We just finished an ASA 101 charter with a lovely couple on board "Northern Cross." A 42' Catalina, sloop. She was a blast to sail with an in-mast roller furler and fin keel! Derrek and I felt as though we were living the high life on the new (~1998) boat with perfect weather, location, couple, and boat. The only thing it was missing was our cat, Cooper, who stayed behind on Morning Dance finishing up a charter with Harold and Margie.
We have been extremely lucky these last few months finding things - whether washed up on an island shore, floating freely down the bay, or lost forever underneath water. So far we have found large floating fenders, small orange mooring buoys, and Derrek's favorite - a 4' x 5' fisherman's anchor.
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| Our new find! The anchor free floating. |
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| "Fisherman's Anchor" / Old fashioned |
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| Cooper "helping" |
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| Derrek diving on the fisherman's anchor that was tangled around our mooring ball system. |
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| "Sweating" the anchor..... aka our mess of lines as we use the tides and the boat to get the anchor unstuck from the mud. |
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| The anchor starting to rise. |
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| Derrek winching the anchor up once we got it unstuck. |
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| the process.... |
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| the process continued... |
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| Derrek checking the progress of our anchor raising. |
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| "helping" once again |
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| Sometimes the dinghy gets a little messy on our adventures... |
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| The Extra large fender we found floating down the Bay.... the perfect place to sit for afternoon coffee! |
It is beautiful sailing to the Florida Keys from Miami! Derrek and I have been enjoying teaching onboard Morning Dance these last few weeks with her new (fast) engine. Below are pictures from some of our recent charters:
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As if living on a boat, doing back to back spring break charters, and preparing to move wasn't already enough, I've taken on a few projects of my own just for the *fun* of it. They include the start of three *coastal colored* quilts, and bandanas for Cooper to wear over his collar.
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| Cooper's bandanas |
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| ...with the final touches |
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| Cooper wearing my favorite one....Let's Go Mountaineers!! |
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| A portion of the first quilt I'm working on. |
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| Cutting out all the squares on the boat can be a bit difficult. |
Living with a cat on board is tons of fun, but can throw a few challenges your way as well. With Cooper on board we try to keep him entertained and safe whether we are sailing, at anchor, or even at a dock. Each posses a unique situation we must be aware of.
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| Cooper is in life-jacket with water-activated safety light |
While we are underway, Cooper typically likes to sleep a bunch or hang out in our bunks up forward, There he has toys of all shapes and sizes, a scratching post, and tunnels that he can play in while we are working the sails or teaching ASA courses. Anytime we are going under a bridge or if he plays out on deck while moving, we try to keep him in his life jacket. This gives us peace of mind so if he goes overboard from a wave or trying to catch a bird we can easily reach him with a boat hook and pull him safely aboard.
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| Cooper sleeping on his shelf in our cabin. |
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| Tethered in for docking practice! |
Some boat things that we have had to consider so far are:
- Food getting moist / stale due to the Florida humidy
- Water spilling of out of his dish if we are heeled over a great deal
- Litter clumping / getting wet due to the Florida humidy
- Which brings us to cooper’s training on the head….. we are trying to eventually get rid of litter on board for good and have bought him the “Litter Kwitter” a system with a series of steps to encourage your pet to use the head. So far, we have made it to 5 of 7 steps within the last year. It’s a lot of work and often times we have to go back a few steps to the Litter box if someone else is watching Cooper or if we are traveling on the road a bunch.
- Exercise: On board, we play hide and go seek and tag – like games with Cooper to keep him running and entertained. We also try to take him on as many walks as possible on our days off or if we get a chance during our charters at an island state park.
- Entertainment: Even more than a "normal" cat, Bengals need stimulation both physically and mentally, especially in the form of toys and exploration. They also tend to get bored with their toys after a short while so to keep Cooper happy we have a box of toys that gets rotated out every once and while.
- Overboard: we have heard stories from friends with cats on board of them eventually finding their way overboard at night, whether by accident or intentionally trying to hunt a fish… but we *under the protest of Cooper’s meows* taught him how to swim to the stern of the boat and pull himself up to the swim platform then paw over paw climb the ladder back on board. He doesn’t like practicing it too much, but does a great job at getting himself to safety and being loud enough to let us know when he is overboard.
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| New Toys! |
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| Cooper learning to fish from our recent anglers on board! |
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| Best Climbing post around! |
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| Safety first! |
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| learning to be a 'big boy' |
We just bought her a new engine…. and it is now installed!
A 9.8 Tohatsu long shaft outboard. My Dad did tons of research online on what horsepower to get for her and after reading many blogs, researching how much torque the transom can take, and after talking to many dealers at boat shows, we found a good deal on the internet, and within 3 days our new engine had arrived!! Pictures below show my parents and brother installing the engine.
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| My Dad and twin brother installing the engine on Bandit. |
A 9.8 Tohatsu long shaft outboard. My Dad did tons of research online on what horsepower to get for her and after reading many blogs, researching how much torque the transom can take, and after talking to many dealers at boat shows, we found a good deal on the internet, and within 3 days our new engine had arrived!! Pictures below show my parents and brother installing the engine.
