Ryan's Bell

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Still waiting for the solar panels and SSB radio to come in. Did get to convert all of my lights over to led, this means I should be able to live with refrigeration and not need to run the engine to charge te batteries. I also used my waiting time to explore the area, and found a great source for marine goodies. I also found a nice vegan cafe right next door to that place! This is such a great town! A lot different than my first feeling, but getting to know a place lets it show you its charm. A lot like me :-)

So hopefully I will get everything in and installed by next Monday. That's when I'm hoping to set sail.

Another bonus!!! I learned how to start the engine properly! Diesel engines... silly guys with your turn keys, and push keys in to start... just silly.

After a party at my house I headed south bound for Green Cove Springs, FL, loaded with plenty of booze and party food. A ten hour drive turned into 15 hours because of an ice storm that swept across the country. I missed the storm but saw all of the aftermath, cars and traffic all mangled up all along 95. It's a good thing I like to drive and didn't touch the booze from the party

Greeted in FL by highs of 35. What's up with that FL?

Took another trip down to FL to purchase the boat. Stayed down all week to go through the inventory and organize the way I want. There is a lot stuff on here. Good stuff. Safety stuff, fun stuff. The weather was cold all week long, so much for a 'vacation' to FL.

This is the day that the "Strong 6", "Big 6", "Super 6", or any of the other names that we have been called reunited. Who are we? A group of friends that all met at the University of Delaware and stayed close and are made up of the best friends I have ever had. One of those friends passed on entirely too early! He is our dear friend Ryan Bell, "Blondie", "The Big Galoot", and all of the other names his explosive personality earned. So on this day we allowed all of our busy lives to align and celebrate our friendship and the time and memories we had with Ryan.

Now I think it would make for better public opinion of us to say that we took in all of the history and culture that Fells Point had to offer. We didn't, but we did celebrate. So here I was, recently accepted offer on a boat named "God's Gift" with no new name calling out to me, in one of my favorite towns, and celebrating friendship. The new name was right in front of me calling out to me, Ryan's Bell. The inherent nautical feel, the joy the name brings, and a new meaning, celebrating friendship, and what's friendship but another name for love. So using a friend's favorite mathematical property, the transitive property, if Ryan Bell equals friendship, and friendship equals love, then love must Ryan Bell. And that he did and his name still does, so let this boat be a symbol of friendship and love in the memory of Ryan Bell. Fairwinds and following seas to Ryan's Bell

This was the first day I was to step aboard the future Ryan's Bell. She was on a mooring in Green Cove Springs Marina, which is located on the St. Johns river just south of Jacksonville, FL. Steve Parks was rowing the dinghy over to the dock. He waved, then we met and introduced ourselves to one another at the dinghy dock. Then he rowed us back out to God's Gift, and as we were approaching I remembering thinking, "This is a big boat!" And she was compared to my Catalina 27. Then the moment I stepped on board I knew this was the one.

A little background into how my search was going so far... I had driven up and down the coast looking at boats in my budget. This was a good market for buying a boat, but a bad time for boat maintenance. The highlight of my trip was looking at a boat that was 'too good to bidge on the price!' The boat with all of the shine of peeling paint all over her cabin and the shimmer of her oily sheen bilge, that was transformed into a water feature by a broken bilge pump that made a colorful fountain of a mixture of diesel and sea water was what I was greeted to after a 7 hour drive. So with my expectations so low I decided not to go to FL to see this boat. Then two Jehovah's Witnesses changed all of that!

Now I don't believe in religion. They weren't created by god, they are all works of men. God merely wants us to believe, man wants us to believe his version is the right one. So this outlook lets me really get into some entertaining debates when a witness knocks on my door. The last encounter was your normal we live in world created not evolved blah, blah, blah, but it ended with one of the witnesses just repeating and making me promise to just, "give God a chance." She was saying goodbye and then repeatedly through out that phrase. Almost trance like. Like a light bulb being turned on, I reconsidered a trip to FL. Perhaps, by divine intervention... But today was the day that started this journey.