The Retirement Project

We are just a few days from our scheduled splash. The good news is we are making good progress. But it does come with a price. Most of our work days stretch out to nearly nine hours with very few...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2024/05/disaster-averted.html

After one longish day and one short day of driving we pulled up as near as we could to First Light with a van stuffed full of stuff. The boat is buried pretty deep in a collection of boats on the...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2024/05/all-day-every-day-working-on-boat.html

I've said it so many times before, that the cruising community was the best part of the years that we've lived on the boat. The friendships that we've made cruising have run the deepest of any fr...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-sad-goodbye.html

One of the things that you simply can't live without if you own a boat, whether it's sail or power, is tools. If you own a boat it's going to break. A lot. It doesn't matter if you're a mechanic ...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-great-tool-debate.html

Winter on land has felt interminable, even though the cold weather snap in St. Louis was relatively brief and the spring temps are rapidly climbing. It has given me a good amount of time to prepa...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2024/02/its-all-about-peeps-longterm-peeps.html

We started this blog on August 26, 2007, long before we really had any idea where this journey might take us. It was only a tiny whisper of a dream, this idea of retiring to a sailboat and living...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-journey-into-real-pages.html

It's been quiet here on the Retirement Project, but not because it hasn't been busy. Over the holidays we had all eleven of our grandkids here at various times with much princess dressup-ing, puz...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2024/01/of-grandkids-puzzles-poker-and.html

After several enjoyable weeks of taking up residence in Daughter Middle's basement, being a day-in and day-out part of the family, and taking full advantage of having Grandkids (6) near at hand f...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/10/another-moving-day.html

Even though we've been at the whole cruising thing for a really long time, every once in awhile I get completely gobsmacked by something I didn't know and this week was one of those. Did you know...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/10/text-buoy.html

Daughter Eldest and family (sans Son-in-Law who could not get out of work) were in St. Louis to reunite with Grandson Eldest after the months he spent helping us move First Light. That part of t...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/09/land-side.html

Yeah, I said that. Well, what came was another trip to the ER. I woke up on day two in St. Louis feeling the same feeling I had felt just before the lights went out and I landed in the New...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/09/and-we-will-just-take-each-day-as-it.html

At my urging, Deb arranged to pick up the rental car a day early. I wanted to head west as quickly as possible. While she went to get the car, Grandson Eldest and I took to getting on our way in ...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/09/gone-west.html

This is this year's last night at anchor on First Light. In celebration of getting this far, (and regardless of it being some 85 nm as the goose flies to big water) we broke out our conch horn to...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/09/last-night-on-first-light.html

Back in 2015 we put Kintala on the hard at Oak Harbor Marina so we could go back to St. Louis and get our condo ready to sell. The renter had moved out and we were ready to be done with the troub...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/09/yes-its-still-peeps.html

Three thousand six hundred and seven days ago we pulled the dock lines onto Kintala's deck, motored away from Oak Creek Marina, and headed out on our cruising adventure. Now, all those days later...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/09/october-19th-2013.html

Back in 2015 we had the opportunity to tour the Naval Academy grounds, including the chapel and the museum. The part that impressed us the most was the collection of model ships on the second fl...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/09/picture-post-annapolis-naval-academy.html

After a few enjoyable days of visiting with family we are still in Kent Island waiting out some blustery winds. They are forecast to settle down in a day or two and, when they do, we will head to...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/almost-there.html

The crew of First Light dropped the Dink in the water first thing in the morning and headed in to check out the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in town. There was a nice free Dink Dock for those ...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-small-world-gets-smaller.html

Various weather sources suggested that yesterday would be a really good day to make the 47 mile, 8.5 hour trip from the Solomons to St. Michaels. With Grandson Eldest at the helm, we pulled the...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-long-day-and-quiet-night.html

We are waiting out 20 knot winds currently stirring up the waters that lay between First Light and St. Michaels, which worked out really well as it gave us a chance to take the Dink down the riv...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-small-world-is-very-strange.html

A day of thumping along got us to the Cockrell Creek anchorage, a place we never visited while on Kintala. So far as anchorages go it was a tiny place. One might have gotten two boats in if they ...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-part-of-life.html

The crew of First Light was up before first light getting ready for departure. A long day was in the offering and letting daylight dribble away while still at the dock seemed silly. A weather che...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/ibr-lbd.html

With heat indexes in the 110+ range, two days of thunderstorms in the forecast, short on sleep and even shorter of temper, (that would be just me, by the way) a slight change in plans seemed appr...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/when-little-bad-news-is-pretty-good-news.html

We left the Dismal Swamp Visitors Center this morning. The trick was to time the bridge / lock opening so as not to miss it or to spend too much time holding station waiting for it to open. The o...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/i-stand-corrected-from-my-correction.html

While living on Kintala we did the ICW North – South – North trip several times. During none of those trips did we attempt the Dismal Swamp. The primary reason was our better than 5 foot draf...

https://theretirementproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/i-stand-corrected.html