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.
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).
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.
This one is bittersweet. On one hand, the battery upgrade is a smashing success. Kirk completes the installation of our new battery bank, and we now we have all the juice we need. On the other, our arch project is a complete and utter disaster.
We planned to complete TWO big projects while in Mobile, AL: 1) upgrading our battery bank & 2) fabricating a solar arch with dinghy davits. After much deliberation, we decided to DIY the batteries and hire out the arch fabrication.
Our boat wasn’t ready for full-time cruising when we bought her. This was perfectly fine; we’d rather add necessary items ourselves and learn them inside and out through the process, than pay for systems already in place that may not be exactly what we want, or are old and need to replacing anyway.
