Category: Getting ready to sail

We are finally on track for our big adventure! We will be sailing away from the Florida Keys the first week of July. Our first weeks of sailing will take us to the Bahamas, and then we will probably head up to the Chesapeake Bay for a while, before we head south again to the Caribbean. Our dreams will be coming true!

We have been living on our beautiful boat full time for over 4 months now, and we are really enjoying it. It gives us the opportunity to sail more, anchor out more, and most importantly fix more :-).

The cats have adapted incredibly well to living on the boat, and they each have their own little cranny on the boat where they like to “hide”. They do quite well sailing, only Wilson is still unhappy when we are motoring (but that is getting better every time).

Of course we have wished a few times that we hadn’t donated or given away some items because we could have used them on the boat, but none of those items were very expensive, so the loss is bearable ;-).

Dad gave us companionway doors for Christmas, they should be arriving soon, and that will make life on board even more comfortable. One door will actually have a cat entrance built in, how cool is that!

Every day after work we spend a few hours on Ronya. Sometimes we sail, but 90% of the time we work to get her ready for the big cruise. It is not really “work” since we are enjoying every minute of it. She has never been a cruising boat (the former owners really only daysailed her), so there is a lot to be done, but we are slowly making her our home. Baby steps (pictures, galley stuff, and lots of cleaning, the hardest piece is getting the cats used to wearing life jackets!)  and big steps (solar panels, bilge pumps, through hull fittings, sails, major maintenance). Lots of paperwork too!

Thanks so much Bianca & Tom for these cool pics!

We are making great progress in preparing Ronya for her and our journey, and we are loving every minute we spend on board and make her even “better”!

We have taken her old name off the stern, and will be putting her new name on the stern today, and then go sailing and christen her.

We will of course follow all the rules of honoring Aeolus, Poseidon, Boreas, Zephyrus, Eurus and Notus!

We have a German TV crew filming this, so I hope we will get some footage to post here…

We have closed on Ronya and are bringing her home on April 23rd. We are so excited!