The Departure Date is Coming Up

It's with eager anticipation that we are beginning the boat packing process for this year's adventure.  But I get ahead of myself!  We finally got the boat in the water in Buckeye Lake for our shake-down period.  We have done this a number of times so it was fairly uneventful.  We are fortunate in have some friends who have a private dock at which we can moor the boat while we check out all of the systems and correct any problems that may come up.  We have learned from past experience that setting the boat up for the first time at the beginning of an extended voyage is a setup for disaster.  We probably took the boat out sailing 4 or 5 times and were happy with the way things went.  The boat is back out of the water now and awaiting the final cleaning and packing before we leave.   

Last year, as we were motor sailing in Georgian Bay, we discovered that the motor would begin to miss whenever we pushed it hard for a long period of time.  That caused us some true white knuckle moments while traveling through a narrow rocky channel in a storm.  Upon our return to Ohio, we consulted our local mechanic and he told us of a fuel pump modification that allowed cold water to pass through the pump to cool it.  It seems that the pump, which is mounted on top of the engine, overheats when the engine is running hard.  The overheated pump caused the fuel to vaporize before it reaches the carburetor and hence the miss-firing engine.  I replaced the original pump with a modified water cooled one and the problem seems to have cleared up.  Another thing we did was come up with an electric winch that we can use to raise and lower the mast.  One of the potential limiting factors in our sailing future was the effort required to raise the heavy mast.  The winch is driven by the truck battery and the effort required to raise the mast now is limited to the pressing of a button.  Now I need to come up with a way to lift the heavy engine onto the rear of the boat when we are setting it up or taking it down.  We don't transport the boat with the motor hanging on the back and hugging and lifting of that heavy beast is becoming more difficult each year.  Am I getting older?

The chore scheduled for today is one that I look forward to each year.  We are heading on a shopping trip to gather the various supplies on our extensive list that we have developed after 6 years of doing this.  This is the signal  that the departure date is near.  Over the next couple of days, I will be dividing the various food stuffs into smaller portions and vacuum packing them for convenience and protection from the wet environments that we frequently encounter.  As you can imagine, storage is quite limited on the boat so we have to do away with bulky boxes that packaging that wastes space.