40+ year-long professional career, dutifully fulfilled, is sunsetting. But I’m turning the page altogether now, and the Sun also rises onto our 40+ foot sailboat. It was a jolly good run. Kelly made her leave five years ago – just waiting for me to trade one passion for another.

So, we segue away from a lifetime of working to make the almighty dollar, while lamenting the lost cash flow feeding incessant Fayaway projects. But enough already, and onto the next chapter.

Fortunately, another passion, cruising across the sea, provides all the sought after pleasure of hands-on planning, fascination and technical tweaking my head and heart desires.

Well… that is, except for my sweetheart Kelly, of course!

But my life, my love and my lady is the sea.

Looking Glass, Brandy

What’s happening with the boat now? And cruising adventures? Well… while we were enjoying time with friends on beaches and boats last winter, time and money are having their own knock-down drag-out brawl at the boatyard. We love doing the work ourselves, but folks, we’re facing the fact that we’re getting older. More tedious boat projects can now be paid for with some of that contract money, and we’ll use our time for more enjoyable stuff. Now we’re letting others do some of the work, while we go scuba diving.

Shhh… hear that gurgling sound? Nope, not my scuba tank regulator; it’s the whirlpool of money getting sucked into the boatyard hourly labor vortex.

We expect to re-launch Fayaway in twenty days – at least that’s what the yard schedule says. Our Portsmouth apartment lease ends today. Where then do we park our duffel bags of clothes and coffee press? A: A combination of hotels, homes of family and very accommodating friends, until we can move back into our primary home. Can’t wait!

We’ve completed most below but remain immersed in a few more upgrades – notably the last two – waiting for the yard to finish:

• New backstay (removal of SSB insulators)
• New Harken headsail furler
• New hydronic diesel heating system
• Larger solar PV panels
• Added more LiFePo4 batteries
• Rebuilt windlass motor
• New Aeroprop, feathering propeller
• New dual-mainsheet and preventer system
• Upgrades to boom and gooseneck
• Added spare halyards
• New dyneema lifelines
• New side-boarding ladder
• Repairs to cockpit leaks and minor delamination
• Repairs to misaligned alternator and engine mounting (yard is correcting these due to defective installation two years ago.)

Plan on seeing a few blog posts referencing the above as we venture north this summer.

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For now, feel free to drop by and say hello if you’re in the Rockland, Maine area! We hope you have a great day!

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Click any photo to see full size.

If you’re looking for a good historical read, try this one about Darwin and Captain Fitzroy’s adventures on the HMS Beagle.