We spent a week at the Channel Islands leading into Labor Day weekend. We sailed out from Santa Barbara to Little Scorpion anchorage on the north-east corner of the island. We chose this anchorage because it provided good shore access to a small museum, as well as some easy hiking and a small beach.

Unfortunately, we had persistent trouble with our stern anchor that caused us to have to leave Little Scorpion after just a couple of days. The wind and waves came at the anchorage from different directions, and our stern anchor was not able to hold us pointed into the waves reliably.

After leaving Little Scorpion, we made our way around the south side of Santa Cruz Island to a very popular anchorage known as Coches Prietos. We barely squeezed Tiamat in amidst the many other boats that had arrived there for the holiday weekend. Along the way were able to watch the water temperature rise 4 degrees on the trip!

Nature handed us a few lessons at Coches Prietos. Over the course of our three days there, an unforecasted southerly swell (kicked up by Hurricane Kay far to the south) started to roll into the anchorage. Not only did this become very uncomfortable, but it also made beach landings increasing hazardous. We almost suffered a dinghy capsize while attempting to launch from the beach one time! After that, plus a few sleepless nights, we decided to move on in search of protection from the swell.

Fortunately, we were able to head to Becher's Bay, a large bay on the north east side of Santa Rosa Island. We stumbled upon a large fleet of boats that were visiting Santa Rosa as part of a cruise-out from Santa Barbara Yacht Club. We anchorage on the edge of their group, and enjoyed a much calmer couple of nights, before finally heading back to Santa Barbara.

We've had a great time in Santa Barabara. We've been here almost a week, but today we're off to the Channel Islands! Santa Barbara has been a nice first, albeit rolly, anchorage. It's taken some time to get used to how rolly it is here. We've had a couple of nights where it felt like we were getting tossed about, because waves would strike us on our beam (side) when the wind died in the evening.

Luckily our anchor is quite the beast and we haven't moved a bit. We also have a wonderful anchor watch, which not only alerts you if you drag, but I can also sneak peaks at it in the middle of the night on my phone to make sure we're OK.

Even though we've only been here a short time, I feel like we've packed a decent amount in. Our first day was a nice foggy beach day! The kids have never had so much sand on them in their lives.

We provisioned for our trip to the Channel Islands, and did some maintanence on the boat. Since we no longer own any cars, we've walked everywhere we needed to go, and are slowly getting used to that. The kids made good use of their scooters, so they didn't tire out. Now if only we could teach them not to tail-gate pedestrians at a distance of  6 inches... We'll get there.

Owen and the kids checked out the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum on the second day, while I went provisioning. We also visited the local fish market, where the kids got to taste fresh-as-you-can-get uni (sea urchin). We also bought a local ocean white fish that was wonderful when pan seared.

Over the weekend, we enrolled into a trapeze class with Santa Barbara Trapeze Company! By the end, Olivia was doing catches with an instructor! Archer had fun swinging "like Spiderman"!

On our last day before departure, we spent the last prepping, resting, and starting homeschool. Tiamat Naval Academy is now in session!

We left San Francisco at slack tide on Saturday (around 9:30AM) and arrived in Santa Barbara on Tuesday afternoon around 3PM. We sailed non-sstop for the first two days. On the third day, we stop in the beautiful Secate Anchorage past Point Conception to ensure that we would arrive in Santa Barbara in daylight.

Unfortunately even though our weather predictions had called for some wind for us to sail the first day, it ended up being right on our nose and in confused seas. So we motored for the entire first two days. The first day in particular was a bit rough due to the sea state, but we powered through and kept going.

On the third day we killed the motors and and sailed through some rough waves around the infamous Point Concept, sometimes known as the "Cape Horn of the Pacific". The waves were only predicted to be 6 feet but we got at least one 10-12 foot wave that lifted us out of the water! Fortunately we were prepared with jacklines (extra lines to clip on to for safety), life jackets, and tethers for everyone on board.

Just when we decided to turn on the motors to head for our anchorage, a mysterious floating rope floated through the water. We spotted it in time and put the motors in neutral before it wrapped our propellers, which would have resulted in a very dangerous situation. However, the rope did get wrapped around both of our rudders!

We had to act quickly! Adam hooked the rope with a boat hook, while Stephanie quickly cut it free. The port rudder immediately came free, but we could see that some rope still wrapped around the starboard rudder even after cutting it as short as we were able. We were forced to enforce our anchorage on a single motor.

The Secate anchorage was absolutely gorgeous with crystal clear water. There were kelp patches which made anchoring slightly difficult, but also protected us from the waves. Owen dove under the hulls to rescue our starboard rudder from the rope, in spite of some trepidation after hearing that the area was known for Great White sharks!

After a night at Secate, somewhat bounced by canyon winds, we headed on and motored along the coast to Santa Barbara.

We had hoped to have left the fog in San Francisco, but we were mistaken. We motored through fog along almost the entire coast to Santa Barbara. Thank goodness for radar and AIS!

Our slow motor into Santa Barbara also turned out to be the best day for dolphins and whales! We saw pod after pod after pod of dolphins, and many of them came to our boat to come play and say hi. Apparently, Stephanie squeaks like a little girl for dolphins, so the original audio is omitted.

It's a serene feeling to have sailed somewhere completely new that you have never been before, but we feel so accomplished to be here. Huge thanks Adam for coming down with us. The sail was definitely better with friends to help! Hopefully we'll be off to the Channel Islands before we know it, after rediscovering land for a bit in Santa Barbara.

I'm so happy we decided to stay a bit longer and do a shake out cruise in the delta for numerous reasons! Most importantly, I'm happy we got to spend a little extra time with our boating friends, and make some new ones.

But like always on the boat, we start our trip off with a bang. We sailed here  mostly on our Code Zero. It was a great change to take out our new to us sail and making sure all the rigging for her was up to par. (It was amazing. Thanks James!).

We had a great easy sail and actually sailed most of the way to the rivers of the Delta. We even made great time with the help of a rising tidal current.

When we arrived we ran into some problems with anchoring out which was our plan: our windlass had failed. We didn't know why it wasn't working at the time. I took over the helm and Owen went to check the electrical connections, since they had been worked on recently. Unfortunately, it turned out that the motor on the windlass had failed. We had to spend the night on the fuel dock at Willow Berm while we figured it all out. We were to take the motor to an motor rebuild shop, anchored with our friends using a rear anchor with our friends in Potato Slough while we waited for it to be repaired. And then installed it again with some help.

We spent a fabulous week with our friends and members of the Coyote Point Yacht Club in the weeds. The kids had a blast with kayaks, paddle boards, trampolines, and water fun galore. And let's not forgeting TUBING!

All our non cruising / non boat friends don't quite understand how hard it is to plan anything while cruising. Planning and crusing don't mix well together. The number one question I got at the party was, "When are you leaving?". My very candid response is, "I don't know!" We do know we want to be in southern CA by the end of August. That's our goal, but in reality, the one thing we have planned is the Baja HaHa, which begins October 31st. So truly that is the only thing that is definite in the next year so far for us.

After KKMI we had planned to start south along the coast, but as the title suggests, we changed our mind. Our favorite destination for the past three years has been the Delta. We have spent plenty of great times at Willow Berm, Potato Slough, and Mandeville Tip. So we decided to do one last trip to the Delta with our Yacht Club friends, and the kids couldn't be more excited.

So follow our tracker as we head to the Delta and hang with our homies one last time for now.  

Thanks everyone for such a fabulous time at the party. We had a great time and we appreciate all the love and support. I can't explain how special everyone has made us feel! 🥰

We headed out the very next day to KKMI to get some more work on the boat done. It turns out one of the engines we had worked on was still not functioning as we would have liked. In fact, when we came in to Coyote Point to dock, our starboard engine went out right between the rock seawalls! Luckily our friends Alicia and Bryan were waiting at the docks for us. They even took the photo below, right about when our engine died. Luckily it's not close enough to see the panic in our eyes!

One lesson I'm sure every boater has learned early on is never to say no to help! And we're so happy we didn't say no this day as we needed their help catching lines for sure. Thanks guys!

So we're back at KKMI and I'm hoping we've figured out the problem: a failing lift pump on the starboard engine.

We also discovered that the adhesive on our two port windows was failing. So, yet again, we add another thing to the boat list. It's definitely never ending. We're here for probably another week or so to figure it all out. Hopefully, we will be out soon.

We've had a plan all along. We bought Tiamat with cruising in mind. We have been working through our list to get ready to go cruising. We had a 5 year plan. We bought the boat in 2018, which puts our crusing time frame in the year 2023. But plans change! We just couldn't wait any longer. We were trying our hardest to make Summer 2022 work for us. And it's happening! But what about our things? Our house? What are we going to do? We are renting our house out to some friends. But our stuff? We have PURGED. And we have spent months going through everything! So let me introduce you to what I think are the 7 stages of purging:

7 Stages of Purging

1. Shock

Do we really need to start now?? No! We have time!! We don’t need to start yet!

2. Denial

Oh, that will totally fit on a boat! No Problem! Ooo of course we need that!! Who cares if it’s huge, we’ll find space! Yes, let’s rent some storage. We’ll want everything when we come back. Are we coming back? I don’t know, but we’ll want it!

3.Anger

What? You think I need to give up what to live on a boat? No, I don’t want to!

4. Bargaining

Well, I’m giving this up? What are you giving up??

5. Depression

The sudden lack of progress due to the anxiety attacks and craziness.

6. Acceptance/ Hope

We’re almost there! We can do it!!

7. Processing

We’ve moved onto the boat!! Dear Lord, I hope it was all worth it :) I guess we’ll see!

So we have no storage rented. We do have a few sentimental items stored at the parents but that's it. No storge locker. I wasn't sure we could do it but we did! We are one step closer to leaving.

One of the most frequent questions we get  is why are we doing this? Who decided this was a good idea?

First, let's give some background! When Owen was a kid, his parents took him to live in Italy for 2 years. Even though he was young (5 & 6), it was a formative experience for him and he still remembers it fondly.

I also have some experience as a child visiting Spain, and France. I went to Spain 3 different times with my Dad, my Dad/Brother or my whole family, and I have quite a few tales from each of those trips.

So, when Owen raised the idea of wanting to give our kids an adventure too, I was already onboard. After tossing a few ideas around, somehow the idea of sailing came up. I said, "Sure. Why not give it a try?" And here we are!

Owen started sailing in 2017, while I go started a year later in 2018. We bought Tiamat at essentially the same time in 2018. That's right, I was finishing up my sailing classes when we were purchasing a 44' catamaran.

One of my favorite memories is when we got her into port into Coyote Point. The harbormaster, Mark Bettis, (now our good friend) looked our boat up and down. He asked me how long I had been sailing and I told him about a month. His jaw dropped!

It's been a few years and I already wouldn't trade the adventures that our boat has brought us for anything. I can't wait for more!

I went up to Richmond a few days ago for a quick visit to Tiamat. With so many projects in flight, the boat was BUZZING (though also rather filthy from workmen tromping all over).

• Electrical - Tiamat's new charging system is fully assembled in Pete's workshop, and was awaiting initial testing before all the components get relocated into the engine bay. Pete has been dealing with component shortages and delays, but things seem to be on track now. Pete's assistant Jonah was running wiring for the solar panels when I visited.

• Windows - We found a window installation specialist to replace the salon windows with replacements sourced directly from Fountaine Pajot. These guys are incredible! A job that was going to take the boat yard weeks and hundreds of worker-hours to complete, they will have done in less than a week.
• Canvas - The canvasworker has roughed out the canvas for new helm and cockpit enclosures, to protect us from the elements during rough weather. She's incorporate mesh window panels to act as bug screens when we have the windows open!
• Watermaker - We replaced our older 10GPH Spectra Capehorn watermaker with a new 40GPH Schenker. With all of the additional charging power coming form our new solar panels, we wanted to be able to make use of that to produce fresh water quickly and plentifully.

• Rigging - We're making some last minute rigging improvements, including replacing the main halyard and the trampoline. The new trampoline is made of Dyneema for strength and durability, and is much more firm & less bouncy, which should make it feel more secure under way.

When we were first planning our sailing adventures, we were optimistic that Starlink, a high-speed satellite-based internet service from SpaceX, would enable us to have mid-ocean internet. The promise of the system, with its thousands of satellites and space-lasers, was to offer high bandwidth and minimal latency in locations that terrestrial ISPs just couldn't offer.

Unfortunately, the early rollout of Starlink in 2021 has progressed slowly. While the service works as expected, units were very limited in quantity, and geofenced to a 15 mile radius around the service address. Suddenly our dreams of watching Netflix in the middle of the ocean seemed very far off.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when Elon Musk announced that SpaceX would be enabling roaming mode for Starlink terminals as part of a move to support Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Suddenly the dream of high-speed internet aboard was back on! Intrepid early adopters quickly started sharing success stories of using it on boat trips, including all the way down to Mexico.

Inspired by others' early successes, we decided to bring back the dream and gamble on getting a Starlink dish. We had to employ some workarounds since our home address has no service slots currently available, but Dishy, as the terminal is know, has been happily chugging away in our backyard for a couple of days now. I've even been able to take video calls over it for work!

We're still working on mounting solutions for installing Dishy on Tiamat, but we're feeling very optimistic at this point that our internet situation while cruising, at least through our time in Mexico, will be much improved!

With all the solar capacity we add to Tiamat, the next step step is to upgrade our electrical system. After all, what's the point in having a lot of solar if you can't use it?

Tiamat is currently configured with 7.1kWh of 12VDC batteries, charged by the the enginer alternators. The original solar panels charge the 12V batteries via a Victron MPPT charge controller.

On the AC side, Tiamat uses two-phase 120/240VAC shore power. She has an inverter/charger attached to the first leg for the two-phase shore power, which is used for all "house" AC power. The second leg is only used for the air conditioning system. Tiamat also has a comically oversized two-phase diesel generator that can be used to run the air conditioners away from the dock.

So much for how it used to be.

With so much power in from the solar panels, we wanted to upgrade the batteries to lithium. Lithium batteries achieve much greater density, have a wider usable capacity, and can accept much greater charging currents. We're installing four Victron 24V 200Ah batteries, for a total capacity of 19.2kWh - and 80% of that is usable capacity, compared to 40% with the AGMs!

You might have noticed that I said 24V batteries. That's right, we're switching Tiamat's energy storage from 12V to 24V. Higher voltages are generally better for higher power systems like we're building, and we had actually looked into going as high as 48V. Unfortunately, while 48V support does seem to be growing, enough of the components we would have needed just weren't available. 24V, while not as optimal as 48V, will still be much better than 12V and is well-supported in the marine industry.

The switch from 12V to 24V for energy storage necessitates a lot of downstream changes, as we're not planning to convert all of our 12V loads to 24V, at least not initially. Supporting this entails a bunch of added complexity in terms of 24V to 12V converters. For our largest loads (windlass, winch), we're also using the 12V start batteries of the engines to help buffer the load.

The other big change we're making is installing a PAIR of 120V inverters, which together will be able to produce the full two-phase 120/240VAC. The obvious benefit of this is that it will enable running our air conditioners off of the batteries (at least for a little while...), but we're also using it to enable installing an induction cooktop in the galley!

Tiamat got the first of her major pre-departure refits completed in February: 2.6 kilowatts of solar panels! The new panels are LG bifacial panels, meaning that the absorb light from both sides, which is a nice feature when surrounded by reflective water and a white boat.

This is the culmination of a multi-month saga, which featured having a full set delivered only to find that they'd been scratched at the warehouse. Getting replacements required waiting for new panels to arrive from Asia, as well as lots of fun logistics with the freight company. It all worked out in the end, and we're very happy with how they ended up.

Chris Evanoff and his team at the metal shop at Svendsen's Bay Marine in Richmond, CA built a new stainless frame to support the much larger panel area, attaching it onto the existing stern arch. The new construction is very study and we're confident that it'll hold up well to the rigors of cruising.

Next Tiamat is heading to KKMI Richmond where Pete Rowland will be carrying out a major refit of the electrical and charging systems, so that we can make good use of all that power coming from the solar panels. The yard will also be helping us replace the salon windows, and installing a new high-capacity water maker.