Mobile to Destin, Destin to Key West!

Time again to update the blog! It's been a while so I gotta start from Mobile. After all the time spent in the rivers, we set up camp for about 4 days at the dog river marina south of Mobile on the west side of the bay. We spent those 4 days with our friends John and Erin from Luna Sea. Lots of rest and relaxation along with a little boat work.

Our 1st night at Mobile, Tuesday, was a quiet one. We set up camp and spent our dinners with the Luna Sea crew each night. Friends we already miss. They're currently on their way west to Galveston, TX.

Wednesday night was supposed to be another low key night, and all was going to plan until the man, the myth, the legend, DON JOHNSON happened. Straight out of south Alabama in his rickidy pontoon boat coming from up river on a mission. The chance encounter happened while I was walking along the dock between Luna Sea and YOLO. DON JOHNSON (I keep capping his name to illustrate to the reader that he said his name, first and last, loudly, a lot) slowly motored by our exposed slip and shouted from about 50 feet away: "Where y'all from?" I shouted "Minnesota". This led him to think we'd all be great friends (even though I don't think he had any real ties to the great white north). He politely asks the 4 of us to join him across the river on his (not so) seaworthy craft for some drinks on him. Being poor and thinking this might be interesting, I grabbed the rest of our 4 person crew and we all hopped on board (both his boat and a night of insanity!) We safely manage the river crossing and docking to find out that he only brought us over with bribes of free drinks if we would pretend to be his friends and talk him up to the barkeep. I guess he wasn't so popular over there and wanted to redeem his street cred. Oh well, free drinks! After a few rounds he INSISTED we all go back to his place up the river... (Banjos, I know...) Properly lubricated by this point, I convince the crew that nothing bad would happen and let's give this guy a shot. Sounded to me like he really just wanted the company. Long story short (very short, sorry mom, can't get into details here) we ended up having an extremely unexpected BLAST involving dirt bikes and a volkswagon "thing"! He even delivered us back to our vessels later that night unharmed. A night we soon wont forget.

On to thursday... The long awaited reunion with Jimmy and Kim from the beautiful yacht Aquaholic. The long awaited reunion was primarily due to his hasty departure from Demopolis, AL where we met him and Kim the night before (note previous entry). So, we finally got his end of the story (and permission to tell it on here)....

So... we had a rough and rowdy night the night we met John, Erin, Jimmy and Kim. I think that's evident by the photos. Anyway, all of us at the end of the night resigned to our respective boats. We were awoke early by the thunder of Jimmy's huge twin diesels firing up. Why was he leaving so soon? and why not the goodbye? Andy and I rush out to see him motoring away from the dock we wave goodbye and he yells back "I left a suitcase there on the dock for you". Confused we turned back and saw the suitcase sitting outside the fuel dock office. The dockmaster explained to us that he had dropped it off for Kim who was supposedly on one of our boats. Where the hell did he think she was? Sure wasn't on our boat. We did a quick search of Luna Sea to unearth no evidence there either. Where was she? We started thinking bad thoughts, did she get lost? did she drown? We recapped with John and Erin and couldn't figure it out. About 2 hours go by then we see Jimmy return in Aquaholic. He didn't even have to say anything, his face explained the tail between his legs... He thought he was kicking her off the boat, but didn't realize she was actually on the boat the whole time and he somehow couldn't find her on it. As he approached the dock, he saw us standing there... "guys, i'm in BIG trouble, could you grab that suitcase and throw it on the bow!? this is gonna be an akward rest of the trip boys!" as he motored away (for the 2nd time that morning) we saw Kim emerge to wave goodbye to us. Oh how akward it would be on that boat for a while! He explained the story to us just as we had imagined it played out. How funny! Turns out he left early, locked himself in (accidentally locking her out) and upon her return, discovering that she could not gain access to the interior, decided to make her bed on top of the boat using cushions as blankets.

Our original plan had us sailing to gulf shores, AL where Jimmy Buffett's sister Lucy owns LuLu's Homeport Marina (Aquaholic's home). Unfortunately poor weather prevented us from making the bay crossing so, with Emily's (andy's sister) sweet hook ups at Enterprise, we rented a car and set out (the 4 of us again) to meet up with Kim and Jimmy one last time before they drove back up to Indiana/Tennesee. Good times were had by all. The six of us stayed on their boat that night then set out to Demopolis, AL about 3 hours north where John from Luna Sea left his VW wagon. We had the rental car back in time friday afternoon then rested one more night before beginning down the road once again.

Saturday morning we set out eastward into the intracoastal towards Pensacola where, on sunday afternoon Our college buddy Dan Gullickson had a chance to totally redeem himself from standing us up in St Louis. He was even nice enough to drive us to the Naval Air Museum at The navy base there. Pretty cool stuff. He stayed the night on the boat with us Sunday night then headed out with his sights set 800 miles east to his home in Charleston, SC. Thanks for coming dan. Good times.

We kept our pace eastward with a close eye on the Gulf weather marine forecasts for our chance to head out and down to the keys. Finally, Tuesday seemed as promising as any to make a safe passage so we topped off the water and fuel in Destin, FL. I wanted to get some Key's charts, fishing gear, and coffee but to my disappointment the marina had none of this. A nice old man named Mike heard me and offered to take me to town to get the supplies. Quite a character this one, but kind nonetheless. We ended up having to make 4 stops. Three for me and one for him to pick up his dog, Synbad (allegedly named after his ex girlfriend named Sydney cuz she was bad) I came back to the boat and Andy was ready to go so we hit the open sea!

Our 1st major open ocean passage took a total of 81 hours. We motored for the 1st 30 hours then motorsailed about 10 hours and sailed the last half all the way up to Key West! Almost all the way we had various pods of dolphins hanging with us. Really cool stuff! They would discover us, swim alongside us at our pace for 15-20 minutes then break away. An hour or so would go by and another pod would show up to check us out. We got some really cool footage!

We had some great winds and a great ride until thursday morning about 3AM the wind (and seas) picked up a little more. Soon we were riding 8-9' rolling waves hitting our port beam. It gave us quite a ride and a pretty intense sail for about 24 hours.

Trying hard to make our landfall before the sun set on Friday night, we hustled as fast as we could but realized by friday morning we weren't going to succeed. We started devising a plan. We thought about slowing down, but didn't like that idea. Our GPS plotted a Mooring buoy about 10 miles north of Key west (which we surmised was for tourist SCUBA boats or something of that sort...) We expertly navigated towards that buoy and made it about 10 minutes after the sun went down... Perfect timing! But... we were pretty wrong... We tied up to the mooring buoy, and (thankfully) armed our GPS anchor drag alarm. It took only about 4 minutes before the GPS beeped at us telling us we had drifted over 500'. What the heck was this mooring buoy doing??? Closer inspection revealed we had tied up to some commercial fishermens fishnets, dragging them all over and probably fouling them up. Oops. Well, at this point it's dark and we don't wanna just bob all night so we made the decision to motor into port at night. All proved to be fine and safe, it was a well lit, well marked channel that guided us in safely, we called some people and got the recommendations on where to anchor and we found a nice little place to drop the hook among about 2 dozen other sailboats within dinghy distance of downtown Key West!

We've spent only one night here so far and we LOVE this place! I think we'll plan on spending at least a week here if not more. We'll see. We had a ball last night and plan on doing the same tonight. We've already made new friends and had them on the boat a couple times. Lauren, Erin, and Carla are all college friends and currently Medical Professionals of some sort on an extended weekend ladies get away. Cool people.

Currently I'm at a bar watching the ducks pull a close one off on Cal. My 1st Duck game i've seen on TV since this trip (sadly I can't watch my ducks during the best season since the '30s). Anyway... all the way out here in Key west, I sniffed out a fellow duck fan watching the game! McKenna was sporting a Duck Jersey and I had to stop and ask if it was true! Sure enough she was an alum from '03 and We hit it off.

YOLO hits the saltwater accompanied by dolphins!

Demopolis, Alabama was a welcome sight after several days at anchor in the middle of "deliverance" country.  It had been days since we had seen any civilization and kept thinking we were hearing banjoes playing in the woods.  Since it is the only marina for miles Demopolis yacht basin was full, there were no docks for us to tie to, but a nice young couple invited us to raft-off of their trawler and tie up alongside them in the marina.  Their names are John and Erin and after moving out of their house the beautiful trawler Luna-Sea is now their home.    

Erin the first mate on Luna-Sea

Pretty sweet home with an awesome name that describes their new lifestyle perfectly!

John invited us aboard and offered us some delicious Busch lights in camo cans, these were soon gone so we made beer run in John's rockin VW bus.  It's the perfect rock climber vehicle and we found out he has climbed all over the country and is also a pilot that has restored his own airplane!

They weren't the only interesting couple at this port and soon we had some other visitors on Luna-Sea.  A funny southern fella named Jimmy and his "friend" Kim.  They were on "Aqua-Holic" the obnoxiously huge nearly new yacht of every boaters envy.  Jimmy gave us a tour and the men were most impressed by the stand-up soundproof engine room that housed enormous diesels, while the ladies were most impressed by the fancy bathrooms.  He told us that he's semi retired and plans on spending the winter at Jimmy Buffett's sisters marina in Gulf Shores, AL. (we promised we would visit him there on our way through which will be tomorrow)

Back on John and Erin's boat they ordered a pizza for all of us, they are a really fun couple and we had a blast.  Eventually the party moved over to quaint little YOLO where many beers were drank, funny snowsuits were worn, journal entries were written, and other weird things happened.  A great time was had by all. (hence all the funny journal entries in our ships log)  The next morning a very funny thing occurred that I will write about later after we hear the rest of the story tomorrow from our friends on Aqua-Holic!

Here we were relaxing on YOLO instead of the 60 foot yachts surrounding us.
From left to right Erin, Jimmy, Kim, me, and John

Our new friends took us on a Wal-mart run in their VW hippie van!

We made good time the next few days after Demopolis trying to keep up with Luna-Sea.  Every night we enjoyed the company of our new friends and have been eating dinner together.  Bobby's fish camp on Halloween turned out to be a very desolate place far from any civilization but of course it turned out to be tons of fun.  

  

Today we finally made it to Mobile, AL and the rivers are behind us.  What a phenomenal feeling it was to finally be sailing in the ocean and we are ecstatic that we are here and made it so quickly.  Both Lance's dad and my dad told us the same thing "you guys are going to fast, you should stop and smell the roses along the way."  Now that we are in the ocean and will be surrounded by white sandy beaches and palm trees I think we are ready to do just that.  Today we already saw dolphins swimming near our boat and we are just so happy to be in a place where that is possible!  We are tied to a dock at Dog River Marina right next to Luna-Sea and planning to visit our friends on Aqua-Holic tomorrow in Gulf-Shores.  The best part of this trip so far has been meeting all the interesting people along the way, it started in Bayfield and has continued all the way to the Gulf, boating people are just F*&% awesome!

Mobile Bay!  It felt good to finally hit the salt water and raise the sails! Mobile, AL in the background.  We saw dolphins right after this but didn't get a picture.

"YOLO" our vessel's legal name is finally displayed on our stern!
Don't worry we had a renaming ceremony and our good luck should continue

New Friends David and Rose' who lived on a giant houseboat at Paris landing  celebrated with us.
They donated an excellent bottle of champagne for us to sacrifice into the water to keep Poseidon happy!

Our friends Paul and Ellen from Bayfield who own the Rum Line bar spend their winters here in Clifton, TN
We got to meet them for a night and a great Cajun dinner.  Nice to see some Bayfield faces!

Mississippi... DONE, Ohio... DONE!!

With much less than a good nights sleep sunday night, we got up early to contend with the last few days of the mississippi river. We would have to cover 180 river miles to make it to the confluence of the Ohio at Cairo, IL (which, after I probably sounded like an idiot, found out it's pronounced KAY-row). We casted our lines from the barge we were tied to before the sun rose in a effort to get an early start. Serendipitously, in our early start, we forgot to pay for the extra night we just spent tied up (Sorry about that Jimmy!). We set our course towards the lock and dam at the Kaskaskia river, 80 miles down river. The current helped to push us an additional 3-4 kts and we made it all the way to our 1st planned destination well before the sun set. However, this was not achieved without a stop 20 miles south of St Louis at the famed "Hoppies" marina for a Diesel / Water top off. This place was something else. Dirty old houseboats, beer cans rolling all over the place, mismatched lawn furniture of decades past right on the docks. It was what Craig Morgan sung about in his song, redneck yacht club. We were also told by wiser men than us that we had to stop there to meet this legendary "Fern" character. She's a 70 something year old lady who runs the joint. She knows the river better than anyone. She knew every bend and every mile marker on every river in the heartland! While smoking and filling our diesel tanks (yes, simultaneously...) she gave us some serious pointers that have helped us navigate these sometimes tricky waters. Don't worry, we evaded ignition.

We woke again VERY early from being tied up to the upriver approach lock wall at the kaskaskia lock, this time still in the dark to punch through our longest day yet 103 miles. Fern gave us the info on a potential anchoring spot 7 miles upstream from Cairo. We did our part and made sure we were there before the sun set, but once we made it, we weren't so sure of this anchorage and thought it to be a good idea to press on through the night and shave some time off our trip towards salt water. We consulted the upcoming locks on the Ohio to get a grasp on what kind of current and barge traffic we'd have to contend with and made our decision to press on. It turned in to a semi good idea.

There were 3 locks to contend with on the Ohio. #54 was still under construction and we bypassed it. #53 had the dam lowered so we were told to motor over the dam, kinda weird but we did it without problem. #52 (i curse this one)... We waited ELEVEN HOURS for our turn to lock through! Aparently their main lock was busted so they were using their "auxillary" lock. That's engineer speak for "smaller". So small that the barges (sometimes up to 5 barges wide by 7 barges long) had to break up and go through like 8 at a time... It created quite the traffic jam. We arrived at the lock a little after 1AM when we were instructed over the radio that we should just drop anchor off channel and wait our turn. we waited with baited breath through the night for our turn that never seemed to come, finally a little after noon we were let through with a smaller set of barges. I'm really not a fan of locks.

Finally on our way up the rest of the Ohio we took a right turn up the Tennessee river to another 3 hour wait at the Kentucky Lake Lock. We made it into Kentucky Lake last night around 8pm and carefully navigated the narrowly dredged entrance to our marina for the night. It was here that today we finally put the mast back up. It was a lot of tedious busy work getting it back into place, re connected, secured, rigged, adjusted, and most of all TESTED! we sailed YOLO for the 1st time this evening at sunset along the way to our rest area for the night, Moors Marina and Campground. but the spot would have already told you that. Sorry there's no pictures, our memory card was full. Pictures tomorrow. You'll just have to take my word for it, YOLO looks good under full sail!

A real St Louis Sendoff!

Andy and I, rejuvenated with showers, a good meal, and a real roof over our head for a night in good company (Thanks again to Eric's Aunt Lynne), returned "home" Sunday morning to hang out and wait for two more guests. My old college buddy Dan Gullickson ended up coming all the way to St Louis from South Carolina, only to stand us up. However, Andy's little sister, Emily, pulled through and found time to mix in a little pleasure with her coinciding business trip to St Louis. Andy found her wandering near the Arc and she came aboard YOLO a little after 1pm. Immediately she was captivated by our new laid back lifestyle. I don't think she got over it the whole time she was here. We decided it would be fitting to do a Anheuser-Busch brewery tour while in the gateway to the west, but with a quick smartphone internet search we discovered even Budwiser doesn't work on Sundays.

Not all was lost, the Rams just beat the San Diego Chargers, so we decided to mingle with the hometown folk downtown after the game. A quick stroll wound us up in a bar so cool it didn't have a name beyond the street names it resides on the corners of. 6th and Lucas was packed with lively Rams fans celebrating one of those rare Rams victories. We were even able to catch the tail end of the Vikings game as they pulled it off against Dallas.

Little did we know this would be the exact right place to be, for we ended up meeting several new friends. Andy, Phil, Chris, Kari, Tony, (random drunk girl in a red hat) and Nick (oh, and Jessica, who I never got a chance to say goodbye to). Not after our 1st drink was ordered, Emily was already bragging to some stranger at the bar how cool she thinks we are. Introductions were made and shots were had. Even the bartender (Andy) was getting into the little social network. Turns out all these guys were bartenders i think. The ones we were bellied up with worked at another swankier bar. Nonetheless all cool enough people to invite back to the boat for a little party extension.

We all had a great time on YOLO. Kari tried pretty hard to catch a fish, but to no avail, sorry kari... and thanks for the funny new entries in the ships log by Phil, Tony, and Nick. All good stuff.

STL

Congrats Eric and Erin

Junior, Devin, and Eric in Beardstown, IL

We made it to St. Louis! It's been an exciting week since our last update. We had many visitors and met lots of new friends. Three of our college buddy's met us in the small town of Beardstown, IL. Jason and Devin Duvernay came for an exciting night aboard, although they had to leave the next morning and didn't get to travel down the river with us, they did get to experience the Logsdon Tug Service. It wasn't quite a 5 star marina, and was actually just a tugboat company that let us tie onto their barge. Also Eric Wehrman joined us that evening and since he has some time off before he starts his new job with Delta Airlines he got to travel down the Illinois river with us. Before they arrived they all went to the grocery store for us and we were replenished with perishable foods. The next night we dropped the anchor near a small island and cooked a feast. Eric was a bit concerned that we had no cell phone reception and we were in the middle of nowhere, but soon he really started to enjoy the fact that we were cut off from the rest of the world.

The next morning we had an exciting experience in the lock, that included being blasted by the propwash from a tugboat pushing 12 barges! Twas quite scary for us all, and it changed Eric's attitude about transiting through locks (initially he was really excited to see one in action). The afternoon brought us to our destination of Grafton, IL which is the confluence of the Illinois and the Mississippi rivers. Now we really had some current pushing us, but with that came lots of deadheads floating by. In Grafton Eric's new Fiance Erin Obrien joined us for the night (congratulations you guys!). She met us at the Loading Dock bar where we tied up for the night. There was a bonfire going on and again people caught wind of our adventure, the Caterpillar employees from Decatur were asking us questions about the boat so of course we had to invite them aboard. They were a bit intoxicated and wrote some very funny entries into the ships log!

Rowdy bunch from Decatur at the Loading Dock

Aunt Lynne introduced us to the most delicious frozen custard in St. Louis

Erin and Eric joined us for the rest of the journey to St. Louis. Erin's beautiful female voice seduced the lockmasters into expediting our travel through. Right I am using the internet at Eric's Aunt's house. This sweet woman named Lynn took us to Vietnamese dinner and Ted Drewes custurd for dessert! Then she must have realized we were quite smelly and offered us a shower and a bed for the night, so we thought we better take advantage. Thanks for the breakfast and spatula too Lynne!

Motorboatin' River Rats

Here we are at a Holiday Inn lounge in Peoria, IL. Sitting in the lounge with our laptops posing as guests is the best way to get wireless internet in this town, and we have lots to write about.

Base of the sears tower on the starboard side

No longer the sailing purists of the Apostle Islands, we are now riverboat captains. Entering the Illinois waterway under the low bridges of downtown Chicago with skyscrapers sprouting up from the river 10 feet from our gunwales was a memorable experience.

We found a great marina right in Chi-town, on canal street next to chinatown. After docking the boat we met a nice gentleman named Mike who was working on his boat and getting it prepped for new paint. He gave us some tips and advice on the area, and suggested we go to Chinatown. We could already smell the chinese food and we had a friend coming to visit so we walked over the bridge to find some dinner. My good friend Rachel Frey took the "L" train to come see us and it was actually her first time to this chinese neighborhood, we indulged in some Peking duck and kung pau chicken. She came to see the boat and then invited us to see her new house. It was worth the long ride on the "L" train for the cookies baked by her roommate Kelli. We were inspired by all their beautiful artwork, Lance painted a sailboat mural on their back door and Kelli promised to paint us a small nude woman that shall indeed bring good luck to YOLO at sea. We made it back to the boat at about 3am, but still managed to start the next day at 7am. We are obviously excited to get to the Salty water, and warm weather!

In Joliet, IL we ran into our first "river problem" whilst tied up to the wall at a park downtown. Still trying to recuperate from our late night partying in chinatown, we were preparing for bed at around 9pm, but just before turning in for the night we heard voices outside the boat. Thank got Lance peered out the porthole and saw that the wall was moving. WE WERE ADRIFT! I popped out of the campanionway in time to see 2 young hoodlums running away. Now we were worried that if we fell asleep they would comeback and untie us again and we would wake up to the sound of being crushed by a barge. So we rigged up some defense systems and booby traps, chained to the wall with a padlock, and hung pots and pans on our dock lines to warn us of intruders. We even set up our anchor drag alarm on the GPS and had the flare gun ready to go. We wanted to sleep peacefully.

Luckily another boater came to tie up on the same wall and it made us feel more comfortable. His name was Scott and he was delivering a fancy new boat down the river. As a professional captain he had lots of great advice for us. He even marked special recommended spots on our maps, and told us where to stop along the rivers for the next several weeks.

Scott was already gone when we awoke at 7:30, he was probably smart to do so because shortly after we learned another lesson. A large powerboat filled with douchebags flew by at a ridiculously fast pace and close distance. It tossed up such a wake that YOLO's toe-rail scraped on the cement wall despite being gaurded by 4 fenders! I guess we will have to learn to deal with it, because the wake off the enormous barges of the Mississippi will be even bigger.

One of the 8 locks on the Illinois Waterway. These boaters were part of a club in Chillicothe, and they were very interested in our trip. All the spectators above were asking us questions about our trip after they saw we came from MN!

Bad start to the day, but things got better. Another 80 degree sunny day and the Illinois river is finally looking cleaner and not smelling of garbage. The trees are showing their autumn colors and factories and plants are giving way to forests, hills and state parks. Descended 3 locks, met many more pleasure boaters in this area and made it to Ottowa for the night, one of Scotts recommended ports.

Yesterday we planned on a short 40 mile day, but every marina we tried to get into was too shallow. We even ran aground trying to reach some docks before sunset. Apparently the Illinois river water level is very low right now, and as a sailboat our keel is much deeper than any other boats around here. We need about 6 feet of water at the dock and we couldn't find that until we got to Peoria in the dark last night. That turned the day into about 80 river miles, and a dangerous nighttime river run. On the way we saw enough of the Asian flying carp to justify the redneck fishing tournament which is held in Bath, IL. In this contest fishermen are only allowed to catch Asian carp in their boat or with nets. Everytime one of these flatbottomed boats came by in the shallows there was a frenzy of hundreds of jumping fish following behind. While parking at the dock last night in Peoria one particularly feisty 2 foot long carp jumped onto our boat and landed on my ankle, he left quite a slime trail as I kicked him overboard!

More on Macinac

Macinac Island from Lake Huron

This place has no cars, just bikes and Horse drawn carriages.

Andy and I weren't dressed fancy enough to even walk in eyeshot of the guests at this ritzy place.

But that didn't stop andy and I from sneaking in and using their hot tub in the middle of the night.

Our new friends Dick and Dick, a pair of lively Yoopers (UPers, Upper Penninsula, MI) Perhaps Andy and I 40 years from now. They were slipped next to us in Macinac.

Taking the mast down...

We've been slipped in port at the Waukegan Port District (Waukegan, IL) since Monday evening. Our original plan had us going all the way to Chicago, but without the wind for 2 straight days, we motored through the rest of our diesel supply (that we forgot to top off in Mackinac!) and realized that we couldn't make the full distance under steam power so we ducked into Waukegan for fuel. Turns out they charged way less for slip rental and destepping the mast than in Chicago, so we decided to make this place our home for a few days. Other than having no wind on Sunday or Monday, we had a real nice passage from Mackinac Island (Mackinac Bridge pictured above on a cold saturday morning). We even made a friend, a little bird kept flying back and forth to and from our boat. We named him boomerang, a friendly little guy who was probably trying to find a place to take a breather, not sure how he got out that far.

Yesterday we had our 1st hometown visitor on our trip! Chris Warrington graced YOLO with his presence in Waukegan. He came bearing the gift of power in the form of 2 6v Golf cart batteries for our house battery bank. I wired those bad boys up then we hopped into his car to make a run to home depot to get materials to fabricate stands to rest our mast on the deck. This morning we had the crane pluck the mast out and off the boat and rest it on our mounts. We are now gonna be doin nothing but motorboatin' for a few weeks. (that last sentence is for you, Wheatley!)

Mackinac Island

Currently tied up at the marina in this touristy island village.  Freshly showered and enjoying a beer whilst listening to classical music, life couldn't get much better.  I take that back it could be a bit better had we not lost our only winch handle overboard in Lake Huron today!  After I emerged from the V-berth to take over for Lance, I thought he was playing a trick on me by hiding the winch handle and telling me it went overboard.  However it was not a cruel joke we actually had to sail the second half of the day without being able to properly trim our sails.  We made it safely to Mackinac Island and went in search of a new winch handle which should be easy to find in this sailing mecca, the finish line of two of the biggest sailing races in the country.  We were privately let into the ships store which had been closed for the season and were surprised that they also were lacking one of the most basic items needed on a sailboat.  Tomorrow we will pick one up on the mainland in Mackinac City and continue in the direction of Chi-town where we will have to lower our mast to fit under the bridges in downtown Chicago and continue down the barge canal toward the Mississippi River.

Something that is amazing to lance and I is the amount of interest and support people have been giving us.  Everyone we meet along the way, wants to know more about our trip and can't believe how far we've already come even though we're only five days from home.  Even as I type we have two yoopers aboard, they are both named Richard and their 26 ft sailboat is one of the only others in the marina tonight.  Today we even printed out some business cards with our blog/contact info to hand out to people because we are so tired of writing it down all the time.  Even more flattering has been all the help we've had preparing for this adventure.  The support we've had from our friends and family has been absolutely phenomenal.  We would like to give a special thanks to all of our new friends from this summer.  Without their wisdom, advice, and gifts our asses wouldn't have made it past Madeline Island!  Thank you to Jim and B.J. Collier, Cynthia, Diane, Captain Dave, and Scott and Jeniffer Brigham.  We can only hope to find a way to repay you all and hopefully someday we shall be mentors to others who are new to the sailing community.  The Brigham couple, pictured above, has been planning to sail their beautiful vessel "Pendragon" to the southern latitudes and they are so prepared I think they have 10 spares onboard for every part of their boat.  They have helped us in a multitude of ways and have gifted us with their friendship and many other sailing items.  On the day we departed from our marina they played a trick on us and taped a new boat name to our stern, "Yo Hoe".  We knew it was them because they also left a bag of gifts and books that we have already begun to indulge in.  Soon we will apply the new decals to our stern with the official name Y O L O.

Cheers

Sault Ste. Marie, MI !!!

We crossed the whole of lake superior from Bayfield to Whitefish Bay in just under 51 hrs of straight sailing (and a little motoring during lulls of wind), taking 4-hr shifts at the helm and either sleeping, eating, or just relaxing during off shifts. Other than a couple sailboats in the Apostles shortly after our departure, we were the only pleasure vessel on the whole lake for the 2+ days. We did, however see several 1000' lake ships traversing both west and east.

We set foot on dry land for the 1st time last night at the Whitefish Point Harbor of Refuge after safe passage of the "Graveyard of the Great Lakes" (if you don't know what I'm talking about, google it). We found a free place to dock and after a brief exploration of the surrounding area, and obligatory calls to our mothers, we quickly succumbed to an overwhelming exhaustion. Alarms set for 6AM sharp, we hit the racks on still water to get a good 8 hrs of sleep. This morning We guided YOLO through the channel leading up to the Soo locks, sharing it with 3 other 1000' ships waiting to get through. Pretty intense! those things are HUGE and pictures don't really give it justice. These things are 4x wider than we are long. Tonight we're holed up at a harbor just on the east side of the locks. I'm currently writing this blog entry from a diner in town enjoying what Andy insisted was the best dish of the U.P., Pasties (pretty much a chicken pot pie) not bad, the fact this place has internet is what I'm really excited about. Until next time...

Time to set sail!

To all our dedicated followers, the time has finally come! This afternoon, Sunday the 26th of September at approximately 4:30PM we will cast our lines for the final time at Pikes Bay Marina. Stay tuned to this blog (especially the tracker) to follow our progress.

Thanks to all of you who came to the Bon Voyage party in Superior. Also thanks for all the help this summer from those who emparted their knowledge and skills. Thanks to everyone for all the support and gifts this last week as we prepared to depart.

Lance and Andy

Final preparations are complete!

Lance and I finally finished the installation of the solar panels and refrigeration with the help of a friend visiting from India.  Whilst we worked on mounting the panels atop the bimini, Titli spent her first 2 days of vacation helping us organize and make space for everything.  It was quite difficult to fit everything needed, but we did it and are now liveaboards on a 30 foot boat!  Without much space left we decided to provision for the first part of the trip.  With a heaping shopping cart full of non-perishables at checkout we had doubts wether it would all fit in the galley.  Somehow we made it work, hopefully Lance will be happy with the menu choices.  Our vessel is now fully dressed in it's canvas, creating its own electricity, and provisioned for at least a month.  The time has come to point our rudder north and begin our voyage on Sunday!

GPS Tracking

Good news for everyone who wants to keep tabs on our location. We just got a satellite tracking system for the boat! Look towards the top of the page where it says "Where in the world is YOLO". Click that link and it will bring you to our public tracking page. Just disregard the fact that it says we're in North Carolina. I was just here for work, bought it and couldn't resist trying it out. Enjoy!

Bon Voyage Party Update...

To those attending:

Bring whoever you want. All are welcome. It will be held at the Duluth Power and Sail Squadron dock in Superior, WI... There will be ample space for all to camp out if you wish to stay the night (we recommend it, it will be fun!). There's a big picnic shelter ( approx 80' x 140'), BBQ for grillin, playground for the kiddos, and a big fire pit for later. If you are a fellow mariner you can sail/motor to the party. There's plenty of free space to dock for the night as well. Also, there's a boat launch right there that you can use to launch your boat if you want to trailer it over.

If you feel like bringing food, please do... but it's not required. BYO Booze tho.

It's a tricky place to find so follow these instructions...

From the Twin Cities:

I-35 North towards Duluth

Hwy 2 East to Superior, WI

Keep following the signs to stay on Hwy 2

Turn left on 39th Ave E (at Grumpy's Tavern)

Turn right on E Itasca St

Turn left on 44th Ave E

Continue down the gravel past the yellow gate

drive in until you see parked cars and find a place to park.

From Westbound Hwy 2 coming from Bayfield, or elsewhere in Northern WI, just turn right on 39th Ave E and follow those instructions from there.

Work Work Work...

Andy and I busted out 5 straight days of work aboard YOLO last week. We are fixing her up for the epic journey to come. We got some serious work done, but still have some serious work ahead of us to get her ready. Our biggest success.... got the fridge installed and already enjoyed the fruits of our labor on that one. we had rum and coke (WITH ICE!!!) followed by a couple cold beers! I'm really gonna dig this fridge. You can see a "during photo of hte fridge, we forgot to snap an "after" pic. We also finally figured out the problem with the autopilot and got that fixed too. Andy figured out the tachometer and we got the oil pressure light working again as well. Good instruments to have if we're gonna be motoring for almost a month straight to get to the gulf. We changed the fuel filter (see andy under the sink). We got the solar charge controller mounted and I've been bustin my noggin trying to learn how to wire everything up with the solar panels, batteries, and house electrical (see me in the locker). I think I've got it figured out, but we'll see. Andy slipped on his climing harness and I hoisted him up to the top of the mast to check out our lights (hoping we had an LED anchor light up there. :( we don't.) we'll have to get one and put it up there.

We did all kinds of stuff but this is just some highlights of our efforts. Unfortunately, the one project we did not get to complete was the mounting of the solar panels. This is proving to be a pain in my ass. I think I've got all the materials we need now, but i'm stuck at work and cannot get to the boat until the 12th or so. It will be a happy day for me to post the "after pictures" of the solar panels on here!

Hope to see you all at the bon voyage party!