This month, June is the 2 year mark for us being underway from our home at Columbia River Yacht Club in Portland Oregon. 
When we started this adventure, we thought that this 2 year mark we would be close to being done….but that isn’t the case. Our plans have adjusted multiple times, as they should when things happen. But we are so happy they did because we would not have experienced some places that we were not planning on going.
This first disruption of our plans was the overhaul in the Puerto Vallarta, Mexico Shipyard at Opequimar. It took many more weeks than we anticipated. They did a great job but the length of time made us change our plans. We decided to head north up to the Sea of Cortez for the summer. And what a great time we had! We would go back for sure and maybe someday we will do that. It was one of the best times we had.
One of the other best times/places, that was unexpected, was when we hit the San Blas Islands on the Caribbean Sea side of Panama. This was definitely in our plans but we were totally surprised by the level of friendliness from the native Guna Indians. We were blessed to have them share parts of their lives with us and we will never forget this memory. Also the beauty of the land and the hardship these people live every day to just survive is amazing. We were blessed to be able to experience it.
Now we had many small change in plans and we really only plan out the next stop just before leaving the current one. But the Sea of Cortez was a major change to our plans. One of the other major changes to the plan was just recently when the Covid 19 hit the world. We were in Jamaica and we planned on going to Turks and Caicos and had family coming to join us. Well, of course that didn’t happen and we decided to undertake the longest run we had ever done, 4 days, alone with no crew. We made it safely to Florida and were glad to be in the US during these trying times.
We are frequently asked by people we meet about the roughest weather or worst storms. Of course you will all remember our cruise from Costa Rica to Panama, Our most TERRORIZING Cruise ever. We tell this story often to people we meet along the way, with wide eyes watching us as we point to the top of the fly bridge where the sea water attacked me in the middle of the night. This was a life changing event for me as a sailor and I truly respect the sea as it has its own agenda.
Of course, we are always doing repairs on the boat, well, I guess I should say Dan is always doing repairs. At least the repairs are being done in exotic locations, right? Because repairs are so much of our energy, to keep moving and be safe I asked Dan what his most concerning repair was and why. This repair issue was the overheating of our main generator. It actually had two issues, but we did not know that at the time.
Being that the overheating was in our main generator and it was old, we had a bit of concern and needed it fixed quickly. We were in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico at the time, which adds to the complexity if parts are needed. The first issue was a clogged and leaking heat exchanger. It was very troublesome because it was difficult to disassemble, being old & rusty and was hard to get it unfastened in a very tight location. Eventually he was successful, but the part had to be ordered from Cook Engines in the US and then have it shipped. Because it was heavy and expensive part, we paid bucks! Customs in foreign countries can hit you hard. The second issue was found a couple days later after the heat exchanger was replaced. We had a worn out and clogged exhaust mixing elbow. The sea water passage had become clogged, limiting the flow which causes more overheating. We had lost our main generator again. But this time we had friends coming down and they brought the part with them in their luggage and helped Dan fix the elbow. All of this was a major concern because this was our main generator wired to our inverter. We had to use our alternate generator which limited us to 50 amps max.
The winner of best pictures is a slam dunk on “Sunsets & Sunrises”. So many I may need to create a picture book with all these pictures to put on my coffee table, someday!
I was not sure how to put these two years into a overall blog when there was just so much to talk about, So I thought I would put the last 2 years into a list of data points.
- 730 days/2 years living aboard Angelique
- 8,386 nautical miles
- 7 countries visited
- Cruised past 6 countries without stopping
- 12 Scuba/snorkels dives – not enough times, for sure!
- 1 new dinghy
- 1 haul out/overhaul
- 5 times we used 2 anchors – bad holding & bad wind/wave direction
- 3 times major direction change in plans
- 2 marina power failures while gone off of the boat – not fun!
- 18 airline tickets purchased, traveled away from boat
- 1 pandemic
- 2 intruders
- 1 awesome supermoon
- 100’s of amazing sunset/sunrise pictures
- 40+ dolphin sightings
- 1000+ hours fixing & maintaining stuff
- 24 engine oil changes
- 1 stolen phone
- 3 Airbnb’s – during shipyard work
- 50 different visits from our friends/family
- 4 different visits from Ken and Cheryl – Our good friends
- 6 different visits from our kids, Kylie, Chase & Mitch
- 2 Hired hands – who were brothers
- 2 Navy football games attended – different cities
- 40+ motorcycle rides
- 48 blog posts about our adventures
- 75+ books read (hard, on-line & audio)
- 100+ bicycle rides
- 60+ Uber and taxi rides
- 27 nights Angela spent on boat without Dan
- So many new boating friends/acquaintances
- 2 very grateful and blessed owners of Angelique
As we reflect back on the past 2 years living aboard our Motor Yacht, Angelique, we are amazed at how far we have traveled, IN OUR OWN BOAT! So many awesome memories we have and we are EXTREMELY GRATEFUL that I have been writing them all down in this blog. Also, incredibly grateful to our friends and family that have joined us and helped with moving the boat in those times we needed it. And of course, all the people we met along the way, which are now new friends with which we will hopefully keep in touch.
I hope that if this is something you are interested in doing, that you do it! Yes there are rough times, lots of maintenance and repairs. But what an adventure you will live and relive as you remember what you accomplished.
We had sustained winds of 20-30 miles per hour and gusts that topped 50+ even with us tucked in behind the mountain top and in a cove. Glad we weren’t out in the open. We were actually doing pretty good for as strong as the winds were. We had two other boats with us in the cove.
We had a beautiful cruise down the coast and as we approached Catalina Island I kept thinking that it looked very similar to the Channel Islands we just left behind. Brown, bare and plain. It surely doesn’t compare to the San Juan Islands in WA! My expectation was that Avalon (coastal resort town) would be a bigger more expensive Roche Harbor, but it certainly isn’t as pretty from 1 mile away. I was hoping it would get better. As we got close to the marina a harbor patrol boat came and escorted us to our mooring ball. It was nothing like we have seen before. It had a front bow loop and a back stern loop to keep you facing in the correct direction. (to fit more boats in). 
This was our only choice for anchoring in Avalon. Most mooring balls will not hold the weight of our boat. But they actually have mooring balls that hold boats that are 100 feet and larger.
