April 29, 2022
Work day, we had a number of things to take care of before departing and the most exciting was getting hoisted up the mast to clean the connection to the wind instrument. The wind direction had not been working for a few days and it is pretty important when sailing. Getting the Bosun’s chair and safety prusik took longer than…
April 28, 2022
Lowell and I started our day at 5:00am filling up the gas tanks and were underway by 5:23am. Oddly, specific. Calm winds and just a small following swell made for a good start to our last long passage to Santa Rosalia (78 miles). Lowell called it as we approached the Punta San Juan Batista we could see whitecaps. Out came…
April 27, 2022
The plan was to have lunch and take in a hike at Salsipuedes which meant an early morning. Lowell and I hauled anchor at 5:30am and we putt’d out of Don Juan. Outside the harbor we could see wave action to the north, likely from high overnight winds spilling over from the Pacific. Looks like our anchor location was a…
April 26, 2022
With a bit of melancholy, we pulled up anchor at 6:15am to make our passage to Bahia Los Angeles. The stop became more critical after finding no propane in the tank. I had smelled a leak the night before but unfortunately after lunch the valve wasn’t closed and we had run out of gas with a now gushing propane leak.…
April 25, 2022
I made it up to watch the sunrise over the mountains, enjoyable but I couldn’t help looking forward to tomorrow’s sunrise over the ocean from the Baja. We got a fairly early start for our crossing, with the anchor up at 7:15. The seas were smaller but a bit confused and hitting just behind the beam it was more rolly…
April 24, 2022
It had been 20 months since I sold Strikhedonia (now Fly Aweigh II) and I was lucky enough to get invited on Gato Loco (Seawind 1000) by Lowell and Rick two of the owners. Also on the trip was Lowell’s childhood friend Murril. In what was certainly the quickest arrival/departure we pulled into Puerto Penasco around 1:00pm and the next…
April 5, 2022
So during my condition inspection I made a bad decision. I used a block of wood in between my wing jack and my wing, and that block did not match the shape of the jack stand. Lowering the jack the block rotated and flipped out putting two small dents in the bottom of my wing. Fuck me. My fault, dumb…
March 17, 2022
A big day is coming up on April 11th, I’ll be heading to Hibbing, Minnesota to drop off N241VP at Midwest Aircraft Refinishing. Before painting I had one last little project I wanted to get completed. Flyboy Accessories manufactures a high quality, stainless steel tow bar/tug guard for the nose wheel. I picked it up a few months ago and…
March 11, 2022
I customized my Condition Inspection checklist based on Walt’s (EXP Aircraft Services LLC) checklist. I also added some frequently needed documents/information to the end of my document. Here is a link to my checklist As with building, there was a learning curve this year that added a good amount of extra time and effort. Next year I think the Condition…
February 19, 2022
Our neighbor in Steamboat Essi is from Rovaniemi. She was a great help reaching out to friends for suggestions on what we should see and do while visiting Finland. Even better than that assistance was the offer to stay with her parents. How cool is that! The only challenge is that her Mom (Leena) doesn’t speak any English and her…
February 14, 2022
You know how some of those things you see on the internet look like amazing experiences and you jump on board before thinking it through? Yeah, this was one of those. On paper an Snow/Ice village sounds really fun. In reality it is fucking cold. I know, that is pretty obvious. We arrived at the SnowVillage around 2:00pm and were…
February 12, 2022
I was pretty excited to spend two days mushing Siberian huskies, Jean was a bit more reserved. She was worried it might be too much but in the end it was a highlight of the trip for both of us. It is not hard to find a Husky experience (safari) in Finland but in doing research I learned many farms/companies…