What have we been up to?

I know many of you are asking the question: "Where did they go?? It's been a week, and we've not heard anything." Well, wait no more. Here's the update from me, Jim, so it won't have quite the same level of intelligent wit as Rick's. First, let's step back just a little over a week when I took a quick trip back to the states.

Last Sunday, we were looking for a place Rick could spend the few days I would be gone. We wanted something a bit less hectic than Simpson Bay Marina. Although the people there were fantastic - it has the feel of being in the middle of everything. As an aside, we were able to see the latest Harry Potter movie at the local cinema which was within walking distance of the Simpson Bay Marina. Also, Rick went to the top of the mast to fix our VHF - while he was there, he snapped a few pictures.

Also, not to be forgotten is Maho Beach. Home to the Sunset Beach Bar AND the end of the runway to the Princess Juliana Airport. Those of you who know me, understand my level of excitement about being able to watch jets land close up. To make a good situation even better, the Sunset Beach Bar overlooks the end of the runway. That means I can watch planes land and at the same time, enjoy a freshly blended Mango Daquari at the same time. Heaven.

Here's a pic of me in front of the surf board that indicates when flights will be arriving.

So we headed out to Grande Case which is on the northwest side of the island. That meant changing our flags from the St. Maarten (Dutch) flag to the St. Martin (French) flag (a flag that smells a bit like stinky cheese. I've captured that on film :)

Grande Case has a beautiful beach and the town feels as though you're in a small French village. We had a very good dinner at a local French place and spent the night on the boat. The cove was a bit rolly, so we decided to move around the corner to a small Marina called Port Lonvilliers in Anse Marcel. And this place . . . truly out of a French story book.

Anyway, I flew back to the US from St. Martin to JFK. I won't go into the details of my travel day, but let me just say it started by trying to find a cab at 7am in a rather deserted area without the benifit of speaking much French. Shame on me for not planning better. But in the end, all was well and I made my flight to the US sans problem (maybe I can speak French).

I got off the plane in JFK and immediately wondered who were all these people? I've been used to being around Rick and the two nubbins for 5 weeks. Occasionally, we'll have a neighbor moored close by or another boat near us on a dock, but this was defiantly a culture shock. I have to say, I kind of liked it a bit - it just took a while to get used to. However, I do like the solitude of island living as well.

Three days later, after having some great reunions and meetings while in NYC and DC, I returned to St. Martin . On the cab ride back, the driver and I were talking about life and such. You'll find that you can learn more about the local culture from the cab drivers. They are incredibly friendly and will talk to you about most anything.

So, we originally planned to leave Port Lonvilliers within a few days - but then Dean happened. Rick is writing another blog about Dean, so I won't go into specifics now. But since he was headed our way - we decided to stay put. The marina is VERY protected so it afforded us a good hiding place from the impending wind. There are some good pictures of the boat that Rick took during these days. You can click on any of these pics and you'll be taken to our gallery on Picasa.

So that brings us up to date. We're planning on leaving tomorrow or the next day for Antigua. We may go via St. Kitts, but that kinda depends on the weather. I hope all is well with all of you and look forward to your comments and emails. Stay safe and be well.

The Handyman Can

All those who are old enough, please close your eyes and think of Sammy Davis, Jr.

Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew
Cover it with chocolate and a miracle or two
The Candy Man can, the Candy Man can

Now on a boat…

Who can take a stopped up head, and free it from the pee
Who can fix the radar, helping it to see
The Handyman can….the Handyman can.

I’ll apologize up front for putting that tune into your head. No doubt you’ll be humming it all day.

I’m the kind of guy who likes things to work the way they’re supposed to. I’m not the kind of guy who really cares how they work, just that they do. While I love creative projects, fixing a broken widget was never something that held my interest and I never really considered the creative genius necessary to look at a broken piece of equipment, accurately diagnose the problem and formulate a plan to fix it. My creativity comes in the form of talking the repairman into not going to his mother’s house to fix her air-conditioning in the 110 degree heat, but to come to my house and fix mine first because I’m having 10 people over for dinner that night.

With that said, let’s talk about a boat. A boat, no matter what age, what make or what model, is always broken. Now that’s certainly not to say that it’s unusable or even unsightly (unless, of course, it’s on cinder blocks in your front yard, (unless you live in West Virginia, then it’s considered a status symbol)). There is a direct proportion to the amount you brag about the fancy stuff your boat has to the amount of time you spend fixing all that fancy stuff.

Our boat has a washing machine. Ohhhhh…ahhhhh. It’s located in the starboard haul directly opposite from the head. The “head” is boat speak for the toilet. I don’t have any idea why it’s called a head. I do everything I can to keep my head from getting anywhere near it. While Jim and I were at the dock in Tortola, we were able to take advantage of the two, large, top loading washing machines I once took so much for granted. I did a few loads of laundry every week, figuratively patting myself on the back for being able to take care of this basic household task. Yolanda, our domestic aid back in the States, who, in my mind, has now risen to the status of home economic goddess, used to do all of our laundry for us. Dirty clothes, sheets and towels just vanished, reappearing clean and folded as if by magic. Well, let me tell you; sweat ain’t magic. It’s not enough to round up the dirties and get them into the washing machine. Unless your favorite color is grey, you have to separate them. If you love grey, well then by George, you’re in such luck. If it’s not, then separate you must. You then have to remember that they are in the washing machine. If you don’t, they tend to take on a smell all their own and you need to rewash and then re-remember that they are still wet in the washing machine. I was averaging 2.6 wash cycles per load.

Now that Jim and I have set sail for ports unfamiliar, that little, front loading washing machine in our head has become quite the gem. Jim had to head back to the States for business so I decided to keep myself occupied by cleaning the inside of the boat from top to bottom, which included doing the wash. It was with such glee that I stripped the beds and gathered up all the laundry, knowing that I was one of the lucky few who didn’t have cart my pile down the dock to the sole public washing machine. I filled our little front loading darling, added the detergent and heading up to the salon for a date with my book and a cup of coffee. Life was good. I got through a couple of chapters of Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander and then remembered the wash. I was already getting to be pretty good at this whole washing thing. I went down to the laundry room (bathroom/head), popped open the outer washing machine door and gazed into the fish tank like window of the machine. Hmmm. My little gem didn’t seem to have drained out all the water. Keeping in mind that I was well under my 2.6 cycles per load average and hoping that like I often did, the washing machine forgot that there was laundry not yet finished, I just ran it again.

Back upstairs I went for another cup of coffee and a few more pages of my book. Twenty minutes later, with my coffee and book attended to, I headed back down to the toilet to see if progress had been made. Hmmmm. I really don’t know a lot about laundry but surmised that all the water had to be out of the drum before I opened the door. Actually, that has less to do with understanding laundry and more to do with understanding gravity. What to do, what to do? As much as I wanted to put off the inevitable and not deal with opening the strainer at the bottom of the machine, sending three or so gallons of water into the inside of the boat, where, if you understand anything about boats, is the opposite side you want the water, I acquiesced. Luckily, my first load wasn’t the towels, so, with a bucket positioned to catch most of the water and plenty of dirty towels stuffed around the base of the machine, I opened the flood gates and let the water come. It came with a bit more force than I expected and ended up in my lap. The reason it ending up in my lap was because I was sitting on the toilet at the time (yes, shorts on and lid closed, but still, the image is pretty funny). The economics of space on a boat requires that it be used efficiently and as such, if you wish, you can make toilette and do your laundry at the same time. I can feel that sophisticated image I’ve cultivated for so many years just slipping away, but that’s fodder for another blog.

So there I was, once again with a load of wet clothes needing to be rewashed. Because my pride wouldn’t let this laundry event exceed my 2.6 cycles per load average, I just wrung out the clothes, hung them on the boat’s life lines and got out the old tool box.

The first thing I did was look at the instruction manual. It’s in German. Those Germans sure do love their syllables. Apparently, any single syllable word in English requires at least 15 syllables in German. Being internet savvy, I logged onto Google Language and translated the first sentence in the manual. This is the god’s honest truth. The translation read, “Through print gropes, takes place one waschzeitverkurzung.” Was it time for a cocktail? Understanding that the instruction manual wasn’t going to be any help, I did what any red-blooded American male would do, I just started taking out screws. Eventually, the belly of the beast was exposed and into the abyss I peered. Hmmmm. There wasn’t a button that said, “If your washing machine isn’t draining (or your waschzeitverkurzung kazuent draivingiklerspluggen) push here.”

The long and short of it is that I finally found the pump and took it out. I hotwired 220 volts, yes you read that right, 220 volts, with some old wires I found hanging around (don’t ask) and discovered that the pump was fine. I did some other tests with a voltage meter (which made me feel so butch) and found that the power to the pump was fine. I put the whole mess back together while sitting on the toilet and ran another load. You’d think this would be over; didn’t I say the long and the short of it? The next load ran fine until a clanking noise alerted me to what I already knew. I really didn’t fix anything. I only took it all apart and put it all back together again. However this time, when I opened the door, quite a bit of smoke came out with the laundry; but the drum did drain, or, the water evaporated from the heat that caused the smoke. Not wanting to ruin my 2.6 cycle average, I just hung my clean but smoky smelling clothes out on the life lines to dry, hoping with all my heart that the island air would whisk away the smoky smell and replace it with that beautiful “hung out to dry in the fresh air” smell my Grandmother used to achieve so effortlessly.

Once again, I sat down on the toilet, took the whole mess apart, tested the pump and found nothing amiss. Damn it. With a frustration that lead me to believe that dirty clothes weren’t all that bad, I put it all back together, crossed my fingers and yes, I know it’s hard to believe, I ran another load. Just so you don’t think I’m nuts, this time I sat on the toilet with a fire extinguisher in my lap. I couldn’t hold it in my hands because, in the interest of being time efficient, I read my book while I was waiting for the washing machine to explode. Guess what? It ran like a champ. Four loads and two hours later (the last two loads without the fire extinguisher) all the wash was done, hung out to dry then folded and put away.

I decided to reward myself by eating at the magnificent little French restaurant in the marina. Dressed in some of my newly cleaned clothes, I headed to dinner where I was greeted by a beautiful hostess who said in heavily accented English, “That is a very unusual cologne you have on. If you don’t mind me asking, what it is?”

“It’s called eau du Waschzeitverkurzung, and I made it myself.”

Tank Racks

You’d think that getting a couple of tank racks would be a simple thing. First things first: tank racks are racks that support SCUBA tanks on the boat when you’re not diving. The most common ones are called pelican racks which are made from heavy gauge steel wire coated in a soft plastic similar to the coating you’d find on the handle of a wrench. The wire is formed into a triple tiered grid most commonly holding four tanks in a row. The grid is then bolted at its bottom onto two rectangular pieces of wood that run perpendicular to the row of tanks and protect the deck of the boat from scratches. The problem with this type of rack is that invariably, the plastic coating fails to protect the steel from the elements and the rack begins to rust, depositing messy little pieces of grime all over the surface of our nice clean white boat. Can you guess who’s writing this blog? I’ll have none of that.
While Jim and I were tooling around St. Thomas, we happened buy “Chris Sawyer’s Dive Shop”. He had stacks of tank racks made from 8 inch PVC pipe tied together with quarter inch white line. Ingenious! No fuss, no mess and white goes with everything. With my goal insight, I strolled into the shop and asked to buy two of his best PVC masterpieces. How much could four pieces of PVC and 20 feet of quarter inch line possibly cost? One hundred and sixty US dollars, that’s how much. Oh wait…each. Exorbitant! Those of you who know me know that in addition to loving a challenge, I love to save a few bucks. My calculations brought the total cost of these tank racks to about $75.00 for both not including my time which, we all know is right now in abundance and at a very reasonable rate.
I didn’t want to haul eight pieces of eight inch PVC from St. Thomas to Tortola so I decided to wait until I got back to Barecat’s dock to start my project. Jim and I sailed back to Tortola and I began my search for the pipe. When you go into most shops “down island” they’re shelves are somewhat sparse but they always seem to have quite a bit more “somewhere in the back.” It’s like they only want to show it to you if you’ve expressed a genuine interest in making a purchase. You’re never allowed in “the back” and “the back” must me a 4 acre maze with a few coffee shops and TV playing reruns of Gilligan’s Island because, once they head into “the back”, it’s quite a while before you ever see them again. In the States, you’d just leave and go the hardware store across the street. In Tortola, there’s only one street and only one hardware store. So the employee comes back with a smile (ha, I just wrote that to make me smile) only to tell you that they don’t have it. I smile back (because my mother taught me to) and asked if they could recommend another place we could try. Then the game begins. They tell me where, I politely ask them to repeat what they said, they say it again, even more softly, I smile more broadly, make a joke about the heat and how it affects my hearing and ask them to repeat it again. They reply more loudly and with intended frustration at my unreasonableness but with no more clarity. I mumble back something in the same way people sing the lyrics to songs even when they don’t know them, thank them, leave the store and ask the first person I meet on the street where I can go to get PVC. Usually they point to the store I just walked out of and ask me if I’ve tried there.
Eventually we discover that the only place stocking the pipe is the Department of Waste Management. Delightful. I asked Jim if he would mind going to get it. Bless his heart, he says, “Sure.” Four trips to the Waste Depot later, Jim comes back with two, four foot long sections of pipe. It takes four trips because the first time, the guy who cuts the pipe was at lunch. Jim was told he would be back in fifteen minutes; three more trips and three hours later, he was there. Apparently he had lunch “in the back.”
Ok, so now I have the pipe. How to cut really big pieces of PVC at right angles? Mike and Tom, from Barecat charter are more than eager to crack open a few Old Milwaukees and watch me use their “Saws-ALL.“ Much to their entertainment disappointment, I manage to cut the pipe (and just the pipe) by tying it to what was left of a wrought iron and wood slat park bench. Then I used the grinder-from-hell to trim the bottoms flat. The grinder is from hell because as soon as it came out of the box, the West Indians removed and threw away the protective finger guard attached to the back of the grinder. What was left was a grinder with a very bad attitude and Rick with a few bloodied knuckles and one bloody knee. The bloody knee is because while sitting and grinding, I bent over to see if my line was parallel and didn’t pay attention to the grinder…ouch. But now I’m done and covered from head to toe in PVC dust. Do you know what PVC dust sticks to? Sweat. Got the picture?
I have the PVC cut and now need to tie it together. Unfortunately, I didn’t look that closely at the ready made, somewhat over-priced tank racks Chris Sawyer wanted to sell so I have to wing-it from here. I decide to drill them and screw them together. I can drill them from the outside and then counter sink the screws in from the inside so the racks are smooth. First I have to make a template so the screws all line up. No problem, I use an old strip hinge which I screw to the leg of the work bench. I’m impressing myself with each innovation. An hour later, I’ve drilled all the holes in all of the pieces of pipe however, I now find out that the initial “Saws-All” cuts were not square so the holes only line up with the guide and not with the to-be-joined sections of pipe. Out comes that nasty little grinder.
An hour later, the grinding is done. Once again, I’m covered in sweat and PVD dust but elated with being one step closer to being finished. At this point, I’m taking as much joy from each accomplishment as possible. The power of positive thinking. Now I’ll attach the counter-sinking bit to the mini drill and counter sink the 24 holes. I’ll be done in 5 minutes! The drill bit is a quarter if an inch too long. Sigh. I remind myself about the positive thinking. An hour later, all of the holes are counter sunk and my thumb and forefinger are starting to blister because I had to spin the countersinking bit by hand. Still, on the bright side, the holes are ready and the racks are almost done. I screw all of the screws in only to find that counter sinking the holes made the ends of the screw stick out the other side. Drat the luck. So I reluctantly get out the grinder-from-hell, grind down all of the screw tips and a few knuckles and am done. Or so I thought. The heat generated by grinding the screw seems to have weakened the PCV a bit. No worries, a little industrial strength epoxy in each seam will take care of that. The smallest can of epoxy available at the Chandlery (marine talk for super expensive hardware store) is $35.00 each – you have to buy two and mix them together. Before you apply the epoxy you have to wipe all of the surfaces down with acetone. Acetone cleans the plastic and burns the living hell out of your ground-down knuckles and your ground-down knee. How did I get it on my knee? You know the little boy who just has to lick the frozen light post? By now I’m wondering if Chris Sawyer went through all of this when he was making is moderately-prices tank racks.
The next morning I get up, eat my cereal and dash to the work room, or more accurately, the steel shipping container turned into a work room, to find my epoxy hardened like steel. Oh the sweet smell of success. Hey, wait a minute; my epoxy dried an ugly brown. Positive thinking, positive thinking. We just got a new, dark blue sail cover. I could cover the tank racks in blue and white ticking! You can take the boy of out the city, but…
Back to the hunt, or more to the point, back to asking Jim to go and find me white and blue ticking, which, of course, he does gleefully. He found white nylon ticking and Linda from Doyle Sails was kind enough to give him blue cotton ticking. The cotton will stretch but the nylon wont, but if I get a few pieces of teak and cinch them together with some nice black line, that would take care of the stretching. My tank racks are going to put Chris Sawyer’s very reasonably priced tank racks to shame.
The next day, I went to the teak store and asked Junior if I could get eight pieces of teak cut 12x2x1 inch, fully expecting him to say, “Sure, it will take me about ten minutes.” Instead, I got, “When you needem?”
“Today?” I replied sheeplishly.
“What time tomorrow you needum?”
“By noon?”
“They be ready at one.”
Damn, they’re good at that. So the next day at one, Jim went to pick them up. They were ready at 4:30 and only cost $80.00.
So I’ll wrap this up. Two more sessions with screws for the ticking and grinding for the screws (but thankfully, no knuckles involved) and one session with teak, clamps, knots and swear words and the racks are done. The finished appraisal comes in at two tank racks with blue and white ticking and teak accents….$300.00 each. The experience….priceless.

St. Maarten the easy way

We made it. We had a little trouble with our autopilot when we left the Sir Francis Drake Channel, but Jim fixed it on the fly. The wind was light and the seas were mild so for a "to weather" trip, it was really great.

Because of the light seas, or was it because or the Benadryl, the little monsters were much more relaxed for this crossing than they were for the last one.

Jim and I did 4 hour watches, but because this was our first big crossing of the trip, neither of us got much sleep. It was waxing gibbous moon that seemed to wash the surface of the sea behind us with a river of mercury. As the moon set, the night sky over our bow opened up to reveal the Milky way, Mars and Saturn. Orion was laying down on his side and his belt seemed to point right down to St. Maartin.

The sunrise greeted us around 5:50 and because of the Sahara dust blown over from Africa, the horizon took on many different shades of gray and blue. The sun peaked above the dust and some cumulus clouds at about 15 degrees above the horizon as a blazing ball of white.

At about 7:00 we saw the faint outline of St. Maartin in the distance. We could make out the difference between the tops of the island, but not between its base and the sea. We were escorted into Simpson's bay by dozens of schools of flying fish flitting just about the surface of the waves on wings that looked like they belonged to fairies. Yeah, that was a nice way to get to St. Maarten. We'll be here for a few weeks and then it's off to points south. We'll keep you posted.

St. Maarten Bound (Take 2)

It's been six days since our first attempt at a BVI to St. Maarten passage. During that time, we've installed a new outhaul, run three new reefing lines through the boom, reconfigured both the jib and the jennicker sheets, cleaned all the stainless steel, fixed the starboard air conditioner (again) and built and installed new tank racks (stay tuned for an individual post describing that fiasco). That's more work that I did in Virginia all last year! We've had time to monitor the weather for the best window to make the jump. We've re-provisioned, had a long talk with the dogs and are set to leave tonight for St. Maarten.

Now mind you, it's not a long sail as sails go, just over 90 miles. It's the point of sail that kicks your ass. This passage is a "passage to weather." There's a saying in the BVI, "Nothing goes to weather better than a 747." Going to weather means we're sailing into the wind. For those non-sailors out there, the physics of sailing allows you to sail in any direction EXCEPT the direction from which the wind is blowing. For example, St. Maarten is east of the BVI and guess where the trade winds blow in the Caribbean? You got it, they blow from the east. Some might ask, "Why Rick and Jim, why subject yourselves to such a beating from dear old Mother Nature? You seem like pretty smart guys, what's the point?" Well, we understand that in St. Maarten, there's Starbucks and Jim has it bad for a chi tea.

If all goes well, you can expect a post on Saturday detailing our successful crossing.

St. Maarten Bound

OK, here's the story of our trip to St. Maarteen (and a picture taken just prior to our leaving):


We headed out for St. Maarteen - Martin - Marteen - Maarten depending on who is doing the spelling - two days ago at about 7:00 pm. It took us about an hour to clear the British Virgin islands and head into the open ocean and by that time, it was already dark. The wind and waves were both a bit stronger than forecast so it was a bit of a bumpy ride. Coco and Cooper weren't happy about the rocking and rolling the boat was making and to top it off, when you're in seas like that, there is also a great deal of sloshing and banging to go along with the rocking and rolling. Well, if you're a dog, you either pee or throw up...and they did both.

Jim and I were each feeling a bit queasy and also respectfully afraid of the sail to come. We considered turning back, but decided that we needed to get use to harsh conditions and what we were going through wasn't all that harsh. So after we got ourselves psyched to weather out the storm, we heard this big BANG and discovered that our outhaul (the line that secures the clew of the sail) had snapped, leaving our mainsail "flapping in the wind" in a bad way. The sail had to be controlled and the best way to do that was to release the mail halyard and let the sail drop into the sail bag attached along the top of the boom. We took a vote and I was elected "vice-president in charge of crawling up to the mast in bad weather". So into my jack-line harness I went and up to the mast I scurried. Eyes of the World was in about 7 foot seas which, when you're heading into the wind, equates to up to 14 foot plunges into the troughs of the waves. I was facing the front of the mast with my back to the front of the boat. Every time we dove into a trough, the water sprayed up though the nets and gave me a cool, refreshing, dousing...well, maybe not so refreshing. With my back to forward, I couldn't see what was coming, nor could I focus on the horizon (please refer to the prior sentence describing the queasy feeling) and as a result, my stomach wasn't any happier than I was. Jim was behind the helm, holding the boat into weather so that when I did release the halyard, the sail fell straight through the lazy jacks and into the stack pack. Had he not been able to do that, the sail could have blown free and fouled itself in the rigging.

All went well with the dropping of the sail and we turned ourselves around on a heading back to Peter Island. Our initial plan was to head out at dusk and arrive after dawn. The theory being, "Leave with light, arrive with light." Now we were arriving back amongst the British Virgin Islands at 10:30 PM while it was quite dark. Being the prepared sailors we are, we had a watertight monitor installed in the cockpit so we could benefit from our GPS without having to be in the salon of the boat. The damn monitor was so bright that when we turned it on at night, it ruined any night vision our eyes had developed in the dark. What we did was flip it on for a few seconds and then shut it off, wait for our eyes to adjust and then make sure we weren't going to run into anything. Not the best way to come into a landing at night. We made it through the safest passage between Dead Chest and Peter Island and headed for Great Harbour to pick up a mooring ball for the night.

Most mooring balls are covered with a highly reflective paint and will light up like a beacon when illuminated with a flashlight. We pulled out our 1 million candle power spot light and began sweeping the harbout with enough light to tan a local. I'm sure the other boats in the harbour were a little peeved. However, safety first, a good night's sleep for the other folks resting in their already moored boats....a distant second. I navigated through a field of other sailboats and Jim grabbed the mooring ball with the boat hook like a pro. We snapped the shackle shut on our bridle and both gave a huge sigh of relief only then to discover that we'd lost both dogs overboard during the chaos. Ok, I made that part up. Both dogs were fine but after the peeing and the throwing up...who knows what I could have done.

We hope the next attempt at St. Maarteen will be nothing to write a blog about!

Our Dogs

About two months ago, our Cocker Spaniels had their lives turned upside down. We've always traveled a lot and when we do, we have a good friend, Ken Kraft, come and take care of our little monsters. They love Kenny, but really hate to see us leave. Being the more precocious of the two, Coco, the brown one, realizes that when the suitcases come out, someone is leaving and from that point on, she won't leave my side. We started packing the house up about two months before we left so for two months, Coco was beside herself (actually, she was right beside me). Cooper is another story. If ignorance is bliss, then that dog is in bliss heaven. She's so laid back, she could have been born in San Francisco in the 60's.

Jim and I were both stressed out about getting the dogs down here. The airlines are cool with dogs weighing less than 20 pounds riding in the cabin, under the seat in front of the owner. Our "little monsters" aren't that little. The porkers each weighed in at 27 pounds...yikes! Jim went immediately into doggie diet mode and allocated them each two pellets of food, twice a day. I of course, supplemented their diets with plenty of dog biscuits and the occasional piece of cheese that just happened to "drop" on the floor. In spite of my sabotage, Jim was able to slim the girls down to a fashionable 22 pounds.

For several weeks before we left, we discussed alternative ways to get Coco and Cooper down to the boat. Jim looked into chartering a private plane. That came to about $26,000.00. We could buy two new dogs in every port we visited for the year and still not spend $26,000.00. Needless to say, that option was out. We looked into taking a cruise ship down. They only allow service dogs on ship; anyone who knows our dogs knows that they are the ones who demand the service. That was another option down the tubes. We looked into booking our flight on a wide-body plane but the only wide-body planes that fly out of the Washington area head for a different continent. One more idea bites the dust.

In the end, we gave each dog a Benedryl, stuffed them into their Sherpa dog carriers, walked up to the ticket counter, paid the ticket agent $80.00 each for the dogs's fare, and got on the plane. Nobody even gave them a second look. I have to admit, I was the one doing most of the worrying.

They did great on the first plane but really didn't want to get back into their Sherpas for the second one. We're bigger and stronger; they got in the Sherpas.

Now they're on the boat. They love being with their two dads but are a little freaked out when their whole house starts to move. But as you can see from the two pictures below, they've adjusted just fine. Coco does what she did in Falls Church. She looks out the window/hatch hoping to find something to bark at. Cooper does what she does best....ZZZZZZZZ.

Ahhhh, it's a dogs life!