Day 341, Thursday, May 29th

Day 341, Thursday, May 29th

We wake up for the last time aboard Jazzebelle.  The reality that we have achieved our year of sailing is slowly surfacing.  We are very proud that we were brave enough to leave our jobs and head out on a lifestyle not quite as luxurious as we were used to, more stressful, and far away from our friends and family to discover what life aboard a sailboat would be like.  The trip has met our expectations, lots of downtime, but more highs and lows than our “normal” life.

One thing for sure is friendships are numerous and strong in this nomadic life.

Tim the broker meets us at our boat to review the boat itself and provide some advice on how to best leave her so she is appealing, clean and well aired out.  After the meeting Tim gives Dawson a ride to pickup our u-haul as we have a pile of stuff loaded under the boat, as well as the load at the Sitler’s house.  Amazing how much stuff we have.  We may not have fit it all into a cargo van.  The u-haul rental establishment only had a 10 cubic foot truck as its smallest self drive vehicle but we know we will be able to fit everything it in.

Funny how the beginning of this trip started with a u-haul full of Toronto stuff heading up to Lively, and now it is a truck full of stuff moving up to Lively again.

Dawson spends a couple hours coordinating a few minor repairs as well as changing out the bow navigation lights and changing the thruhull fitting for the watermaker.  We decided to hire a company also to compound and wax the hull.  We are tired of cleaning!  Time to go home.  We thought we would do it but when you realize all our buffers and rotors, electric extension cords, and ladders are not on the boat, it makes sense to pay someone to do it.

By late afternoon we check Yachtworld and see that Jazzebelle is listed now.  She looks great.  Hopefull she sells quickly.  It will be much easier that way.
 
http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1998/Caliber-40-LRC-2725342/Annapolis/MD/United-States#.U40q13JdWAg

We head off for a Thai dinner at a restaurant recommended to us by Lynn and Ian from Windward, and they are correct, it was excellent. 

Cole and Alexandra before bedtime!

Tonight we are spending the night on shore in a house.  Sleeping in a real bed at the Sitler’s.  We get to their house around 7:00 but Laura is not there yet.  We knew that Brad had left teh country to go to Scotland, but Laura had thought she would be home by 6:30.  We spend the time organizing the back of the truck and before long, Laura and the kids arrived.  Dawson spent the rest of the night loading the truck with the rest of our stuff out of their garage, and Julie got to visit with the kids.  First it was dolly, then Julie got to read bedtime stories.  A nice change from King’s cribbage.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson

Day 340, Wednesday, May 28th

Day 340, Wednesday, May 28th

As usual we are up with the sun.  First job is a pump out and cleaning the holding tank.  What a way to start the day.  Oh well, can’t be all play. 

Jazzebelle being hauled

We are second in line for the haul out and we need to move the boat over to another dock.  First we launch the dinghy and motor so we can use it later to access downtown Annapolis.  We pack another 3 bins, and we are ready to move.  The fairways are narrow, there is very little wind so with a bit of planning it is no problem.  When we dock however the dockhand wants us to do it differently than Julie has planned so there is a bit of confusion, but Julie goes to her plan C and we end up on the opposite finger dock which is fine, as there is a haul out slip there too.

We watch the boat being pulled out with mixed feelings as she has been such a major part of our life and we know we are saying good-bye to her, possibly forever.  We loved the Caliber 40 and will return to the waters and the Calibers in the future.  After all our time shopping for her, she was the right boat and kept us safe in some scary weather (although we mainly timed the weather perfectly to avoid storms).

Watching with smiles

It takes only an hour for the boat to be all blocked up safely, and we are allowed up on her to continue working away.  It is more difficult now to offload her and we need to be very careful not to fall off as we climb up and down.  The biggest sadness is the toilets are no longer useable.  Now we have to walk over to the marina wash house to use the showers, and toilets which is a real pain.  No late night drinks tonight!

Back to cleaning, stuff comes out of everywhere.  Boat puking is the term we use.

At about 5:00 we head over to Davis Pub via dinghy.  We have to take a couple stabs at finding the dinghy dock, lots of private clubs that won’t let us tie up the dinghy.  Finally we find it and join another couple outside as there is a table shortage.  It starts getting cold, so we transfer inside where it is also cold, but at least no breeze.  The rain has held off for most of the day, but it is now starting to drizzle.

Back at the boat we do manage to make some coffee with our fingers crossed hoping we won’t run out of propane. 

Cheers

Julie and Dawson

Day 339, Tuesday May 27th

Day 339, Tuesday May 27th

Today, we meet with the new broker, Tim in morning to review the listing.

On the way back to Crownsville from the boatyard, where we met Tim the broker we stop at Enterprise to return our rental car.  IT is not due until Wednesday, but it would be too complicated to get back to where we leave the car when we transfer the boat, so we are just returning it early.  Renting cars in teh US is easy and cheap.  We sure have enjoyed having the van for the week.

Julie taking out the battens from the main sail

We say good bye to Brad, but he is on a business call so it is just a wave and a whispered “thanks”.  Within minutes we have thrown the lines and we are on the last cruise down to the boatyard.  We are able to fly the jib for a portion of the trip.  Once we get to the harbour there are all sorts of dinghy sailboats racing and we end up kind of in the middle of them which is not so good, but not a big deal.   The clouds are getting bigger and it looks like there is a thunderstorm heading our way.

Dawson with the help of Keith flaking the sail nicely

We get landed safely, another of the 150 landings we have done in the last year.  Once landed we start stripping off sails. We get a good lesson from Keith who is also a broker on how to manage large sails and fold them in confined spaces.  The winds are starting to whip up and we get the last sail folded just in the nick of time.  We get shelter in our full enclosure which is great and appreciated.  The neighbour boat had to hide down below in his new boat.

Ugly sky coming, work fast!

We cook up our last dinner hoping to have enough propane which we do, settle into a game of Kings cribbage and also make a list of all the jobs to accomplish in the next 2 days.

We are getting there.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson

Day 338, Monday May 26th

Day 338, Monday May 26

Cole, Brad and Alex

Alex enjoying the whole boat

Back on our heads....cleaning, packing, waxing, staining,......   By 2:00 we are tired but looking forward to taking the Sitler’s out for a sail.  Just off their house the Severn River widens sufficiently to have a little sail around.  By 3:00 we are off, with our youngest sailor yet, Cole, and a possible replacement for Julie, Alexandra.  Alexandra is quite taken with handling the wheel.  Sadly she can’t see over the coach house to know where to steer. 

Will Julie be replaced with Admiral Alex?

The winds were very light which was perfect cause you realize the kids have no handholds.  They can’t reach the high stuff and are too short to brace themselves with their legs.  Lucky it was light winds.  At first we thought we did not have enough, but it was fabulous.  It was one of the few sails we undertook just for sailing sake.  Normally it is always to “get somewhere”, versus just to enjoy.  Before we knew it , it was 5:30 so we  headed in as we had a pizza night planned.  Brad, Cole and Dawson headed off in their convertible for the pickup, while Alexandra, Laura and Julie organized from the inside.  After pizza we enjoyed a homemade peach pie made by Laura.  It was wonderful, her first pie! 

Julie blogging at the Sitler's

We did not stay late as the Sitler’s had to go to work the next day so we headed down to the dock and called it a night.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson