thanks to everyone for their support and help getting ready for our voyage. We have a hold full of children's books we are excited to deliver wherever we go. This is a voyage of a lifetime and we want to share it with all.

I promise this blog won't be just sand and palm trees and sunshine. We will tell the story of our cruise as it occurs both the good and the bad.

We had been working for weeks getting the house ready getting the boat ready packing the boat with half a ton of equipment in the night before were completely exhausted. We wanted an early start so got the dinghy ready to go across the lake. That entails lifting the 8 horsepower Mercury from the back of the dinghy onto the mounting pad. We have a beautiful day Nihal used from Kato Marine but it wasn't installed yet.

That mercury motor try to drag me to the bottom of the Milwaukee River and I finally had the good sense to let go.I was rolling it from the dinghy on to the swim platform the thing about one way the motor in the middle and I followed. When I surfaced there was a faint glow in my left pocket my cell phone.

If anyone is contemplating cruising or even being safe on a sailboat be sure you have a swim ladder that can be deployed immediately. I put one on several years ago that I can just reach up and pull down and that helped me get out of the murky Milwaukee River the night before we left. Lisa grabbed my cell phone started drying it out and we were both in shock about the loss of our motor.

I have a philosophy of not getting upset over toys as their only function is to make you happy. It didn't take long to sort of laugh about our loss but we were still pretty shocked. the Milwaukee River was warm and I have had a recent tetanus shot so all is well.

The trip to water Michigan was delightful. We motored and sailed the whole way. the biggest wave we saw was about 9 inches.We had a great dinner in Pentwater and decided to stay for an extra day and do some projects.

Today I completed the solar installation and it is pumping out the amps! Also installed a dual USB outlet for charging devices.

All is Irie on uproar and we are looking forward to a pleasant sail to Frankfort tomorrow.

Ken and Missy rummage through our garage and brought the 1963 Evinrude the next morning. This is a great motor starts first pull and will be our dinghy motor until we can get an
bigger one.