Shear Madness

March 10, 2012

At Nordhavn owners gathering with Jeff fom Nordhavn and Grace of Tides (N64) owners Debbie and David

Since arriving at Old Port Cove Marina nearly a month ago, we have been busy completing the remaining repairs and enhancements on the boat. The watermakers are now fully functional, improvements have been made to the hydraulic cooling system, new actuators (motors) have been ordered for the engine room vents, and all new entertainment system equipment has been ordered and mostly received. We are still shaking out some bugs in our new monitors in the pilot house which, despite previous repair, have continued to fail. The vendor, Nauticomp, is working hard to determine the cause of the problems and we hope to have this sorted out very soon! For those wanting more technical details, they will be coming! I am working on a report of all the repairs from the lightning strike and all the additional improvements we have made over the past six months. We are hopeful that all remaining installations will be completed by the end of March.

Kathy puts on "real" clothes to attend Lloyd's celebration in Virginia

Bradley and I have had a chance to catch up with lots of family and friends. We’ve made a couple trips across Florida to Naples to visit Bradley’s father in Bonita Springs and his mother and sister in Estero. I have reconnected with some of my women’s group golfing friends from Maryland who now live in Palm Beach and we’ve had some fun golf outings. We’ve had several friends from VA and FL drop by the boat for visits. As I write this, we are in Virginia, visiting Bradley’s daughter Margy, hubby Bryant, and son Tyler. We came up to attend a dinner to honor one of our best friends, Lloyd, who is completing 15 years as Dean of the Enginieering School at George Mason University. We’ll be catching up with several more friends over the weekend.

In February we attended the Miami boat show where we researched lots of new technology, bought a few new things, and attended a gathering of Nordhavn owners aboard our old friend Sweet Hope, the Nordhavn who guided us down the ICW last year. It was great to meet many of the owners we have known only by email. We look forward to catching up with some of them and many we have yet to meet as we begin cruising for real next month!

Grandpa Bradley gives Tyler a driving lesson

John and Leanne, who have been our partners for the past eight months, have decided to take the plunge and buy a boat of their own. They’ll be heading back to NZ to go back to work for a short time to earn some money while they are shopping. Our new cruising partners will be joining us in April and will be introduced in our next update. Our plans are to conduct some sea trials around Palm Beach before heading to the Bahamas for some fun!

See updated book reviews and recommended books. Click below for a two minute video showing some sights and sounds from our passage to Florida followed by a photo gallery. Click any photo to enlarge.