We’re Still Here!!

Well it’s been over a year since our last update so I thought it was time to let all our followers (both of you) know what’s been going on in the past year and our plans are for the future.

After an enjoyable fall season winter came early and with a vengeance…remember? We decided not to shrink wrap the boat since we intended to spend time on it over the winter and begin working on our to-do list. All the snow and ice was pretty hard on the exterior woodwork but overall she came through without too much wear and tear. We kept the flybridge heated which kept the canvas ice free all year. We also have block heaters which kept the engine room about 50 degrees all winter so the boat was pretty comfortable overall.

One of the first gadgets I added last fall was a device that sends us a text if the boat looses power, has high water or senses a temperature that’s too high or low. This really helped our piece of mind when we were away from the boat during the bitter cold snaps. The next project was removing the turbos and having them rebuilt by a shop up in Indy. We knew from the survey that this would need to be done and winter seemed like a good time.

The major projects started after the New Year when Defender (my favorite boating store) has their major spring sales. We completely updated the upper and lower helms with new chart plotter, radar, AIS (a device that allows us to “see” commercial traffic before we actually see them…more on that later) VHF radio, killer sound system, USB charging stations and a router so the boat has wifi everywhere we go and replaced 2 of the older AC units. We also got a Zodiac dingy with a propane powered outboard and added a mounting system for it on the swim platform. While I was spending money I also ordered an inflatable paddle board….a guys gotta get his exercise right? One of the last major things we did was have the carpet replaced in the boat. Wow…it made a huge improvement in the look and feel of the boat! About the only big project left is to replace the dishwasher with a stand-alone freezer. This makes much more sense for our future plans than a dishwasher.

About the future…

I read a good quote on someone’s boat blog that said “boaters don’t have plans, we have intentions”. Good words to live by. Our “plan” had been to sell the house and all our stuff this summer, retire and start our cruising adventure this fall. I thought it was a great plan, but, the house didn't sell (yet). So…..we are moving on to alternate “plan” B. Now our intention is to move the boat a bit farther south to a warmer climate and a covered slip at Green Turtle Bay Marina on Lake Barkley. This is only about a 4 hour drive from home so we plan on spending lots of time on the boat doing exterior maintenance and exploring the area. We will be leaving Cincinnati on Sunday October 12^th and “intend” on getting there on the 17^th. This is where the AIS comes into play for you followers. If you go to Marinetraffic.com and search for Chasing 80 you should be able to follow along on our trip…pretty exciting huh? If you go there now you can see the boat in her slip here at home, I always keep the AIS on unless we’re being chased by pirates. I also intend to post along the way and will add some pictures of the updates to the boat. I’m not sure how good the coverage is along the portion of the Ohio river we will be covering but it’s worth a look-see if you’re interested.

So, that’s about it for now. Check back in next week to see how the trip is going.