Scop me, baby.

Scopalamine, that is.

The magical little patches that make you not throw up all over the place.  Ask your doctor if Scopalamine is right for you.

All my life I have suffered from motion sickness.  Trains, planes, automobiles, boats, IMAX, 3D, you name it.  Trains and planes I have adjusted to. Automobiles are still iffy if I am riding for long periods int the back of the car. IMAX, forget it.

Boats--yes, and no.  Sometimes, just my pressure wristbands and a bonine and I'm fine.  Other times, it doesn't matter.  And sometimes, just self induced because of imbibing the night before.  For reference see Mal de Mar or Sailing with Dummies.

Because of this, I just had been skeptical of scopalamine, what makes it so special.

So, Tim convinced me that we both need to give it a try.

I'm here to tell you, as somebody that gets violently seasick at times, it works.  But as one of my instructors I worked with used to say: "There's no free lunches."

You place the patch on at least 4 hours before it's needed. I did it the night before.

It was very, very, very odd for me to not have at least one odd symptom of seasickness on the way out the the Tortugas.  And I also think it had this serious mellowing out effect-not a bad thing.  I still didn't have an urge to eat, but I didn't have the acid reflux, nausea or vertigo feeling I can get.

Being on a downwind run did help also.

Here's the big side effect thing.  You get dry mouth, SERIOUSLY DRY MOUTH.  You actually wish there was a dental tech with her little water pick standing beside you at all time.  Because of this, I know I have to make sure there's more water than usual on board for drinking.  But, drinking water. NOT A BAD THING.  I had bought some Lifesavers also, and that helped.

Second side effect kicked in about 48 hours later. Double vision.  I could get my calmed down with my reading glasses. Tim actually put my reading glasses on over his regular glasses.  Not really an issue except when we did our brief night sailing adventure. But for me, any close reading was completely freaked out.

Those side effects are worth the fact that I can move about the boat and hold watch without having a bucket close at hand and also feeling like complete crap.  I now know how it affects me, so I'll prepare accordingly.

LED lights

We finally, got the lights replaced this trip. No small feat considering there's over 40+ lights on the boat.

However, in replacing them we found an oh so important reason to get non-halogen lights on the boat. If you haven't replace them yet, make sure you at least replace the one in your engine compartment.

Another thing we learned is the rheostat (#fancywordforlightdimmer) cannot make LEDs go completely out, so Tim installed an on/off switch for the salon.

He also supplied my galley and my vanity light with a bit brighter LEDs. What a guy.

My job: Sort and unwrap.

The old halogens with our melted cover from engine room.

Close up of how plastic had melted--oh, did I mention? ENGINE ROOM.

List from hell

Here's the list after we took our first blue water sail.  Holy crap.  However, some of this list started before we ever left the dock.  I will address some of this in posts to follow.  See below for what we hammered out.

Generator:  Tim tested it in the dock and it ran for 5 minutes, sputtered and crapped out.  Then we got what every boat owner wants to see:  Water leak alarm on the generator panel.  So, we gots Mr. Generator put to bed.  Just found out today that there was a crap ass silicone 'patch' on the generator that failed and there's a lot of corrosion and dry hose.  So, if we had ran it, we most likely would have set the boat on fire. F*($k. We didn't, but now we have some big B.O.A.T. units to shell out to fix this problem.

OC tender:  To take a line from the musical Hamilton.  "You married a Icarus, and he's flown to close to the sun."  My boy dreamed big, but he dreamed bigger than what the little tender could handle.  So Zeus is dead.  (Pulp Fiction: Zed's dead, baby)  The the combination of the attachment points to the davits and the weight in the dinghy-and possibly the Key West summer heat-Zeus suffered some serious structural distortion.  If we had tried to keep her on the davits, even without the weight of the Torqeedo batteries, she would have shredded on our way to the Dry Tortugas.  Thankfully we didn't get rid of Tiny Dancer or the other Torqeedo yet, so we got them rigged up.

Senders:  Waste tank sender already fixed, it got stuck.  Water sender has bad threading and we can't get it fitted to our tank, so we will get it grinded to right threading or they will send new one.

Stern light: We replaced our nav lights with LEDs just to find out that now, they are always lit.  Long story short-because I am not the electrical guru on the boat.  The diode that leads from the main power switch of the electrical panel to the nav lights went bad, so there was a constant short that provided enough ampage to power an LED light.  Got that? No? Yeah. Email Tim if you want more info.  However, it got fixed after we got back, and Sparky is so proud of himself of that.  I got to sit at the back of the boat like a jackass going, IT'S ON, IT'S OFF, IT'S ON, IT'S OFF.

All things anchor: More details in a bit, but remote is bad, snubber needs upgraded, and where the chain meets nylon rode is not good. As in, jams up the windlass not good.

Propane/stove:  Tim installed new sensors for propane in the galley.  It's either placement or sensitivity, but the damn thing would go off as soon as I tried to cook.  So, I get something started in the oven, start the stove. BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP and it does its job by killing the gas, but then I have to restart everything.  By now, the stove has had a bit of a build up of propane, so I'd open it and it would set off the sensor again.  Newly invented cuss words during cooking on the hook this time.  Generator shot, so no microwave.

I think the one thing is Front spot light, and more on that later.

My, turn. The Zeus needs clothes.

Set up for this:  "Honey, I'm done.  It's ready to be patterned for a cover.  You have two hours."

First, should I be flattered that he has faith in my skills, or should I be pissed.  I was a combo of both.
Cue in sound of Lisa or Marge Simpson snarling.

So I threw together a pattern based on research and other covers I have seen.  But if you don't have the actual object there to finalize? it tain't gonna work out.

So, I go with the basic 'box' design.  It means that it will be the shape of the boat, but not fitted and thus windage will be a problem.  I installed straps below, but I've seen plenty of covers where that just isn't enough over the bow and stern.

Tim will say it was his idea all along.  Tim's life got threatened a lot.

Remember, when the sail loft is open..no 'suggestions' while there are rippers, scissors and hot knives present.

So, another photo story for you.

The boat is rigged to simulate where I need to put the openings for the davits.

My assistant.  She sucks.

After the plan B pattern was put in place.

Once again, my suckass assistant (she is blended into couch).  And who knew that
thawed out freezer gel packs made fantastic pattern weights.

Finished product after being cleaned of dog hair and chalk marks.

It's the little details......

Down in Key West, and it freakin' fits (but baggy as I predicted)

So, we decide to try the old grommet and bungie cord method of fitting the bottom of the cover, and it worked, and made it easy to slide on and off right before lifting.

Yeah, don't try this at home.

Pleased that measuring by paddleboard is working and the promise of wine for reward.

Zeus, the one of a kind super electric dinghy.

And my husband our our Kiwi friend Russ will be happy to recreate it for $1 million.  That would be in US, not NZ.

Let's start with the basics.  The dinghy is a ultra-light (well....at first), carbon fiber rigid dinghy that weighs less than 100lb empty.  Cool little dinghy.  Actually was tested by the NZ coastal rescue and they couldn't sink it.  Go visit their website or Facebook page.  www.octenders.com

Tim got together with Russ and explained his plan...to which Russ replied.  "You are quite mad, mate."

However, you can't dissuade Tim, he's a man on a mission.  To help explain:  We found a superlight dinghy and equipped it with a Torqeedo/Battery bank/solar power.  It can take one person for a romp at 10-12kts, or it can recharge itself for the practical anchorage to shore trips every day. As back up, you can hook her up the big boat either under shore power or the generator if needed.

We are still testing the actual performance data, but at a normal cruising speed, she lasts a long time.

So first step--we help OC to figure out how to get a boat to the US.  You know with customs and all that.  I think at first they didn't want to, which is understandable because they were more just a local, make as you go business. But they got through that, and we had the boat shipped to Kansas so that Tim could start his mad genius work.

Think..."It's alive.  IT'S ALIVE!"  and then cue in Danny Elfman's "Weird Science"

So, below are a few pics.  We named it Zeus to keep with the Elysium theme.

Gel coat being applied over the base.

Packing for shipping.

Off to the cargo ship.  We had the info, so Tim and I tracked it on VesselFinder.com.

After arrival in Kansas, the battery platform was built and batteries installed.

The first part of my involvement in this escapade-a cover for the battery bank/seat.

Okay, it doesn't really have everything on this switch panel, okay, it has everything except cabin lights. 

Arrival in Key West. Not all power cells installed yet.

All power cells, and front nav lights can be seen.

Zee Torqeedo.

The control that run from solar to batteries.

Evidently, we thought we were buying a boat to go explore, but apparently its to practice....

....our skills in carpentry, electronics, plumbing, you name it.

We were THIS close to getting our boat fixed up and ready for the season when I get the call....hey, Kim, at the marina, the boat next to you got struck by lightning.  Just thought you'd want to know.
(Side note: By season, we mean thumbing our nose at potential hurricane threat)

#(*@&#

Tim was already heading down to put the final touches on some other projects, so he bumped up the trip by a day to see a) how bad the damage could be for us and b) deal with insurance if needed.

Turns out it could have been worse.  We did have to replace the control unit for the auto pilot, replace some wiring on the the thruster and replace thruster control.  Oh, the big thing was the comms network between the inside station and the cockpit was fired.  Since it was a combo of the old Raymarine Seatalk and NMEA 2000 it was sort of blessing to get it all NMEA now.

But as we have learned from our Hunter lightning strike....it's the ghost in the machine that can bite you in the butt.

Besides the step aside for lightning, the latest boat updates:
New windlass
Rebedded the midship cleats (well, we didn't, our awesome buddy Jorg did)
New dinghy
New propane sensors/alarms, one in galley and one in lazarette,  all remote connected, so if something goes weird, propane gets shut off
FINALLY GOT OUR MMSI!

...and there's tons other stuff, but since I can't get my Chief Engineer to write them down, there's no way I can remember.

Kayaking Bahia Honda

Next day out, we rented some kayaks.  Beautiful day, flat seas.  SPF 1,000,000 and hat and long sleeve shirt for me.

We each rented our own single kayak to keep marital harmony, I learned early on in my marriage upon the Ozark rivers that Tim and do not share canoes/kayaks/anything that involves two people, one boat and oars very well.

There's been this little island that we've passed in the Bahia Honda channel that we've always been intrigued by, so after permission, we were allowed to go out there.

SO COOL.

Tidal pools reminded me of Hawai'i

What dat? Who dat?

Colorful sea slug, that was a foot of water.  Unbelievably clear that day.

Kayaking back, I would stick my camera in the water and just take pics.  Yes, the camera is waterproof, that would have been unfortunate if it wasn't.