Winter?

Headed up to Stowe VT for a little snowboarding and found some of the worst early winter conditions in years. Still a fun trip because its the friends that make it. 

It's a Carry'on Mon

After a hectic Wednesday of running through airports to catch connecting flights after take off delays, my brother, <name retracted>, and I successfully arrived on the island of Grand Bahama. Whew. It was touch and go all morning with battling slight hangovers (ok...we may have started vacation early) -- delayed take-off in NY -- landing just in time in Charlotte, NC to make our flight (we took off 15 min after getting on the plane) -- only to arrive in The Grand Bahamas realizing we haven't eaten since the prior night (or gone to the loo since 6:30 AM).   Estimated total time in all airports = 25 minutes..gotta be a record.   Did I mention my carry-on suitcase?

Oh Snap

Another fish getting smoked:

Decided to go with two red snappers in the 3lb range. Left in a brine bath for about an hour while I made a marinade out of 3 tbs fresh mint, 1 tbs fresh parsley,  1 fresh orange zest, 3 tbs organic olive oil, 1 tbs sea salt, 1 tbs cracked pepper, 1 tsp Cinnamon and 1/2 tsp ginger. Applied this liberally to all sides and interior of the fish then threw a slice of orange in the cavity and mouth to open up the smoke flow.

Winterize

Interior. Needs some remodeling in the V berth to make more space, re plumbed
all electrical rewired, wood refinished, galley rebuilt and lots of other little things.

Cold bilge work. Rebuilding some floor supports after finally getting the bilge
emptied. The engine needs to be replaced.

Going Underground

We visited the abandoned mines in Rosendale NY this past weekend. They used to be used for mining cement that most famously was used in making the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. After they closed some have been turned into mushroom farms, used in films and for concerts. Below ground are endless cavernous rooms, deep cold water, roads, and even a city. Above ground are houses and a cement factory that have been forgotten and are being reclaimed by nature.

First mine we came to. They have a stage off to the right set up for concerts.

Flooded section that seems to go back quite far.

Happy T-Day

Trout Day! Decided to smoke up some trout for the Thanksgiving feast.

1 to 1 1/4 lb trout. Brine bath for about an hour then drizzled the inside with some local honey, lemon/garlic seasoning and a sprig of organic rosemary.

Fall Pictures

Purchase

Went up to ME this weekend for the final dealings with the boat. We now officially own a boat and it was delivered to our friends house for the winter.

First night on the boat was rather cold but otherwise pretty fun. Nothing like Yukon Jack for the cold hoary nights.

Birthdays, Boats and a Journey to Tibet.

So we bought a boat! ....but we'll get to that later.

Nothing like turning another year older to make you evaluate what is currently working and not working in your life. Nothing like a trip to a mountain top Tibetan Buddhist Monastary, KARMA TRIYANA DHARMACHAKRA (KTD), to make you feel silly for stressing about it to begin with. Clear your mind, the answers are already there.

"We all have a Buddha Mind", our tour guide explained while we sat upon meditation pillows in the sun bathed Main Shrine room floating with the remnants of incense -- "It's just under all the layers of the ego", she finished.

Autumn Leaves and Winter Snow

It was high 70's in San Clemente today -- people were down at the beach, surfers out in the waves, however here on the East Coast we had our first big snow fall. We sat peering out the windows at an array of yellow, green and red leaves that clung to the trees -- not quite ready to let Autumn go. Meanwhile winter arrived nonetheless nestling a foot of snow onto the ground as it began to claim its territory. Boy it was a beautiful sight.

Snowday Smokeout

Been working on making a smoker the last few weeks on and off. 

Peepers

Kind of a poor foliage season this year. Everything either changed to early or is holding on. Few pics from this weekend.

New Ground

We have finally reached a new point in our boat search, a successful marine survey. Now we are on to final price negotiations then the purchase. The whole buying experience is a lot different than expected. It is much harder than imagined to find an ocean worthy boat, boats capable of cruising around near shore are easier to find than a boat you would risk your life in traveling far from land, in a limited price range even though they are out there. Most boats reach a point in life when neglect catches us and they rapidly deteriorate and become too costly to fix. The steps to buying are also much slower than expected between scheduling appointments to look, negotiating prices, marine survey, re negotiating, working out transportation of the boat… All this before the actual work even starts. At a cost of similar to an old used car this particular boat is in need of work, not everyone can afford the nice newer ones, it needs to be repaired and cleaned and rebuilt. Expect to see months of posts going over all our changes to get it ready to sail.

The Cape Dory Story

Maine brought new wind to our sails when we encountered a 30' Cape Dory at the Northeast Sail Boat Rescue in Freeport, Maine a few weeks ago. Nick trekked back up for the Marine Survey today and from what I hear things are looking good! I hope you are as excited as I am to hear back from him! Stay tuned Nomad friends!

When you can't travel far, travel smart!

Offshore traveling at a temporary pause doesn't mean local travel can't be exciting. Sometimes the best travels are close to home. An overnight trip to Maine to check out a few new boats led us to this hidden gem of a campsite. 

Beach front accommodations

Hermit Island Campground is situated on a small island, accessible by car during low tide, and is located about 45 minutes from Freeport, Maine. Here we found our romantic private beach campsite.

Little trip video

On our quick tour of New England shot a quick video between the constant rain.

Moving Forward

Well more information about the ME trip finally. We put in an offer on a new boat and it got accepted. It is a Cape Dory 30 foot Ketch from Northeast Sailboat Rescue. Now it is time for the dreaded marine survey that on our last go around turned up lots of bad news. Hopefully this one will turn out better and we can proceed with a purchase.

Keep on keepin on

It has been a depressing couple of weeks after realizing we couldn't get the boat we wanted, our plans to sail South this Fall bottomed out and we had to face that the trip wasn't happening right now.  After all we gave up we are feeling like maybe it wasn't the right choice.  We have looked at so many boats and honestly not many options left.  After so many dissapointing leads we really felt at the bottom but rallied once again to do a trip to Maine to follow out last lead.  More to come on the trip soon, here is Carolyn in the boat yard trying to find us the vessel we need.

Summer Bouldering

Few friends and I climbing this summer in CA at Ortega Canyon.
Bouldering in Ortega from Neto Nomads on Vimeo.

The boat that almost was

Some visuals on the Vineyard Vixen that didnt make the cut.  Here it is about to get launched.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

It was hot and it was humid. We arrived at The Norwalk Cove Marina at 10AM to have the Vineyard Vixen surveyed and released back into the water for a Sea Trial. The Vineyard Vixen looked like it had seen better days. No major damage was done, however Hurricane Irene presented the boat with lots of leaves and sediment to give it a nice brown layer in the cockpit.

The Good: The surveyor that was recommended to us, Barnaby Blatch, was extremely thorough in and out of the water. We researched him before hand and found many positive reviews on his work and we have to say, he was excellent.

John Longley, the listing broker was also fantastic throughout the day. He even personally ran the starter (we'll get to that later) to the repair shop a good 30 minutes away (on 95...yikes!).

The Bad:  We had been at the marina since 10 AM and everything had been going more or less pretty smoothly. It was about 1 PM when the mechanic came over to de-winterize the engine and get it going for the Sea Trial*. The starter didn't turn over, when they took it out it was rusted (fresh rust) and needed to be sent to get repaired to see if the engine worked. What does this mean? Well, no engine means no Sea Trial, no Sea Trial means we'd have to pay for our surveyor to come back another day when it got fixed. OK, that's bad but it can be fixed and we can move forward. The survey continued and then about 4:30 PM the other shoe dropped. They found water in the transmission oil. Oh, no. That's not good.

The Ugly: by 6PM the nail hit the coffin. We found out the boat had been on the hard for 2 years (we had originally been told it was only out of the water for only 1 year). So, for 2 years the boat could have been sitting with water in the transmission. The water was mixed in the oil already. Conclusion:  it would have to be replaced.

Our dreams of the Vineyard Vixen began to quickly fade. In conjunction with the above land mines the sails would need to be replaced, as well as the rigging, the front hatch...it sounded endless and I started to zone out, it had been a long hot day.

What we learned:

It is so important to have a good Surveyor. They will let you know what needs to be done to make the boat sea-worthy. You want to have someone that intimately checks your boat. We would highly recommend Barnaby Blatch to anyone buying a boat.

Work with a good Broker. We met John through this deal and are super happy with his recommendations and all the hard work he's doing. He's honest and trustworthy and always there to answer our questions. Check out his listings here: Rudders & Moorings.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Nick and I believed this was our boat. Sadly, it wasn't. However our dream lives on and there will be more boats. In fact, we are going to go and look at another boat this Friday! We feel positive in time we'll find the right boat and off to the Caribbean we go.

Last but not least....make sure the engine works before you have a survey done. It will save you money :)

That's all for now, we'll keep you posted!