We have been very busy since my last post researching equipment, buying equipment and finding new problems that need to be fixed.

One of our unexpected purchasing decisions was a new chart plotter and radar. The Raymarine Chart Plotter I was using could only use the the C Charts and I had been working on making a list of the ones we would need. I was surprised to find that if we purchased all the detailed C charts along the way, we would be spending more than $3,000 before we got to Florida! I was also getting some reports that they may not even be up to date. That sent me on a mission at Strictly Sail in Chicago to find out as much as I could about the alternatives. The results helped me make the decision to purchase the E 7 Raymarine touchscreen chart plotter with HD Radar. In addition to getting the latest technology, we will get all the detailed charts for all of the United States and Northern Bahamas, for less than what it would cost us to buy the charts for the old system. A trip to Torreson Marine's "Spring Thaw" convinced us to let them do the ordering and installation.

A Honda E2000 Generator was also on our list and we found the best price on that at Camping World. Our AIS was ordered from Digital Yacht and we are looking at an invertor as the last upgrade we will need. (we hope!)

Bottom paint for saltwater required some exhaustive research by Denise and we wound up opting for Petit Ultima SR60, which will require us to remove our current bottom paint down to the barrier coat. Denise is working hard on making the best of our storage space and goin through our check off lists to make sure everything is in good shape. So far we have repaired the head (not as hard or stinky as I thought) and fixed a fuel leak we found while preparing to replace the Racor fuel filter. We are also checking off our list of spares we'll need, and preparing for launch date.

We are scheduled to splash on April 13th, which just happens to be a Friday. One of my luckiest days! Once we're afloat we will hop over to West Basin and make sure everything is ready for our trip to Muskegon to get the Chart Plotter installed.

Lots of work in front of us, but I'm sure the "pleasure will be worth all the pain".

Although Manana is sitting on the hard in St. Joe, Michigan, we are busily making preparations for our trip to take her to warm and salty waters. We are planning to splash her as soon as we complete the bottom maintenance and the weather (and the marina) permits in the spring.

Our plan is to sail her over to the Wisconsin shore to cruise Door county for the first short leg. It's one of the places we have not made it to and thought we should see it before we leave Lake Michigan. From there, we will work her around through Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair, and Lake Erie over to the Erie Canal. There, we will drop our mast and have it shipped to the exit on the Hudson River, restep it and head down the river and finally, into salt water. We are leaving our time schedule and the route we take from there as flexible as possible, since I will still be taking care of business, but we would like to be in Key West for the Parrotheads Meeting of the Minds in November.

We spend the last two days at Strictly Sail in Chicago trying to get solutions to some of our questions and purchase what we feel we will need. The results were a little disappointing since we wound up with more questions than we started with. But, it is the beginning of the journey!