New Mattress for Changes - Renting

A couple weeks ago, Phil and I ordered a new high density foam mattress to be made at Original Mattress Factory in Cleveland. We understand that they make the mattresses for the tartan boats. As I need a firm but soft mattress - we ordered the 6 1/2" thick instead of the 5 1/2" thick one. It was ready this past week and Phil picked it up in my van. It's all one piece, which will make it more comfortable to sleep on. See picture below. Yesterday was the Welcome Aboard Party at GRYC - so I thought it a perfect time to try out the new mattress. It was to be 46F at night, but as we have a electric heater and being at dock - having enough electricity isn't a problem - we decided to try it out. In case you don't know - Phil sleeps like a baby on the boat - Me, I need more padding. Well, I'm happy to say that for the first night, this mattress is very good!! Minimal aches and pains for me. I think that I would like a little more softness, so we are negotiating adding the memory foam mattress on top. We have yet to work out how it will be cut - as Phil doesn't want anymore softness of his side.

Phil had gotten up at 530am for necessities - and turned on the heater, so when I woke up 2 hours later, the boat was toasty warm. After having the requisite coffee and tea, we went to Sammy's Restaurant with fellow sailor Mark Whalen for some breakfast. We had a great time listening to each others stories. Below is a picture of the sunrise off Changes stern looking across Grand River.

Well we have decided that we're going to put the house up for rent - listing in the MLS with our Realtor, Lynn Bender. The housing market has slowed down since the tax credit has expired - so we decided to rent after the concurrency contract expires June 30. The deal is we can sign a rental agreement July 1 and they can move in July 2 or later. We've decided to use a screening company and hope that we'll get a quality family to rent for a year - or more if we like the cruising lifestyle. Phil and I don't have much hope that the buyer's house will sell in Euclid. So now we have 6 weeks to clear out the house and move onto the boat. Wish us luck in getting it all done!

First Sail was wonderful

Yesterday was a beautiful day - made it into the 80's with a S-SW wind 14-17 knots - waves about 1 foot -So we decided it was a good evening for our first sail. As we sailed down Grand River, there was only one other power boater M/V "Nothing Else Matters" that went down the river with us. Phil recognized him from when he anchored at "D" Dock at the Sailing Center before moving out to the Hidden Harbor Marina area close to the Hidden Harbor Condos. We sailed about 40 minutes from when we left Fairport Lighthouse to back to inside the harbor not including the sailing downwind down the river. It was also terrific in my mind that I didn't get seasick for the first sail!!! Though I did need to put on a couple layers as the water is still in the 40's- and Phil as usual was in jeans and T-shirt. Look Ma - No hands! as we're going slowly - (2-3.5 knots) down the river and as you can see - this was before I had to add my layers.
Here is a picture of the full sail to prove that we actually sailed but we were lazy and didn't raise the Main. :)

A couple times this past week, the current was running high making it difficult to dock the boat - so we played it safe and prepared (adding an extra line to the bow dock line) for the worse and were lucky enough that there wasn't any current left to make docking difficult. We ended the evening sitting out in the cockpit. Picture this - the wind had died so the river was glassy - no one from the yacht club across the river was playing music so all you hear were the geese honking and the frogs chirping and see wisps of clouds in the sky as the sun was setting behind them and temps in the upper 70's - so you can image that we enjoyed the end of our evening, toasted to a great start the season and nice conversation ending a very fine Friday.

Today is GRYC men's clean up day - so hope they can get enough done before the rain comes. Me - I'm planning on taking the v-berth cushions to a mattress store to see if they can make a mattress so that I can sleep well on the boat as I think it would be great to spend the weekends at the boat -but not on the current cushions.