April and May were odd months if we were "normal" cruisers. But since we consider ourselves more 'slow travelers' who happen to live and work on a sailboat, it was just more of the same for us.
While we made good progress south in the month of March, April took a bit of a strange turn when we realized that our raw water pump was leaking. It was a costly repair, and still without a reliable dinghy and motor we decided it would make much more logistical sense to be in a Marina.
After months spent mostly at docks, we venture out to live on the hook (which happens to be less than a block away from a grocery store, but hey, baby steps). This one has a little bit of everything.
We left Mobile at the beginning of the month and officially began our saltwater cruising. We continued our spendthrift in March after having stocked up on food, and wrapping up all of our planned upgrades. It was good to be on the move and good on our pocketbooks as well.
After spending the equivalent of two months of our budget and then some in January, February's expenses were quite bit more tame. In fact since we had already purchased just about everything we needed to complete our projects we came in just under budget.
It’s finally starting to feel like we’re cruising! In this episode, we prep for our longest sail yet: 190 miles from St. Joseph Point to Clearwater. We give you a peak inside our ditch kit, install a MOB (man overboard) device in each of our lifejackets, and test our PLB (personal locating beacon).
This month's expenses were dominated by some major Upgrades we made to Soulianis. (You can see a detailed list of most of those on our Sailboat Upgrades page.) We returned to the boat from visiting our family and set straight to work - spending money :).
We wrapped up our River Trip at the beginning of the month and then re-stepped the mast and started prep for our big electrical project. We also flew home to visit family for the holidays and took a short ski trip over the holidays with some friends.
We set off on our first sail in the Gulf of Mexico! After a day trip to Pensacola through the GICW (Gulf Intracoastal Waterway) with Kirk’s pops, we visit Destin via car to inquire about Destin pass.
Raise the sails!! Woot woot, we’re going SAILING!! After installing two of our six solar panels, we fire up the engine to make sure Mr. Beke still runs, and we’re off the dock.
