Every boater dreams...

After my last post, a fellow (and much more seasoned) sailor suggested that posting our list of needs and wants would be a good idea as there may be sailors (or other people) reading this blog who just happen to have what we need laying around wanting a good home.  Also, we realize that the more our needs are spoken to the Universe, the more we get what we need - in fact, we just acquired netting we needed to surround the deck for the safety of the cats for FREE!  This netting can run $2/foot and we needed at least 75', so just by paying attention and speaking up, we have saved 150 very precious dollars!  Blessed be and thanks to God/dess for providing!

However, as this is also documenting the full journey of As Yet Unnamed Boat, I want to make sure to capture the changes we go through, both on the boat and in our Personal Priority List.  So, while this is a prayer of sorts, it is also my documentation of our journey!  In other words, no bad mouthing the greedy little kids! ;-)


So, without further ado, I will get on with the Needs and Wants of the Wornell Sailing Family:

First and foremost:

• a gimbaled propane stove/oven combo
• dinghy davits
• solar panel and/or wind generator
• PWM solar charge controller (though we won't know what we need until we have the above item(s))
• a pack of emergency plugs for the hull of the boat

Tomorrow morning, we will be heading to the salvage boat yard where we hope to find some of these items for a price that's a bit more in our range.  We are really keeping our fingers crossed for the stove as we have now used our current stove (an alcohol/electric) once, though we tried twice.  The electric part does not function and we felt as though we were going to lose eyebrows lighting the alcohol part of the stove, a stove - btw - that does not move to keep up with the movement of the waves.  So, yeah: buh-bye!

Once those are done, then we can move onto these type of "wantneeds":

• refrigeration (so hoping we find one of these at the pick-a-part place for much less!)
• larger holding tanks and/or jerry jugs for our water and fuel

Finally, we know there will be those "oh, wouldn't it be nice" items:

• autopilot
• freshwater maker

Now, this is our Amazon Wish List for the boat - it has Rob's name on it, we both worked on it!  Again, though the list is on a website which allows people to buy us these things, we are not looking for people to do so - it's a way we can look at our budget versus what we have on the list.  I am also just trying to keep a running list of our needs and wants throughout this whole journey!

In addition to these items - did you think there could be an "addition to" after all that?! - we are going to be doing bulk food shopping for dry goods (flour, rice, beans, etc.), paper goods and toiletries, and canned goods.  We have a fairly good supply and I realize that there are plenty of staples to be bought on every island we go to, but there are some things that will be more expensive and are better bought here.  We also learned that one of our fellow cruisers around here is a distributor of Mormon food and will place orders for cruisers, including people going in together to split certain foods.

(Side note: This is a bit scary - why is the U.S. government interested in people who are storing food?  And, why is there a "sneak and peek gag rule" in the "Patriot" Act?  Just a thought...)

Oh!  Speaking of As Yet Unnamed Boat (I did, there were just MANY links between then and now), we have finally decided on a name for her!!!  However, Poseidon needs to have a ceremony that involves other people, the name already being painted on the boat, and LOTS of champagne in order for him to accept her new name and allow her safe passage on the open sea.  Once we have gone through all of that, you will get to know her name!  Anyone going to be in the Florida Keys area in the next few weeks for a ceremony?  There'll be booze!

Alright, so that took much longer to write than I was hoping!  But, in that amount of time, Rob built a mounting for the computer monitor that is being turned into a TV (it's bigger than the monitor on the laptop) and installed another plug into the boat!  I am SO impressed with my handy-dandyman!!!  In conclusion, we send up thanks for what we have, for what we will be able to get, and for our abilities to provide for ourselves when possible!