Good Morning world. Today we start out with a wedding on board. Then two afternoon charters. Will try and work some installation and repair stuff in the middle somewhere. Saturday may be better for that as we have a quiet day for now anyway.

Some of the following dates are important at this point. We leave for Toronto from Thunder Bay on September 4th with an expected arrival on the 17th. Leaving Toronto on the 19th I will travel up the Saint Laurence to Gaspe and on to Saint Andrews New Brunswick. I hope to leave Saint Andrews around the 7th to 12th of November sailing south to Bermuda arriving 7 to 10 days later. Will leave Bermuda around the 1st of December and sail south again to The windward islands where I have to be in Barbados before January 26th. We will hop around the windward/leeward islands until early March before heading to Florida to pick up a friend for the journey home.

A little wider awake right now then last night. Just an add in. I'm looking for crew from Toronto to Saint Andrews or any part there off as well as crew from Saint Andrews to Bermuda and Bermuda to The windwards.... Pay your own expenses and share costs of fuel, docking, exc. Must off to finish some needed parts. Have a great day and I will try and blog tonight.

As an interesting question: A man fell overboard on a club race last night. The two following boats sailed around him, flew there spinakers and continued to race even though the man in the water heard them say they knew he was there. The boat he fell off of had broached and took a few minutes to get back to him. The temperature in Lake Superior will allow a person to help themselves for perhaps 8 minutes before they are to cold and hypothermia sets in. What should the other boats have done? bye the bye... he wasn't wearing a life jacket... Answer later... :-)

What a day for Sailing

Had four fun loving ladies on board in winds gusting to 35 knots with a full main and Jib up. We were flying along with the rail close to the water and me standing on deck with auto in hand waving at all the racers coming out. What a gas. Up the mast this evening working on new spreaders and steaming light. Spent the day sanding the main hatch to get it ready for the new sliders and reinstallation. Have teflon slides to install so she will move easier. Tomorrow will be more work on spreaders, more fiberglassing in chain locker, and a six ocklock charter. We will be replacing the alternator with a heavy duty model this weekend as well as wiring new spreader lights, installing a new hatch in the main cabin, oh yes and lots of weekend charters....:-) Falling asleep so will end for now. Just ten days and counting to our leaving date......fun till the last second,,,,,

Paridise

Well, it's Saturday night and we just finished two back to back charters and a bit of work on the boat. I have been able to install the new drive piston for the auto helm today and will try getting it wired tonight and tomorrow. I also managed to get the chain locker ready for fiber fiberglassingglassing as I have installed a new drain and bitter end bolt to keep the new 200 feet of 3/8 chain from getting away. I ran a drain pipe to the bilge through the two forward storage lockers and will seal them off to use as dry storage when done. Will install the nav computer and flux gate compass tonight before I go to bed and hopefully get the auto-helm up and running tomorrow or Monday. Just another lazy day in paridise. Janet is cooking a prime rib roast in the new oven and it will be ready soon. We are both a little baffed but feels good to be getting things done. Just 14 days to cast off and lots left to do. We continue to be optimistic at this point as we have to be. We are leaving on Sept. 4th done or not. I can always continue to work as we sail which I suppose is normal anyway. Janet has a car load of stuff to load aboard so must get the things not coming, off the boat and stored at Greg's. This will be the newest old boat in existence when we are all done. More posts to come.

Brett

August 17th and counting

Greg and I spent most of the day running wires around the boat, getting ready to install the windlass and the new auto-helm that I picked up at the border tonight along with our new Honda 2000i Companion Generator. The work-list gets smaller every day though we seem to add things as we go as well. The new switch panel for the helm is installed and wired as are most of the new sensors we are installing. The Standard Horizon gps/chart-plotter is now installed at the nav station as is the new propane gas sniffer. I will be doing some fibre glassing over the weekend to enclose the new chain-locker drain and the conduit for the windlass. We also have several charters over the week so must work around them. Things are going along as smoothly as can be expected and with luck we will have the electronics all done by early next week. Perhaps I will even have the auto-helm up and running. My good friend Janet has been super supportive in her efforts to ensure that the boat is ready as well. She supplies that ever important third hand whenever possible and still manages to keep the boat fairly neat and supplies many of the necessities I just don't think about. She will be travelling with me for the Thunder Bay/Toronto leg and then later in the Caribbean and will always be an asset. We have 18 days left until we sail away. Just two on board too Toronto so far and then just me to the East coast unless you want to join in the fun.... Send us an email at sailsuperior.com and perhaps you may join us on our journey.

nineteen days and counting

This is my first entry in our travel blog. Journeyer is turned upside down inside as we install new wiring, a new windlass, new gps chart plotter, new radio, two new panels, new battery switch system, new spreaders on both masts, new nav lights (led), and the list goes on and on. I get to the point where I wonder if we will be ready. Janet, my sailing companion for the first part of the journey has holidays booked from the 4th of Sept. and can't change them so we are going. I may be installing things en-route.... We will work every day to get things as close as possible to being ready and then go as is.... I have the whole winter to finish up... :-)

Better back to work for now. Will add more later.

As an after thought. Looking for people to sail from Toronto to Saint Andrews New Brunswick and Saint Andrews to Bermuda...

Its but a few weeks to departure; The Journeyer is going to the Caribbean

Its going to be a bit of a rush to be ready for the 4th of September. Boat upgrades, trip planning, and taking care of the daily charters, however on the 4th Journeyer a 38ft Downeaster Ketch departs Thunder Bay for the 9 month voyage to the Caribbean and then back for her duties as Thunder Bay's Harbour tour and Island cruise vessel.

Undecided is the route, taking the Erie Barge canal, could cut off a month of sailing and over 1200 nautical miles, but Captain Brett has roots in St Andrews and would be just as happy sitting in New Brunswick waiting for the hurricanes to pass as he would be hiding out in the ICW ( inter coastal waterway).

Stay tuned....