"Without enough sleep we all become tall two year olds" JoJo Jensen

Wild Horses is an awesome boat, and fairly new as boats tend to go, but we still have lots of upgrading to do to make her "home" worthy. One big item on our list to take care of this summer is to figure out our ground tackle requirement and get it purchased and installed. For our non-sailing friends, ground tackle is our anchor and chain that keeps us in place when we are at anchor. Hence, the quote above - no one sleeps if you have insufficient ground tackle!

We currently have a 45lb CQR anchor with 200ft of chain. It works well on Lake Ontario but it is a bit undersized for some of the conditions we will face in the Caribbean. Through lots of research and through chats with friends in the Caribbean (thank you Ian and Lynn!), we finally decided on a rocna anchor with 250 ft of all chain. But the decisions didn't stop there. Oh no - size does matter! Mike wanted the biggest anchor but he didn't want to go crazy and have something way too oversized and weighing down our bow. But he doesn't want to worry if we get caught in a nasty wind while at anchor. Right now, we can always choose fair weather but we may not always be so lucky in the future.

After much thoughtful consideration and reviewing our notes from our discussion with Ian and Lynn last fall, we finally decided on the Rocna 40.

So, ready to make a purchase? Not quite. As it turns out, our windlass gypsy (the mechanism that guides the anchor chain through the windlass) is set only for 3/8 3B chain. This didn't mean anything to me a week ago but has now become THE MOST IMPORTANT THING (note: this is what usually happens when on an upwards learning curve with boats). 3B, as it turns out, is old school mostly because it is super heavy. And being "old school" means none of our usual chandleries carry it. Instead they carry 5/16 high tensile chain. This newer stuff is much lighter, cheaper, and way easier to find but...the wrong size for our anchor windlass. Or more specifically, the wrong size for our windlass gypsy.

Luckily our current windlass can be outfitted with a 5/16 gypsy, if we can find one. The difficulty is that windlass parts are hard to come by. We may have found one in the UK but the supplier still needs to confirm. Otherwise, we will need a new windlass ($$$$).

Stay tuned to find out how many boat dollars this little (but critical) upgrade will take! Note: 1 boat dollar = $1,000...the normal minimum cost for most repairs... :)

"A secret to happiness is letting every situation be what it is,
instead of what you think it should be." Loubis and Champagne

Sometimes timing is everything. Our pup Ocean got spayed this week (very successful and she is recovering like a champ) - a normal and very planned event that unfortunately had to take place in the middle of sailing season. Having it done earlier wasn't an option as we wanted her to have one heat in the books before her spay and having it done later would have made the surgery more risky for Ocean. So, there you have it. We are land locked for 10 days while Ocean recovers. We had hoped to make it to the boat after a few days post-surgery but the veterinarian made it clear that she is to refrain from jumping for the next 10 days. Well, that sealed the deal. Ocean cannot navigate embarking and disembarking without jumping, and lifting her would put a strain on her sore tummy.

So what do two boat-loving people do in the city? We fix our very worn-out boat cradle pads! This was an important job to get done before haul out being that our existing cradle pads were falling apart and would either scratch Wild Horses' lovely gelcoat or would break apart when the boat was lowered onto them. Yeesh!

It took us several hours, one $10 end-of-the-roll carpet, some old canvas and lots of staples and screws but the final product is eight beautiful new cradle pads.

Our cradle is now ready for haul out even though we are far from even wanting to think about it!

"It takes a village to raise a child. Find a village. Encourage one another and open your village to others". African proverb

All week I had been anxiously preparing for our first weekend at anchor with the pup. Lists were made, gear was prepared, provisions were gathered. And even the weather was cooperating. Nothing was going to stop us from getting out there.

Sigh. We didn't get out there.

Mike and I often liken having a sailboat to having a farm. You can have all the plans in the world with how your day or weekend will go but "stuff" will happen that will actually decide how you will spend your time. A job you thought was small will take all day. You will be missing one tiny but critical part to finish a job. Or, as was our case this past weekend, you just can't figure out why something won't work. For us, it was our almost brand new dinghy motor.

With a dog on board, and being on bigger water, a proper dinghy and dinghy motor is essential. It is our car on the water. And it ensures we can get our pup to shore for her bathroom breaks (yes, we will be training her to do her business on deck but we aren't there yet).

So, there we are, the boat is almost ready for us to take off to an anchorage (we were planning on Brakey Bay). All we had left to do was put the new dinghy motor onto the dinghy at the dinghy docks and then move the dinghy and motor around to our boat on the west dock. Let's see - motor on boat...check. Pull cord to start motor...check. Motor starts and purrs away...ummmm, not so much. After Mike made several more attempts, I decided to walk the dog back to Wild Horses and await the good news that the motor was now running. That didn't happen but what did happen reminded both of us of how great it is to be part of the sailing community.

Mike was at his lowest of lows - frustrated and spent. He had tried everything to get that motor going and nothing worked. Then one by one, several members of our great Trident Yacht Club community stepped up with advice, muscle, and gear. They had their own boating plans for the day but they took the time to try and help. Their support and encouragement did wonders. Mike really felt that they had his back and wanted that motor going as much as he did.

In the end, the motor never ran that weekend and we never made it out to anchor. But we had a fabulous weekend with our fellow club members and shared some great laughs over dinner. What would have been a disappointing and frustrating time was smoothed over by a great community of sailors.

Note: The dinghy motor is now fixed! We took it into a small engine repair shop that quickly diagnosed the problem as a dirty carburetor (Ooops bad winter storage).

"When you have clarity of intention, the universe conspires with you to make it happen". Fabienne Frederickson

There are times in life when things are a little muddy or just plain complicated. Navigating loss or change - the days can be painful and unbearable. Those are not good days, although the learning and growth that come from them are invaluable.

Then there are the times like this past weekend when life could not be clearer and you know you are headed down the right path, regardless of the trajectories that got you to that moment. I will explain.

Mike and I have had the dream of living on a sailboat for almost as long as we have been married (read: a long time). The dream started to take more life in 2008 when we bought our first sailboat - a 17 ft Boston Whaler. It was a great boat for Mike to bring his sailing skills back to life and a great boat for me to learn on...but it could tip over, which didn't sit well with me. Next came our first keelboat, Chaika, in 2010. A beautiful 2006 Hunter 31. The perfect boat to sail during the weekend on the Ottawa river. But our eyes remained glued on our future so we knew that this wasn't our forever boat.

Enter Wild Horses. In 2015 we purchased a Beneteau 473 moored in Kingston Ontario. This is our future full time home, and we have been adding our own touches to this 2002 boat since we bought her - new batteries, inverter, solar panels, an arch and this year, new gray canvas. Although she looks beautiful and is very comfortable, the work to make our new boat a "home on the water" continues. But none of our additions to the boat have been or will be more important than our latest, which is where the absolute clarity has come in this past weekend and which sparked the need to start writing about our journey in a blog.

Our latest addition? We welcomed our 10 month old puppy Ocean onto Wild Horses for the first time. Ocean joined our family in September 2017 as an 8 week old puppy and quickly won our hearts. In 2020, when we leave work and head down the ICW to the Caribbean, Ocean will be one of our crew (perhaps first mate but I am hoping to continue to earn that spot). This weekend was full of anxiousness as we hoped Ocean could navigate embarking, disembarking, the ladder-like companionway stairs, sleeping overnight on a floating home and all the surprises and change that comes with dock life. Well, the anxiety quickly change to smiles, laughter and absolute pride as she took to the boat like it had always been her home.

Yes, there are times when life has absolute clarity. For me, sitting on Wild Horses with Mike, Ocean and a Corona after a long day of boat chores, and musing about our next projects and a lot of sailing firsts for Ocean...yes, it is very clear that this is the right future for my little family. this is the kind of life that feeds the soul.