Friday, May 29, 2009

Coconut and Crew Update

Location: Jacksonville Beach, FL

Hi all,

Good news! The dinghy motor has been repaired and, barring no other problems, we plan to begin our voyage today. Better late than never!

While we are away, we won't have the ability to access the internet every day. So, Admiral Sandy is probably going to have internet access withdrawals. But, Capt. Jim says we are on vacation... and that means vacation from emails, surfing the internet, and all that time-consuming stuff that Admiral Sandy does at the computer every day.

Whenever we can get internet access along the way, we will plan to update the blog and check email. So, we hope the next time you hear from us, we will be on our way to the Keys!

Signing off for now and we look forward to sharing our sailing adventures with you soon!

Coconut and Crew


You may join my Yahoo group by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coconutandcrew/

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Are We Ever Going to Leave?

Current Location: Jacksonville Beach, FL

Hi everyone,

I know you must be wondering what is going on since you haven't heard from us since we announced the blog. Well, we are still on land and have not begun our sailing adventure. Thanks to Mother Nature and equipment problems, our adventures have started before the trip has started! Although we are disappointed in the delay, we are realizing that there is some good in all that is happening.

It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature...
We were supposed to leave last week, but couldn't because of the northeaster that descended on us for nearly 6 days with wind gusts up to 50mph and approximately 12 inches of rain. The terrible weather affected the entire state of Florida, so we are certainly glad we had not left yet because it would not have been good to be on the boat weathering out the storm.

The good news: 1) we desperately needed the rain (well, maybe not that much), and 2) the high winds and rain exposed leaks in our rental house so we have been able to address the problems before we leave.

Equipment woes...
On Saturday, the rain began to subside, so Capt. Jim began to ready the dinghy for the trip. As our luck would have it, Capt. Jim found that the dinghy motor was not working properly, even though the motor had been serviced only a month ago! For those of you that don't have dogs for First Mates, let me explain that a dinghy is very important because it is how I take shore leave (potty breaks). So, our departure was once again delayed while Capt. Jim tried to fix the dinghy motor.

On Sunday, Capt. Jim tried to see if he could fix the motor, but had no luck. On Monday, Capt. Jim couldn't find anyone willing to work on the motor on Memorial Day (can you imagine that?). So, we have had to wait until today (Tuesday) to get someone to fix the dinghy motor... and we hope they can get it fixed today.

The good news: we are glad we found this problem before we left so it could be fixed. I imagine Capt. Jim and Admiral Sandy wouldn't enjoy having to paddle our 9 foot inflatable dinghy to get me to shore!

Note from Admiral Sandy: Orders have officially been issued for First Mate Coconut to learn to use the "poop deck" so we don't have to worry about getting her to shore!

Final preparations... keep your fingers crossed!

In the meantime, final preparations for our departure are continuing: Admiral Sandy is stocking the galley, Capt. Jim is loading up the boat and I am dreaming (scratching) of life on the water away from (scratch) all the horrible Florida fleas (scratch). Thanks to the drenching rains, the fleas have come out in numbers (scratch, scratch, scratch) and I am miserable trying to fight them off. So (scratch), I hope the next post you read (scratch) from us will be the post (scratch) announcing our (scratch) departure!

Please keep your fingers crossed that all goes well and we will be shoving off soon!

First Mate Coconut (scratch, scratch, scratch)

You may join my Yahoo group by going to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coconutandcrew/

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Coconut Creates Blog for Sailing Adventure

Hi everyone,

My mommy and I are new at this blogging, but we are going to give it a try. Since we are preparing to sail to the Keys for some fun and adventure, we thought it would be fun to post stories about all the places we go, people and pups we meet and things that we do.


We hope you will join us on our adventure by joining our Yahoo group to get email notifications when we put a new post on the blog.


You may join my Yahoo group by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coconutandcrew/

I can hardly wait for the adventure to begin!

First Mate Coconut & Crew (Captain Jim and Admiral Sandy)