New Plan... Originally our plan was to fix up the 23' boat we have and use it to sail to the Florida Keys then sell it and get a bigger boat large enough for us (and the dogs) to live aboard. Probably work down there seasonally and off seasons we will be out at sea. But since we don't want to be away from the dogs, we have decided to sell this boat now and a bigger one before heading down there. Sounds good to me.

We have been doing a lot of work on the boat. We want to have it ready to sail to the keys by march/april this year. The rudder is taken apart and has dried out for a few months. James has done an amazing job sanding and varnishing it. A few more coats of varnish and it will be just about ready to go back on the boat. There are tough barnacles that we are not sure what to do with. Maybe going to try muriatic acid and see how that goes.

Also, James is trading the 15hp motor that needs more work for a smaller motor that is in good condition which should be just fine for our boat.

The sails need a little cleaning and then hopefully within a week we can get everything back together and on the boat for our first real sail.

Before setting out for the keys we have other work to get done. Some deck repairs, paint all around, cushions, bimini, electric work....and get something that will work for a dinghy. We are in the process of restoring a 16' canoe. Hope it will do. The fun will be getting the dogs comfortable with it.

I have been sick with the flu and thought we would take advantage of the sunny day and get some fresh air out on the boat. Usually as soon as we get to the boat I get the cabin open and hatch up to air it out while James ties up the dinghy. So, I was down in the cabin and I hear a loud "OH NO!" (really it was more of a cuss word). I look out and see the jon boat slowly drifting away and a look on James' face that was slight panic plus slight embarrassment. Apparently, he had not tied the dinghy up well enough and even gave it a shove to push it away from the side of the sailboat.
We both started to empty our pockets and prepare to go for it. It was sunny out but the water is very cold. I REALLY did not want to go in especially because I was already sick, but I was the only one with a change of clothes. So with much protest and a few cuss words I dove off the sailboat into the freezing St. Johns River to retrieve our only way back to shore. I swam as fast as possible and hurled myself in the jon boat. James said he doesn't think I could have gotten to and in the boat any faster even if something had been chasing me to bite me. LOL.
From now on we both will have a spare change of clothes whenever we head to the sailboat.

Back in August:
We cleaned up an old 15 hp long shaft motor James had around (I think a Johnson) and headed out to One Love with it in a jon boat dinghy. After some muscle work it was mounted and ready to go. James took off the motor cover to start the motor by wrapping the pull string around the big metal plate (no idea what its called) because the pull start is all messed up. The motor started up and sounded just fine so we pulled anchor and headed towards the middle of the river. Maybe 5 minutes of motoring James gets the main sail up. We didn't want to turn the motor off due to the difficulty of getting the cover off to wrap the string again but it was idling to high and when James turned down the idle, the motor shut off.
This was my very first experience on a sailboat so I was a bit uneasy of the whole event mostly because I had no clue what to do and no control of the situation. I had complete trust in James and he got us back to the mooring with confidence and ease and luck that the wind was behind us. Once safely back to the mooring we inspected the motor and realized that it was a good thing it quit when it did or we may have lost the lower unit. One of the bolts is completely gone and all the rest were not going to be far behind. Guess James forgot to tighten those bolts after working on the motor. OOPS!

So we have been busy the last week cleaning the boat up and checking over everything. Have a lot of fiberglass that needs attention on the deck along with rewiring the boat. The bottom needs to be cleaned badly. Our outboard motor is all ready to be installed hopefully Thursday. Here are a few pictures from the last few days.

Last night we couldn't sleep much because we were talking about the boat all night. Finally around 2am we fell asleep to wake up at 8am getting everything ready that we thought of the night before and new stuff we had thought of. We got to the boat around 1pm and just sat in awe that this boat is ours to sail where ever we want to take it.

We did come up with a name for our boat last night too its new name is " One Love"

After cleaning the boat for is looking great will post some pictures tomorrow when we take her out on our maiden voyage.