Monthly Archives: September 2013

Checking Off The “To Do” List

On a boat, the work never ends.  Luckily, most of the time when we are at the marina during hurricane season, the projects are things we want to do.  When we are cruising, usually Mark spends most of his time fixing something that breaks. We have been at Sunset Bay for four months, with two more to go.  The biggest projects are finished, but the “to do” list is still long.  We have wanted to get a new dodger (aka windshield) since we bought the boat five years ago.  The one that came from Lagoon with the boat was, to put it mildly, a piece of junk.  After a short time, it was impossible to see out of it, unless Mark had just polished the windows.  By the time we replaced it, it was moldy and falling apart.  The new one was made by G & G Sails and Canvas, which is located a few miles from us in Stuart.  The front windows are 80 ml acrylic (Ez2cy) and they are glued into the frame, rather than sewed into it.  The side ones are a coated vinyl called Strataglas.  The nice thing about acrylic is they can be buffed if they get scratched. They are also as clear as glass. We tried to find someone who would install glass because we lusted for windshield wipers, like powerboats and a few sailboats have, but in the end we are very happy with the results.

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At the top of our list was to purchase a wind generator.  When Seas the Day was a hybrid, we had plenty of power from the many chargers and batteries, but once we got rid of all of that, we needed other sources for when we aren’t plugged into shore power.  Last year, we installed five solar panels on the bimini.  They worked great in the spring and summer, but in the fall and winter as the days shortened and the sun was lower in the sky, we got less and less charge from them.  However, in the winter there is a lot of wind in the Bahamas, so we decided to add a wind generator to keep the charge up overnight.  We got an Eclectic D400,  which is the quietest generator with the highest output at the lowest wind velocities. We won’t be able to try it until we unplug from shore power in December and head to the Bahamas.  Mark installed it, as he has done with almost everything we have added to the boat.  If it doesn’t give us quite enough charge at night and cloudy days, then we’ll add another one next year.

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Introducing First Mate Sailor Doodle

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On July 24, 2013, our wonderful dog Daisy Doodle died.  You can read about her here. At first we didn’t know if we would get another dog while living aboard the boat.  However, after realizing that Daisy was a big part of all of our cruising adventures, we decided to start looking for a puppy.  We visited the local animal shelter and most of the dogs were pit bull mixes.  Nearby rescues didn’t have any Goldendoodle puppies available. Eventually we found a breeder in Florida, Moss Creek Goldendoodles.  We called Kelli, the owner, and she told us there were two puppies available.  We found out later that this is highly unusual since most of their puppies are taken before the litters are even born.  They do temperament testing on the puppies at six weeks and as soon as she had done this, she chose which puppy would be best for our living conditions.  The other available puppy went to a family with children.  We wanted to give him a nautical name and chose Sailor.
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We got to see him when he was eight weeks old.  Moss Creek does not allow visitors until then because they are worried about the puppies getting Parvo.  We fell in love but did not take him home right away.  We decided to leave him there for another month to live with a trainer and attend “Boot Camp.”  When we picked him up on September 7th he was very calm and well behaved.  He was housebroken, walked nicely on a loose leash, was on a schedule that matched ours, was crate trained, and knew the basic obedience commands.  He sits for everything: before he eats, before he goes outside or comes in, when someone wants to pet him during his walks, before he goes in his crate, etc.
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Of course, a very important thing for a boat dog to learn is to “go potty” on the deck.  Daisy would never do this.  It’s rarely needed as we can almost always take him for walks ashore, but there are times when we must sail overnight or can’t get ashore due to weather or not finding a beach near an anchorage.  Sailor was already trained to ring a bell when he needed to go outside.  We took him on his leash to the front of the boat where we had placed a piece of artificial grass on one of the trampolines.  By the end of the first day, he was “going” there.  We also take him for four walks a day, after each meal and before he goes to sleep at night.  In between, he uses the boat, since puppies “go” a lot.
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Sailor is turning out to be more than we hoped for in a new member of our family.  We will always miss Daisy but are so happy to have Sailor onboard with us.

New Website Location

For the past five years, 2008-2013, we have used our website found at http://seasthedaynow.com/ to share information about our travels on our Lagoon 420 sailing catamaran. Beginning in September, 2013, we changed the location of our website to http://svseastheday.com.  The old website is easy to use while in the States, but we spend six months a year in The Bahamas. Even though getting online  in the islands becomes easier every year,  and we discovered that it is much easier to get online from an iPad than from a computer.  Unfortunately, the iWeb software we have used for our website only works on a Mac computer.  To read all information about the first five years of our life aboard Seas the Day, readers can to follow this link: http://seasthedaynow.com/.