Small Projects - round 1

A few of the projects we've each been working on:

Mark swapped out the old bronze bilge filter for a new one.  See that little leg on the right of the old filter (the one in his hand)?  Those should be all around the circle...  

Before Teak Oil treatment

After Teak Oil treatment

I've been removing "Pleiades" from everything to get ready for the Name Change ceremony.  

I changed all 3 propane tanks and the horseshoe life raft thingy.

Mark straightened out the smooshed metal thingys on the A/C - guess some charter folks got crazy  one night back in the boat's previous life...

He also caulked a gap that he discovered - this, along with some 3" foam insulation around the grate should make the unit so much more efficient!

I still need to remove the name on the stern and  bow, but at least she's no longer from England...  

Maiden Voyage!

Loaded up Saturday morning and took Luna out for our first solo voyage!  Gotta say we've been intimidated about getting her out of the slip and  - well, back into the the slip.  She's huge.  At lease she feels huge compared to the 18' bow rider we're used to handling.  But after today, she feels a lot more manageable.

We headed out of the marina and practiced using the genoa.  We tacked back and forth, moving the genoa from starboard to port and back again.  We also both played around with moving in and out of the wind.  At one point, while the genoa was flopping about in the wind a bit (we'd not "perfected" our technique at that point), the boat hook went overboard. Mark was pretty quick to get the boat around - but not before the hook weebled and wobbled and went under.  The next boat hook will be filled with expandable foam before stepping foot on the boat.

Not only did we successfully leave the dock - without playing bumper boats with all of our neighbors, but we sailed her.  Like - for real sailed her.  No motor.  Just the genoa and the wind.  I think I like this sailing thing.

So much STUFF!

After sleeping for 12hrs Wednesday night, we loaded up the wieners and headed to Luna Sea.  She's just a couple of miles from the condo.  We spent all day Thursday and part of Friday going through every.single.compartment.  The previous owners were meticulous.  We have all kinds of spares, custom fitted sheet sets (2) for each cabin, pots, pans, towels, tools.  You name it - short of food, and personal touches, she's set.  It was like Christmas everytime we moved on to another cabinet or cubby hole.

Molly and Libby have requested that we move the boat to a slip nearer to the grass.  We're almost the last boat in the furthest slip on the longest dock.  You can't get much further from the grass.  We'll have to talk to the marina manager Monday on their behalf...

A wee bit of footage from our ocean passage.  Surrounded by water!

Bringing her home

We did it.  We got Luna Sea home.  What a crazy 3 days!  Here's the breakdown.

Sunday we picked up the rental minivan and headed over to pick up the Captain.  It was a five or so hour drive south from Savannah, GA to Melbourne, FL.  Pretty uneventful - and long.  We closed on Friday and were anxious to get there - she'd been ours for 2 days and we were sure she was getting lonely.  We were like kids waiting to get to the waterpark - we joked, but Are we there yet? kept bouncing around the whole trip.

We stopped by West Marine and picked up the whisker pole (I know what it does now!) and after a quick run through of the boat, we headed to the grocery store to stock up on a few last minute items.  There were some issues with the A/C units - in fact, we're still figuring out what exactly is going on... We also got her running and over to the fuel docks just before they closed.  The marina she was staying in was crazy-tight and crowded.  But the Captain got her around after some tricky maneuvering.

Our first sunset

Monday we woke up early and squeaked back out of our slip.  We took the ICW all the way up to Ponce Inlet, FL.  We were hit with a couple of rain storms, but for the most part it was uneventful.  We motor-sailed the whole way - it was a good test for the engine before our planned jump over to the ocean Tuesday morning.  The actual inlet was tricky.  According to the marina, the channel was well marked.  According to the motor yacht high and dry on a sand bar, we found that not to be the case.  We inched - seriously inched our way thru some super shallow areas with our 6' 4" draft.  Mark was at the helm and only bumped twice.  Luna held up well and came right off the bar fairly easily.

Cruising the ICW.  That storm caught us and we got a free shower.

Marina life is not for us.  At least not in a transient capacity.  After coughing up $112 for 6 gallons of diesel and the pleasure of tying up at the dock and using our A/C, we grabbed dinner at the dock's restaurant and got our last night of sleep before the ocean passage.  We'll anchor out in the future.  

We headed out Tuesday morning - a bit before low tide, so we were able to actually see the sand bars as we headed out to the ocean.  Motor yacht was still lounging on the sand bar.  I guess they didn't want to be bothered with getting off during the 4:30am high tide...

A pile of squirmy manatees in the inlet.

We pulled out of Ponce Inlet at 9:30am on Tuesday and sailed on into Wilmington Island, GA at 12:30 on Wednesday.  That's 27hrs of motorsailing,  nonstop.  The boat held up beautifully.  We all took 2hr shifts thru the night - everything was a new experience for us and it was very reassuring to have the experienced, calm Captain onboard.  The lightening storms, winds and night watch would've been much more unnerving otherwise.

We feel like we learned a lot.  We debated over hiring a Captain - but wouldn't trade that experience/knowledge for anything.  I definitely recommend it for any other new sailors bringing their ship home!

That's about it.  We got to the marina in one piece.  Luna was awesome - we were really pleased with the sail home and the comfort level of the 393.  Almost as comfortable as our couch when we got home and passed out for 12hrs.

ps.
We never used that $400 whisker pole.

Facebook Page: for when you really want to stalk us...

Be sure to head over and Like the Facebook page so you can keep up with our shenanigans! It will be much easier for me to post pics and mini updates while underway.  www.Facebook.com/SailingLunaSea
Time to get this delivery started!