2 boat loads (literally) of friends!  Rum cake, Asian Noodle Salad, Quinoa Salad, Burgers, hot dogs and did I mention the Rum Cake?  Great food, great friends, lots of laughs and rum cake – does it get any better?

While the quality of the video is nothing short of, well, crap actually, you can still get the idea of the ceremony.  Thanks to Leighia Murray for being my videographer and Cameron Murray for being our champagne master (and of course thanks for being such great friends too!) 

If you’d actually like to read the ceremony that we used:    http://wp.me/pY83C-3e

 

A big thanks to our great friends who helped make our ceremony and raft up party so much fun!