Here we are...attached to a mooring ball in the middle of Newport Harbor...and time is flying by! It is hard to believe that the summer has flown by so quickly. We have been ticking off what seems to be an endless list of chores in preparation for our departure which is quickly approaching.
The blog has definitely been neglected and for that I am sorry. It seems there are not enough hours in the day right now and most nights we fall into bed exhausted. But we are here and our plans to set out on this adventure of a lifetime are coming to fruition. And we are excited, boy are we excited! And nervous, anxious, tired, sad, happy...the emotions are all over the place. But, for the most part we can't wait!!
Let me catch things up to where we are. After our stint in the boatyard, we spent a few months parked on a dock in Long Beach. While there we added a wind generator, davits for the dinghy and rails to hold the solar panels. We also set up the mainsail with lazy jacks and a sailpack and shortened and raised the mizzen boom to make it safer to handle and increase our deck space. We replaced all of the lifelines and added rails to the aft section along with lifeline netting. I spent a few warm days redoing the nonskid and the deck is looking pretty awesome! Empyrean really began to come to life.
The end of May we left the comforts of the dock and headed to a mooring in Newport Harbor, where we currently reside. Here we have continued to work hard, updating systems, increasing our battery bank, adding the solar panels and lots more. The work seems never ending, but we are learning so much about ourselves, our new home and way of life.
Going the route of a mooring ball was really good for us. I think some people thought we were crazy to give up the comforts of the dock while we still had so much to do. For me, I couldn't be happier we did it this way! We have learned how to manage our systems, conserve water and power, accomplish goals and meet our needs with minimal resources. All of this will be important when we leave in a few months to begin our adventure. It has been great to get the skills in while we still had resources near that we could fall back on. We have lugged water from shore, hauled heavy batteries and dinghy motors (one that died and it's replacement) on and off of the boat all while sitting in the middle of the harbor. We have figured new ways to do things and really started teaching ourselves to think outside of the box. I have to admit that as much as we embraced the idea of this lifestyle and as excited as we are about it, we are products of the American way and we have really had to use discipline to retrain ourselves.
We will remain here on this ball for the next 4-5 weeks and then we will head down to San Diego. There we will finish up some of our projects, take some time to visit with family and friends and then it will be off with the Baja HaHa 2016! Our departure to Mexico is set for October 31st, just 2 1/2 months away, so hard to believe!
We will be updating the blog regularly as we travel, we hope that family and friends (old and new) will be able to follow along with us through our blog. We will share the ups and downs that this cruising lifestyle affords us along with pictures of the amazing beautiful places and people we encounter. Maybe we will even be able to inspire another family or two to follow their dreams, whatever those dreams are!
Stay tuned...this adventure is beginning!