We have our Memory Maker!!!!

 It is official, we have purchased our own Memory Maker! Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day and after a quick flight down to Madison IN to shoot a job we hurried home so I could get the next step in our retaining wall repair done. After reading Cindy's entry about stopping at 3 wineries and antique stores I knew we better get an early start. Luckily all went well and I was ready to go about an hour earlier than I thought I would be. Well we did not hit 3 wineries, just one, and no antique stores, but we did find a new lake to kayak on. Neither of us had ever been to Yellowwood state park so we stopped and check it out. It was a really nice tree lined lake and we can't wait to go back and paddle on it.
 After we left the lake I got to listen to Cindy struggle with Sirri on her iphone trying to find a winery on the way to Terre Haute. Cindy finally found a winery close to our route but then struggled again trying to get Sirri to give her directions. It got quite comical listening to Cindy annunciate directions every way possible trying to get her phone to understand the address to Owen Valley winery. After a good laugh I finally asked my faithful Droid for directions and in no time we were on course to the winery. It was not long before we got off the main road and followed the signs and my phone's GPS down winding back roads. At one point I really thought either my phone or the road signs should have suggested four wheel drive is recomended to go any further. The road went from new pavement to old pavement, to gravel, to rutted dirt. We kept going and finally arrived at the winery. We sampled all the sweet wines and decided on getting a bottle of Cayuga then we were back on the road eager to get to Terre Haute to check out the boat. As we drove out of the winery I had to stop to take a pic of a sign they had on a post. It was a hoot!!! In case it is too small to read it says WINNO XING!

 It was not long before we arrived at the location of the sailboat in Terre Haute. As we drove up the owner's drive Cindy saw a pretty two tone blue boat and got all excited, as blue is her favorite color. I had to remind her that the blue boat was not the one we came to look at. Our boat was sitting behind the blue sailboat. It looked really nice from the drive and the owner had the mast stepped up already. We got out and met the owners, Dave and Susan, then checked out the boat. The boat we were there to look at was a 1984 Hunter 20. While it was a foot shorter than the San Juan 21's we had been looking at but it had a much bigger feel with a much more usable cabin area. It also had a pop top on the cabin which gave me almost enough head room to stand up in that area. It also has a table that Cindy was really wanting. The table dropped down to make a bed as well. So Cindy can have her table to eat on and I can have a full size bed to, well you know what on ;-). A win win in my eyes! There are storage compartments under every seat, a place for the battery with an electrical panel, interior lights, port a potty, and a pump sink. The v birth was a little bit shorter than the other boats we had been looking at. While I think I could sleep in it I think it would tight. I am thinking the bed over the table will be out preferred nesting area. One really nice feature is that the forward portholes open up to let in more air. So between the front hatch, the port holes, and the companion way with a screen in it, airflow on warm summer nights should not be a problem. Funny thing about sailboats openings. I guess the manufactures all assume that everyone is going to be sailing these boats in the ocean far away from flies and mosquitos as none of them make provisions for screens in the front hatch or the port holes. I am pretty sure I can make screens for them without too much trouble. I was a bit bummed to learn that  Dave and Susan did not have the interior cushions for the boat so we will have to make new ones for it. Can we say winter project for Cindy??? Outside the cabin the boat is really pretty nice. There are storage areas under both cockpit seats, a detachable swim ladder on the back with a bow and stern pulpits. The pulpit is the rail on the front and rear of the boat. Kate Winslet leans forward on the bow pulpit of the Titantic. Our pulpit is a bit shorter so Cindy will have to be on her knees if she tries that or she will probably flip over the rail and come bobbing up somewhere behind the boat LOL! The stern pulpit is nice as they make gas grill mounts that attach to the stern pulpit. We will have to have one! The grill goes on the stern because when at anchor the boat will always point into the wind. Put the grill on the back and the smoke will blow away from the boat. Like the opening portholes and rear rail, this boat has features not normally found on boats this size. Dave showed us the sails and how easy it was to get the sails rigged and ready to sail. It looked so easy we were both thinking we could actually do it. We helped Dave drop the mast and prepared the boat to go down the road. Again, easy enough we think we can pull it off. I could tell by the gleam in Cindy's eye that she really liked the boat but I had to ask just to make sure. She wanted the boat! So after brief negotiations we arrived at a price, shook hands, and retreated inside to do the paperwork and warm up. Before we left we asked Dave if he could take a pic of us with our very first boat. Her we are with our Memory Maker!

 We were kinda bummed we had to leave her behind but we are making arrangements with a friend to help us get her home soon. Now that we have a boat and know how much weight we are going to be pulling we have a better idea what kind of vehicle we need to get. Cindy is really liking the new Jeep Cherokees so we will have to see what turns out with that. We were giddy with excitement as we drove home. Dream come true for both of us to get a boat. It seems like it has been such a long journey as it has consumed much of our conversations since we first shared the thought with each other that we should get a boat. We spent the whole drive home talking about what we need to get, what we want to get, and all the fun we are going to have. Plus we got gas for 2.85 a gallon in Spencer IN. We took that as a sign from the sailing Gods LOL!
 Dave and Susan gave us some good info about possibly keeping our boat the Lake Monroe Sailing club in case we did not get a buoy. We thought it was only for club members but they told us anyone can keep the boat there. Club membership allows you to take part in the club activities like races and lobster boils. Susan told Cindy how nice the facilities are with porcelain toilets and hot showers that you can use if you keep your boat there. The power flushing toilets and hot showers has over a female. I checked it out online and it looks like it might be just the ticket for us. Our boat would be feet from the water sitting on the trailer in a fenced in area with the mast up ready to launch. The bottom of the boat would stay cleaner and we could sleep easy when we were home that it would not take on water and sink in the middle of the night. That is one call you never want to get in the middle of the night, "Sir, you boat has sunk and you need to come get it off the bottom of the lake". I even think we could drive Juicy the Jeep over and use her to launch and retrieve the boat. I am pretty sure she could manage to pull the boat that far without too much problem.  It looks like it might take an extra 15 mins to get to the sailing club area but it might be worth it. We are going to have run over and check it out when we get a free minute.
 Last night as we wound down for the day sitting on the couch, we talked, sailing of course. Dave gave me a tip that when something goes wrong and you can't do anything else just yell at your wife.  Because if it can go wrong it will go wrong out THERE! I promised Cindy I would never yell at her like Dave told me to do when something went wrong. It was then that she informed me of a interesting little trait she has. I have known for some time now that Cindy struggles with remembering her left from right. Several times I have had to tell her the other right when she would be helping me on the house. Well last night she told me that if I was ever telling her what to do on the boat that involved left or right and my life depended on her getting it right the first time to make sure we were pointing east as she knew left and right when facing east. So much is wrong with that statement but I promised to try my best to always keep the boat pointing east. But at some point we are either going to hit the causeway or want to turn around and come back. Then what do we do???

Cindy's Perspective......

Hi, this is Cindy.  Before, you read of our not-yet-sailing adventures according to Sam's perspective.  He does a great job of detailing but I see things a little differently than he does.   I'm the optimist and he is the realist.  His philosophy is that a person must always plan for what can go wrong and be prepared for it.  My philosophy is, lets just try it and if something goes wrong (which I don't think it will) we will deal with it at that time.  I keep him upbeat and he keeps me grounded and in check.  At least that's how I see it........

The lottery type drawing for the anchor buoy on Lake Monroe was Saturday morning.   We did a little pre-lottery preparation with our best friends at a local winery on Friday night.  A little dinner, a batch or two of wine, and tons of laughter got us mentally prepared for the much anticipated drawing that would occur Saturday morning.  We eagerly drove the 40 miles over to Monroe bright and early on Saturday.  Because sleeping in on Saturday mornings is so precious to me, getting up at 6:00 am was a huge sacrifice.  But worth it because I was sure our name would be drawn.  Sam pampered me with bringing a cup of this yummy coffee concoction of a little coffee, some creamer, and LOTS of caramel topping.  It definitely helped get me  moving.  We had a hearty helping of B's & G's (biscuits and gravy) at a local restaurant and we were on our way to Monroe.  If you have never visited southern Indiana in late October, you should.  Its beautiful.  Our area is made up of rolling hills and beautiful wooded areas.  Lake Monroe sits beside the Hoosier National Forest so its protected from development.  We passed partially harvested fields as well as fields that had just been picked.  It looked as pretty as any cover of Midwest Living magazine.

We arrive at Payntown to an empty parking lot.  Hummmm, this is such an anticipated event, I can't imagine why the lot isn't full.  Maybe this is a good sign that everyone else has decided they don't want a buoy and we will get one for sure.  Turns out we arrived 45 minutes before the drawing instead of 15 prior.  We still ended up being the only people anxious, curious, or silly enough to witness the event.  But because we were the only ones, I was asked to be the Vanna White of the experience.  The very nice ranger who coordinates the process asked me to pick the names out of the hat so no one could accuse him of being dishonest.  There were 19 slots available and they will then pick 19 alternates.  When he asked me to draw the names, I thought it would be fun.  It was.  But with each name I drew that wasn't Sam's or mine, my excitement changed to nervousness.  I  certainly couldn't blame anyone but me if I didn't choose us.  The pressure was mounting....  How could it be that I drew 19 names and none of them was ours?  The ranger could obviously read the disappointment on my face.  That's when he started consoling me.  He said not to give up.  It seems that last year, of the 14 alternates, each of them were given the opportunity for a buoy.  My hopes lifted and we started over.  I had a good feeling.  I just knew I was going to choose the the right name this go round.  I looked over at Sam and he grinned and gave me the "you can do this" nod.  Five more names were read.  Ugh!  Then another 4 names and the finally Sam's name was read.  Hip hip hooray!  We are on the alternate list.  Not as good as we'd hoped for but our hopes are still alive.  I will say that as I've gotten older, I've learned that gratification isn't always instant and because of that, I appreciate things much more than I used to.

We celebrated almost getting a buoy last night at our favorite winery and today we are driving to Terre Haute to look at yet another sailboat.  We flew to Madison this morning and looked at foliage and our drive on highway 46 this afternoon should have some surprises along the way.  I'm hoping for a few antique malls and new wineries to explore.  I'll keep you posted on what we find..........

Good luck to us!

We got our boat! Almost....

 Well Saturday morning we woke early, like 4 am early. Which according to Cindy is still the middle of the night. We were on the road headed to Chicago by 5 am. It was cool with a steady drizzle all the way to the state line where the rain stopped and the clouds cleared. It was beautiful morning in Chi town to get our Memory Maker. We arrived a bit early so off to Dunkin Donuts for eats and some tasty beverages. We met the owner of the SJ in the parking lot of the storage yard where it was being stored. Once the boat came into view I could tell it was not quite as nice as I had been told but as I have learned my idea of nice and other's idea of nice are not the same when it comes to sailboats. We looked over the boat and while it had a few issues non were what we considered major. We headed to the owners house to look at the sails and other items. Turns out the boat had 7 sails instead of the five listed. He had two sails in sail bags he had never even looked at. Wound up having a main sail, one standard jib, one storm jib, two genoa sails, and two spinnaker sails. The one Spinnaker was really pretty and in really good shape with just one little bad spot in a seam that we could easily repair. While the boat came with a 4.5 hp Mercury motor, after talking with the owner I knew it was probably going to me more of a problem than it was worth as it had gotten hot due to an impeller failure. So we made an offer to buy the boat, trailer, and sails, without the motor. The owner then decided to throw in all the accessories that he had for the boat and countered our offer with all the goodies. While there was a lot there a lot of it was stuff we would never use so I counter his countered and we agreed on a price. So we headed back to the storage yard to hook up to the trailer and make sure the new lights worked and that the trailer bearings were ok. All that checkout ok so after adding air in the tires we started to head back to his house to load up all the other items. We pulled out onto the street and at about 25 mph I could a feel a vibration starting in the drivetrain of the Toyota 4 Runner we borrowed to go get the boat. As we got to 35 mph it was just getting worse so I flashed the lights and pulled over. I told the owner of the boat the issue and that we could not get the boat home with it the 4 Runner shaking like it was as I was not going to tear up someone's transmission hauling a toy home for us. He understood and we did a really slow lap around the block. We parked the boat back where we got it, apologized for taking up his morning, and headed back. Boatless.
 Trying to make the most of our big day out we did stop at a really cool looking winery just down the road from the storage yard. It was large ivy covered old house that just gave one the impression that the wine was going to be of the dry variety and expensive. Never found out if the wine was dry or not as Cindy saw the prices started at 25 bucks a bottle while I was washing my hands. I could tell by the look on her pretty lil face something was up when I came back to meet her. U must understand, we like wine, sweet wine, and the only thing better is good, cheap, sweet wine! So we bailed out the side door and started back down the interstate. I treated Cindy to a delicious lunch of Taco Bell at a road side travel plaza. Nothing like living large LOL!
 We did stop at a couple really neat wineries on the way back home. Carpenter Creek north of Lafayette IN and Wildcat Creek at Lafayette. We were hoping to have dinner with Capt Scott and Marry in Lafayette but they were not able to meet till 7:30 and we were a couple hours early. So we found a nice sunny parking spot in the park across from there house and curled up together in the passenger seat with the sun shining in on us like a couple of fat cats and we took a nice lil nap while we waited. The nap felt great as I was getting kinda tired and I love to cuddle. We woke up about 7 and took a short walk to wake up. We met Capt Scott and Mary for dinner and shared the details of our day with them. They could understand our disappointment but also understood. Scott had burned up a transmission pulling a boat once so he totally understood my erroring on the side of caution. We had a nice dinner at a little mom and pop restaurant that is located on the opposite end of the block they live on. The sign advertised the coldest beer in town. Cindy put them to the test then asked for a glass of ice for her beer. Cindy likes her beer to be just above the freezing point.
 We made it home safely about 20 hours after we left. We are bummed we did not have our Memory Maker sitting in the drive but relieved that we did not tear up the 4 Runner or break down along side some interstate on the south side of Chicago. It could have been much worse and we both knew that.
 So where do we go from here?? Well, this Saturday morning we are going to get up early, again, and going to lake Monroe for the drawing for the buoy's at the Paynetown SRA in hopes that our name will get drawn. If it does then we will figure out a way to get the SJ 21 in Chicago home. If not then we are done searching till we get our own  vehicle we can tow a boat with.

 

The Adventures of the Memory Maker

by

Sam & Cindy

October 18th, 2013

 Welcome to our blog. Not sure really where to start but here we go. Hang on tight and enjoy this journey with us. It might get kinda wild at times. Here we go!!!
 Cindy and I have both long dreamed of owning a boat. We both love the water, sunsets, the sound of the waves, and the laid back relaxed lifestyle you find on the water. While we love to kayak and paddleboard we both wanted to take the next step and get a real boat. Cindy really did not care what kind of boat, just so long as it floated. I was a lil more picky. It had to have a cabin so we could overnight on it. There is nothing like sleeping on the water. To lay awake on the deck at night staring up at the stars. Then to wake in the morning with fog all around you as you gently bob up and down in the water while sipping a cup of coffee is always what  I envisioned owning a boat to be.
 After much conversation and looking we decided a small sailboat in the 20-22 foot range would suit our needs, and wallets, best. Having never really sailed before we both thought a lesson or two would be wise. So we took a trip up to Bear lake MI for our first sailing lesson this summer. It was my first time on a sailboat and Cindy's second. Our first sail was awesome. Gentle winds, smooth water, good conversation with friends. It was the perfect sail. We were hooked! Later that afternoon we went back out for our first real lesson. Capt. Scott told us that we were going to man the boat this trip and he would just tell us what to do. Well, by now the gentle winds were gone. It was blowing 20 knots out of the southwest with gust to 25 plus. the lake had white caps on it. Let's just say it was not the type of conditions you hope for your first go at the helm. After almost throwing our captain overboard in our failed attempt to sink his boat we finally got under way. With the tiller in my hand, the wind in our faces, and our Captain's breathing rate returning somewhat back to normal we were sailing! After returning to the safety of the dock and going over our post sail briefing I took the viewpoint that sailing is like flying. Just like with flying and landing, any sail  you can walk away from is a good one. I say we passed our first sail with flying colors. Capt. Scott probably thinks otherwise LOL. Two things were for sure. We, ok, I, now know what release the cleat means(release AND let go of the rope) and we were getting a SAILBOAT!!!!
 I think we came up with the name of our boat long before we even decided we were going to get one. Memory Maker just made perfect sense. I have heard that memories are events in your life that stop time. Since getting together with my soul mate Cindy, there have many events that have stopped time. We are always making memories together and with our friends. The name seemed perfect. Now we just needed to find the boat to go with the name. While there are a lot of sail boats out there for sale we had to find the right one for us. While we are hoping to luck out and get our name drawn for a buoy at Lake Monroe we both know it is a longshot. So we decided that whatever we get needs to be light enough that we can pull it back and forth easily and stepping the mast can't take all day. After much research I discovered that a Clarke San Juan 21 is light, has a mast that is easily stepped, sails very well, is fast(if you call 6.5 mph fast), has a cabin large enough for two to comfortably overnight or weekend in, and is affordable. The SJ 21, as they are known, are raced in several areas around the country. With over 3000 of them being built they are fairly easy to find used. Just finding a nice one seems to be the real trick. During our search we have discovered that sailboat people tend to be a special breed. They seem to be less concerned with the smaller details, like is the boat clean and neat, and more concerned with will it float and sail. We are looking for the boat that has an owner that cared about both points.
 We thought we found our boat in Troy MI but due to still trying to finish our house and work schedules it sold before we were able to go look at it. From the pics and talking wit the owner on the phone it seemed like he took good care of it. But it was not to be. So tomorrow we are leaving at 5 am to go look at a SJ 21 in Roselle IL which is just west of Chicago O'Hare airport. We are hopeful that this will be the one for us. While we have no idea what to do with it be we both want a boat with a spinnaker sail. A spinnaker sail is a large head sail that you use when sailing with the wind. They tend to be the colorful sails that you see in the pretty pics of sailboats. It basically acts like a large parachute that fills full of wind in front for the boat and drags the boat along behind it. Most of what I have read recommends flying a spinnaker in 10 knots of wind or less and to be ready to drop it fast if the wind starts to pick up. How hard can it be??? Something tells me we are going to find out at some point. Anyway, the boat we are looking at tomorrow comes with not one, but two spinnakers!! That is surely a sign from above.
 So as I write this first entry today I am trying to make a list of everything we will need  to take with us in case this is the boat for us and we buy it. In my head I am going over everything that could go wrong pulling a boat 250 miles down the interstate. While I tend to be detail oriented Cindy says she is more big picture. We say we balance each other out. So while I am sure she is probably more concerned with the color of the boat and the fabric on the cushions I am trying to figure out a way I can jack the trailer up and check wheel bearings without getting filthy. Last thing we need is to loose a wheel on the trailer on the south side of Chicago.
 While we both know we are more likely to get a better deal buying a sailboat in the winter than in the spring the thought of having a new toy and not getting to play with it all winter is already killing Cindy. I assured here there will be things we will need and want to do to it over the winter and on nice days we can get it out in the driveway so we can practice stepping the mast and rigging the sails. I even told her we should probably spend a few nights sleeping on it in the driveway so we can get a routine down and find out what all we need and don't need. That way once the sailing season starts we are better prepared and won't look like total newbies till we raise the sails for the first time.