I know it's been some time since I last posted an update. With the weather being as it has we have not made too many trips down to the marina and the boat. In fact our marina bill came this month with a note attached saying "come visit your boat, its lonely" Wonder if she put a bug in their ear. We did go two weeks ago and check on her making sure the bilge was still dry, run her engine for a while and run the heat for the weekend to dry things out. The air is just damp, but I have to say, knock on wood that we don't have the nightmare mold problems I have heard of from other people when a boat is unattended for a while. After much research and speaking with other boaters Dirk ordered the wind generator. We decided to go with the 12v Air-Breeze Marine Deluxe Stern Mount Kit.
It includes:
The Air-Breeze Marine12V wind Generator
e Marine wind generator control panel
Hardware mounting kit
Tower kit with 9 foot brushed anodized aluminum mast
Two 8 foot stays &
4o feet of #10-2 marine grade wire.
Although it took a nice bite out of the cruising kitty it was something that has been on our list of must haves. It should be here this week and we have a 3 day weekend coming up so hopefully we can make some effort to get this project started. So many things to do and there only seems to be more projects creeping onto the list. I know the list will never be done but hopefully we can knock a good portion of them off before this summer. I hate to think we spend the entire summer trying to cram projects in between all the other stuff we have to do. My counter indicates that we have 136 days till retirement. Yikes!!!! When are we gonna get this and all the million other things done?
In other news, our friends from s/v Conch Clipper are still in Marathon waiting out this weird cold weather. Many projects and other things are keeping them busy, but I'm sure they are itching to get moving onto the Bahamas. If anyone reads the other blogs I have listed on my site I have one for Galena along with Conch Clipper. Bill from Galena has traveled to the Bahamas many times and when Dirk and I first got this cruising dream into our heads his blog is one of the main ones that inspired Dirk and I. Well he was in Marathon along with our friends from Conch Clipper and they happened to run into each other. They sent me a pic which I thought was nice.
Above and below are photos of Ron & Sonja with Bill of s/v Galena
Well not much else to report. Hopefully we will get some nice weather during our 3 day weekend and we can get some headway made. Until then....
As you can see we have a nice big deep locker that makes working in it not so bad. It's amazing how much crap we put in there and need to put more of said crap into it. In other news we decided to dig a little deeper into the cruising kitty and purchase a new dinghy. The one that came with the boat is about 8 years old and has a couple worn spots on the bottom. It also has a minor air leak that we have never gotten around to fixing. Knowing how important a good dinghy is when cruising helped us make this decision easier. I mean it is our one and only means of getting from boat to land. So if you compare it to the cost of a new car I think we faired very nicely. Of course now with the new larger dinghy we will be purchasing a new larger outboard motor. 
Above is a photo of the Genesis RIB that we purchased. It has a few nice additions such as a dry storage area up front under the floor, and also a flip up seat that has a dry storage area. It is a Vee hull but has a flat floor inside which I think I will like. Our current one has the vee hull but also has a vee floor which always makes for a nice drop off as you are entering it. This one also has a bilge to help keep the floor from pooling with water. Still haven't ordered the solar panel yet as we are still trying to decide how it will be mounted to the davits. At this point we have enough projects to keep us busy for a couple weeks.
