JADIP Cruising

10-21-18   Ahhhhhhh! %#@&%X*!!! I have a potentially serious problem that I can only describe now after several hours of screaming, hair pulling, gnashing of teeth, and using up my entire, and I might say rather extensive, vocabulary of curse words..several times over.  Here is the situation. I was sampling the transmission oil on my starboard engine and when I tried to withdraw the 12 inch long, 1/4" tubing from the dipstick hole, it popped off the suction mechanism.  I watched in frozen horror as it gently slid down into the transmission out of sight. After regaining my composure, oh, say twenty minutes, maybe more... I wasn't keeping track.   I tried unsuccessfully to extract the tubing with a four-finger spring grabber for over an hour. I actually got a hold of it four times but because I had gripped it somewhere in the middle, I could not pull it up through the dipstick hole. After that fourth time though, I was unable to even find/feel it w...

10-26-18 Another problem.. Now that the plastic tube in the transmission situation is at least not getting worse, (mainly because I haven't run the engine), a new wrinkle has developed that will again delay our departure from Hampton, VA to warmer regions further south. We had a diver come yesterday to tend the bottom since we have been sitting in a marina for over two months. It was just a routine scrub to slick up the bottom before we headed south after the current weather front passes through over the next two days. We had planned to start on Sunday. After he was finished cleaning, I had the diver take my GoPro camera and give me a tour of the bottom and running gear. He did a good job of cleaning the areas coated with anti-fouling and since there was no preventative on the prop, I expected some minor growth that could be scraped off. I mean, it was shiny clean when the boat went into the water in late August so it shouldn't have too much. I was also interested in the stat...

Steve checking engines while Carol drove So our Adventure began on Feb 4, 2018 when we officially took ownership of our N-37 and moved her from her slip in Eau Gallie Yacht Club at Melbourne, FL.  We started engines about 0630 and made our way south to Fort Pierce, FL.  The first night we stayed at Harbortown Marina at the fuel dock because it was just across from Cracker Boy Boatworks and we had an 0830 scheduled haul out.  The video above shows the small island right in front of us that night and we were in heaven.  We were tired because the ride down was a bit unnerving with first day jitters and about 25 mph headwinds the first half of our trip.  Luckily we had a good friend and experienced pilot with us for trouble shooting and the wind calmed down later in the afternoon so we could make good headway and arrive before dark. We ate outside at the Harbor Cove Restaurant with great weather and delicious food.  We toasted a great first day! Every...

There was a series of events that led up to our boat and living aboard.  The last four years of health issues for ourselves and family had implanted a sense of concern and a worry that an active future was not at all certain.  Then when Carol very unexpectedly became unable to work for medical reasons during 2017, she wanted to do something positive instead of moping around. About that same time, a friend bought an RV with the comment that too many neighbors had become permanently disabled or worse in the past year.  The thought was simply, "We've put off doing things until "someday" and we realized that if we didn't act now, life events would change "someday" into "never". We decided we'd much rather be water gypsies than land travelers.  We'd talked about doing the America's Great Loop many years ago but it was always a "someday" item.  So we started looking at motor trawlers for stability and possible living aboa...

You might say, "Whazza JADIP?  Is that some foreign language word or something that Lewis Carroll wrote?"  Well, no.   The name JADIP is the acronym of a philosophy we picked up a few years ago - " J ust A nother D ay I n P aradise".   In short the thought is this:  This is the only world upon which human beings live, hence it is the best of all possible worlds on which to live.   Theodore Roosevelt said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”   We will continue to keep an interesting and full life as long as we can.  That is paradise.     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- J ADIP is our Great Harbour 1 N37 trawler.  We bought it and live on it specifically to cruise America's Great Loop 2 over the next year or so.  To find out more about why we chose to do this at this time of life, why we chose ...