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Sunday, April 11, 2021

Vision 444 - Key West Boat Show

 Key West Boat Show and Additional Information on the Vision Yachts 444

Summary

We had a great trip down to Key West (okay, actually it was the next island up; Stock Island). The Stock Island Marina Village and adjoining Perry Hotel are absolutely beautiful.  If you are in the area and need a place to stay (and have the means!), it is a great resort.  We were fortunate in that we booked it early for the event and got the room at 1/3 the price it was the week leading up to the boat show.  Admittedly, it was Spring Break, so that may be their peak price for the year for all I know.

We had spoken to Tommy and Amy from Sail Away Catamarans a few times before the event and even had a chance to speak with Thomas and Terri, the owners of Kon-Tiki ahead of time too.  What an absolutely great group of people!

Additional Information

Saturday, January 9, 2021

Over 100 YouTube Subscribers!

Thanks to all of our YouTube subscribers for helping us get over 100 subscribers!!

We are now at 104 subscribers a few days later!

Monday, June 15, 2020

We Launched our YouTube Channel

We Launched our YouTube Channel!

We recently launched our YouTube Channel and posted our first video!  



Check 'em out and let us know your thoughts!

Sue and Mike

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Not the Easter Cruise we had planned

Friday, April 11, 2020


This weekend was supposed to be the Easter Cruise to the Beaufort, NC docks BUT, that got canceled because that town doesn’t want us.

So instead of that, we’re doing some maintenance that’s been on my list for a while, namely replacing the coolant pump on the engine.

Everyone that’s ever worked on a boat will tell you that everything takes twice as long as normal.
Well, when the town your boat is located in is on a Covid-19 lockdown that prohibits non-residents from basically going into town, that makes things even more challenging.

Fortunately, everyone in the boating community in Oriental is awesome and willing to help as they can. So we can still call businesses, place an order, give a CC number and they will deliver to your slip! Shout out to Pat, Lori and Teresa at IWPC, and Jim at Bow to Stern Boating!!

The front of the engine had some surface corrosion and missing paint, seemingly from leaking coolant at some point in her past. While the pump and belt were off, it seemed to be the right time to wire brush and enamel paint those areas. Walmart was out of Yanmar Grey engine enamel so black will have to do.

Deciding to do this certainly added a lot of time, but it was worth it since everything was accessible. I also wasn’t thrilled using a spray can inside, but we opened some hatches, turned on a fan and it was fine.  Given the challenging work conditions, it came out pretty good!

Monday, April 6, 2020

A lot's happened in a year of not posting...

What will hopefully be the only Annual Update


Given that aside from healthcare workers, grocery store/food delivery chain employees, the entire planet suddenly has a lot more free time, what better time to try to get in the habit of updating this Blog!

Going forward, I'm going to create at least three types of posts, which can be filtered on the right side, under "Pages".  The current three are

  • Sailing Related Posts - Kind of obvious
  • General Posts - Basically all posts that are not sailing specific
  • Technical Articles - For the dorks out there
So what's happened in the past year.
  • Found and bought a boat (1997 Beneteau Oceanis 40 CC in New Bern, NC)
  • Moved it to Oriental, NC "The Sailing Capital of NC"
    Amazing place, BTW.  Great for a weekend trip.  People are super friendly and it is super relaxing to go there.
  • Had it "on the hard" (out of water) at Deaton Yacht Service to do some work, bottom painting, etc.
  • Named it Betelgeuse. (Brightest star in the Constellation Orion *normally)
    Those that understand how to hail on a marine VHF may get a kick out of this name...
  • Set it up for charter from Bow To Stern Boating.
  • Sailing over several weekends, taking trips to various spots on the Neuse River
  • Went on a weeklong charter with friends down in the British Virgin Islands.  Amazing, amazing trip that I can't wait to do again.
  • Finished out a very successful 2019 at Closet Factory.
  • Returned to the Miami Boat Show.
  • COVID-19 happened, forcing us to move everything to Virtual appointments using screen sharing, eventually stop all of our Closet Factory Operations, temporarily lay off our employees and spend a lot more time at home.


I'll see about posting some more information on some of these bullet points over the coming days/weeks as I have a chance to create posts that include some pictures from along the way.

Thanks for reading!