The Great Wander

Once we found the Mobile Marine Electrical things started moving.  In fact, now we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel for electrical work.  They have been great, in fact even coming out here on a Saturday to make sure that we had a solid battery charging system.  

While they have done a lot of the work, one of the great things has been that they’ve been teaching us as well.  In reality, if something goes wrong with the electrical system in the future, there’s a good chance that we will need to diagnose and solve the problem ourselves. 

We’ve run wires ourselves, Sandy and Matthew have tackled getting lights, pumps, and switches on the starboard side of the boat up and running and now we have power across the boat.  We also have hot water on board too!  Watching Matthew dive into these projects has been amazing.  One of the big successes was they were having trouble identifying the power wire for the switch for his cabin lights.  After a day of frustration, he figured out that he could reverse the process they had been using and he found the right wire, got it connected and now he can use his light switch!

The other big thing that has happened is that most of our electronics are on board now and connected.  We are still waiting on the autopilot, so once it arrives it can be installed and that will be close to the end of the projects for the electronics and electrical systems.  We might need another once over of our engines, but we will see.  We’ve met some good people on the dock who are willing to help us out as well, so maybe between us and those folks, we can ensure the engines are good to go.  

We are getting close to being able to move.  As I said a couple of weeks ago, we are now starting to look at the weather 10 days out to see what things look like for moving.  And we are starting to have some discussions about where to go.  Plans have changed so much that we are trying hard not to be too firm about anything.  As one person said, “Making plans with a sailboat is almost always done at low tide, in the sand.”  Meaning those plans can get washed away in an instant…something we’ve already found to be true.  

I don’t know if we will continue our plan to head south right away.  As we enter spring, things are going to start warming up, and none of us are big fans of the heat, so maybe we start moving north.  We had talked last year about sailing to Acadia National Park and spending time up there.  Granted Maine is not the crystal-clear blue waters of the Caribbean, but there’s a lot of great stuff there to see.  

Thinking about destinations is a bit scary though.  The reality is that we had a plan, sail to Maine, then head south and winter over in the Bahamas.  Letting yourself think like that again can be difficult because this disappointment has been so big.  I never wanted to be here for Christmas.  And yet, here we were, so to start to think about hoisting the sails and making headway, well, there’s some hesitancy, because what if we get slammed by something else really big again?  I don’t know if any of us can take that kind of disappointment again.

I don’t know exactly what we’d do, like I said, One Life represents pretty much everything we’ve worked for in our careers.  It’s all sitting here.  

But, for now, the focus is still on getting One Life seaworthy again.  Electrical is the big thing that needs to be done, but there’s still other jobs too.  Replacing the main halyard, getting navigation lights ordered and replaced.  Servicing the winches.  There’s always something to do and all we can do is move forward, one step at a time.

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