We have a freezer...

Well after a long night and the services of AP Heating our freezer is going below zero again! Before Andre got to it, the coldest it went to was +15C. After replacing the coolant and fixing the poor installation job, the freezer is below zero. Next step is to get the water cooling working again (rather than only air), which will help it even further.

Registered

After much waiting and frustration Geru is finally a Canadian registered vessel. The paperwork was initially sent to Transport Canada in February. We then found out that they would not accept the registration without a tonnage survey. After arranging for that survey (pretty hard to do in Ottawa - far away from the ocean and in the middle of the winter) and a lot of hand holding, we are finally done!

Our Current Plan

We thought we'd summarize what our plan looks like right now.
Our house closes on August 10th, at which time we will be moving onto the boat. We will live on the boat at BYC (Britannia Yacht Club, where it is currently located) for a week or so and then the boat will be trucked across town to Mooney's Bay. From there we will head south on the Rideau Canal to Kingston. This means we plan on leaving Ottawa around August 20th. From Kingston it's up the Saint-Lawrence River through Montreal. We will take a right turn at Sorel onto the Richelieu River towards Lake Champlain. After another canal system south of Lake Champlain we will be on the Hudson River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean at New York City. From there it's south down along the coast using the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).
We'll keep you posted on our further plans as we figure them out.

New Boat Upholstery Arrives

It's been a while since we've posted.... Today's news is that the new boat upholstery and our new mattress arrived (thanks Gord!) - one step closer to having a boat we can live on. ;)

The last two weeks have been spent working on the water tanks (cleaning and fixing the cracks in the gelcoat) and getting a new head (toilet) and holding tank installed, along with a bunch of other small boat tasks.

Our cleaning up at home is going well. We have sold many of the larger items (there are still a few things left - want a couch ?), and we had a great garage sale this past Saturday. On top of all this, Ruth is working away on her honours thesis - it's due in three weeks... We are very busy but also very excited as our departure date is rushing towards us.

Holding Tank from Germany

A few weeks ago we ordered a holding tank at the Chandlery here in Ottawa, but when it arrived it was black, not white as shown in the 2007 catalog (you can see the liquid inside when it's white to know when it's full). So we told them we wanted the white one. We received a call back that they only came in black and the suppliers didn't know why the catalog had them in white. We called two suppliers and got the same answer. Ruth finally called the manufacturer in the Netherlands and was told that the old type was black and all the new ones were white! So the suppliers were trying to get rid of old stock. Back to the Chandlery - no, their supplier couldn't get white until they put a new order in... So, since we were going to Germany for a vacation anyway, we decided to try to buy a holding tank in Europe. We found a Chandlery in Ruth's home town (about 2hrs from the North Sea) and, sure enough, they could get one for us.

So what did we bring back from our vacation? A waste water holding tank - or a "fecal tank" in German!

Frequently Asked Questions

People keep asking us similar questions so we thought we'd post some of them here with our answers:

• How long will it take to get to the Caribbean?
  
  We don't really have a timeline on how long it will take us as we have no schedule in mind - if we are having fun we will stay in different places along the way longer. Winter will be pushing us south (along with lock closures), but hurricanes may keep us north. Given all of this, it will most likely take a month or two to get to Florida, where we plan to do more work on the boat. We will head off to the Caribbean after that.
  
  
• How do you shower?
  
  We will shower using a solar shower filled with sea water and then do a quick rinse with fresh water from our tanks. A solar shower is simply a black bag with an attached hose and small shower head. It is filled with water that the sun heats up over the course of a few hours.
  
  
• Will you have your cell phone?
  No - we will be using our SSB radio for communications when at sea. We will use a laptop with Wi-Fi for e-mail and Skype phone calls when we are in harbours or use internet cafes.
  
  
• What about pirates?
  
  There aren't any! .... Well at least there aren't any that go after small boats - they prefer the large freighters that have large amounts of money on board.
  
  
• What does SVGeru stand for ?
  
  SVGeru stands for : Sailing Vessel GEoff and RUth
  
  Many people when cruising are known by their boat names, so we thought this way our names might get remembered too ;)
  
  
  
  

More to come as the questions come in...

Keel Fix

We have spent the last 3 weeks getting her ready for launch.. most of that time was spend fixing the keels. Head over to Flickr to see the photos of the work which was done.