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| Simple Life on the hard at Wharf Marine in Warwick, RI |
In late June,
Simple Life sailed into New Harbor on Block Island after a 36 hour offshore passage from Cape May, New Jersey. It was the final leg of her first year of cruising south. Her crew was weary and ready to rest and remain in one place. We looked forward to a relaxing summer sailing our home waters of Narragansett Bay, Block Island Sound and the Vineyard. The reality of the summer was
Simple Life needed to be hauled for bottom paint, fiberglass cleaning, polishing and teak refinishing along with engine maintenance. She also needed a new canvas dodger and sun filtering Phifertex screens for the full enclosure. Joe and I also had our own scheduled health maintenance visits crammed into a two week period.
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| The Porsche World Roadshow |
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| Joe ready for action |
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| Peter ready for take off |
The highlight of Joe's summer took place on August 2nd when he was invited to participate in the Porsche World Roadshow by our friend Peter who is a Porsche owner. Gillette Stadium was chosen as the venue for the event. Joe and Peter along with several other participants drove new "out of the box" cars on a track as a team, alternating drivers with each new Porsche. When I asked Joe how fast he drove he said, "I have no idea! I was driving so fast that I couldn't take my eyes off the road!" He and Peter had a fantastic day and even took Peter's Porsche 911 Carrera for a spin in the countryside after returning home from the event.
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| Peter's 911 |
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| Polishing the hull |
Looking back it seems that summer sped by much too quickly. We worked on the boat, visited with friends and family and now that our chores have been completed we're turning around and heading south for year two of full time cruising. We've made a few upgrades this year with the addition of the Lofrans anchor windlass, a new dodger, sun filtering screens, and a new folding bike for me. The most important addition being a change in boat insurance that will allow us to be as far south as the Florida-Georgia border on November 1. This should enable us to avoid cold weather and be in the Florida Keys for Thanksgiving. One upgrade that we did not have time to implement was an anchor chain wash down pump. For now we will continue to battle mud on the chain and have to make due with the poor man's wash down, a bucket! I suppose that's the price paid for living aboard and traveling full time over the course of the past year.
In a few days
Simple Life will be pointed south again. Our mooring lines will be dropped signaling the start of our fall migration with the Florida Keys and the Exumas Island chain in the Bahamas our winter destination. So far, life has been good, although not necessarily "
simple" but, we're hopeful!
Posted with Blogsy