S/V Adventurer

There is a strange phenomenon that happens to anything that has the word boat attached to it. If you go to Home Depot and buy a normal everyday screw, that screw may cost 8 cents. If you go to a boat parts store and buy the same screw but that screw is going in your boat instead of your house, it will cost $1.29. I'm not sure why having something intended for your boat jacks up the price, but that's the way it goes. There are multiple acronyms for the word boat. “Bankruptcy On A Trailer”, “Bend Over And Takeit”, or my personal favorite of “Bring On Another Thousand.” Some people say a boat is just a hole in the water you throw money into. Others say you would be better off just setting fire to a pile of money in your backyard because it will cost you less. One of our sailing friends has said, “I need to figure out how to attach a fire hose to my wallet so I can shoot the money out faster.” All of these sayings are sayings because they have some truth to them. ...

You may or may not have heard, but we finally got our new mast after months and months of patiently waiting. It showed up this past Saturday morning on the back of a big ol' semi truck, with a big ol' truck driver who looked exactly like the stereotypical trucker from every horror film, late night comedy, and dateline TV show you've ever seen. He was larger than life, probably didn't own a shirt with sleeves, had a big ol' wad of chew between his lips, and smelled like he lived in the cab of that big ol' truck. But boy was I glad to see him. I was so excited that almost gave him a big ol' bear hug when he showed up, until I saw the tattoo on his sleeveless arm that said “I'm packin' heat”. I opted to not attempt the big ol' bear hug. I went for the more acceptable hand shake and “Hi, I'm Jeff.” After paperwork formalities and some creative forklift driving, our mast was tucked in a corner of the yard for us to begin the task of u...

Murphy's Law came to be sometime in the 1940's. If I'm not mistaken (which I never am), it all started on the battlefields of WWII. I'm not sure if this law went through all of the phases of our governmental checks and balances that we hold so dear today, or if there was a long heated debate about it on Capitol Hill, with one side being for and one side being against, or if it was possibly one of the few laws that had bipartisan support from both sides of the isle in the last century. Whichever party is responsible for Murphy's Law, they should be held accountable for one of the worst pieces of legislation to ever hit the books. If you read through the actual bill that made it to the floor and was voted on to become law, you would be amazed at all of the legal mumbo jumbo, side deals, and pork barrel projects that got thrown into the mix. A senator in Georgia got a swing-set for his kids put in at his mother-in-law's house, 18 goldfish in Montana had a stre...

For some reason, most people have a misguided conception of what it's like to live on a boat and take off to sail around the world. Romantic is the word that comes to mind. It's all coconuts, palm trees, and white sandy beaches. What most people don't think about is how hard it is to make the romantic white sandy beaches and foo foo drinks become a reality. As I sit down to write this bit of nonsense, we have officially been on permanent vacation for 2 years, one month, 4 days, 17 hours, and 18 minutes, but who's counting? In these last couple of years, other than time spent on a family medical emergency, we have been full time adventurers. We have gone wherever our heart desired, we have done whatever we have wanted, and we have seen more things than we could have ever imagined. In all of that, we have had a 99% stress free life. The other 1% has been devoted to the stress of figuring out what we are going to do tomorrow. To some of you, that 1% stre...