A New Journey Awaits

Hello our dear friends. Once again we are preparing for another journey. We are planning on leaving on the 19th of August 2017. However, between Bryce breaking his hand and George biting my finger we had a few setbacks. I’ve been asked if I would continue to blog about our travels. Yes, I will. Thanks for reading about us. This has been what I would call a very busy time at home. As many of you know we arrived back home last August of 2016. We put Beauty up on dry dock for the winter and did a few minor repairs to her this Spring. We put new stanchions on her and painted her bottom. along with a few other things.

As many of you might remember, when we made it to the Everglades we were asked to leave because we were towing a jet-ski. On Christmas Eve of 2015 we we forced into small craft warnings on the Gulf by the National Park Service. LOL then 5 Alive broke lose on the Atlantic Ocean. She was returned to us by a shrimper. This summer Bryce has spent it making a hydraulic hoist for Beauty to carry our light weight Jet-ski named Patch. She only weighs 400 pounds. We still have 5-Alive but due to the fact that she weights 800 pounds we wanted something lighter for Beauty to carry on her stern. Our New journey will take us back again around Michigan and this time we will travel along the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan. We are planning on traveling the Mississippi again.

In the photo above on the Port side of the scree (left) are our new Stanchions. Bryce is giving her a new coat of paint.

Of course you all know that I couldn’t go without showing off my new rug again. Yes, I was drinking a glass of wine when I took the photo..LOL

Below you will noticed a picture of the new electric toilets that we put in both heads. They are called Raritan Elegance. They are so awesome.

Okay the highlight of Bryce’s Summer.. The new hydraulic hoist! Built by Bryce! The beginning of the hoist was coming up with the blue prints. Many hours of planning.

Then he had to make the decision of what type of material he wanted to make it out of. He decided to go with aluminum knowing it would be light and less weight that Beauty would have to hold on her stern. As soon as the aluminum started to be delivered Bryce went to work immediately. Without hesitation the work began.

After many days in the garage, I noticed that all his hard work was starting to look like something.LOL Okay before you look below. You are going to noticed it looks like a ball of green snot in the middle of his glasses. He broke them and didn’t take time to get new ones so he epoxied them together. I tease him about that. I have so many photos of Bryce building the hoist but will not bore you with them. After nearly 300 hours we finally saw it coming together.

The final stages..carpet time to protect jet ski while it’s resting on the hoist/cradle.

Time to start mounting it. Bryce continued working on the hoist even with a broken hand. Then the moment came to test how Patch glides on Beauty’s stern. She did awesome!!!!