A lot's happened in a year of not posting...

What will hopefully be the only Annual Update

Given that aside from healthcare workers, grocery store/food delivery chain employees, the entire planet suddenly has a lot more free time, what better time to try to get in the habit of updating this Blog!

Going forward, I'm going to create at least three types of posts, which can be filtered on the right side, under "Pages".  The current three are

• Sailing Related Posts - Kind of obvious
• General Posts - Basically all posts that are not sailing specific
• Technical Articles - For the dorks out there

So what's happened in the past year.

• Found and bought a boat (1997 Beneteau Oceanis 40 CC in New Bern, NC)
• Moved it to Oriental, NC "The Sailing Capital of NC"
  Amazing place, BTW.  Great for a weekend trip.  People are super friendly and it is super relaxing to go there.
• Had it "on the hard" (out of water) at Deaton Yacht Service to do some work, bottom painting, etc.
• Named it Betelgeuse. (Brightest star in the Constellation Orion *normally)
  Those that understand how to hail on a marine VHF may get a kick out of this name...
• Set it up for charter from Bow To Stern Boating.
• Sailing over several weekends, taking trips to various spots on the Neuse River
• Went on a weeklong charter with friends down in the British Virgin Islands.  Amazing, amazing trip that I can't wait to do again.
• Finished out a very successful 2019 at Closet Factory.
• Returned to the Miami Boat Show.
• COVID-19 happened, forcing us to move everything to Virtual appointments using screen sharing, eventually stop all of our Closet Factory Operations, temporarily lay off our employees and spend a lot more time at home.

I'll see about posting some more information on some of these bullet points over the coming days/weeks as I have a chance to create posts that include some pictures from along the way.

Thanks for reading!

Picking up a truck and visiting friends - The start of it all...

Before the fall of 2018, Sue and I had never really sailed, unless you count one Sunfish Rental at Lake Crabtree Park in Morrisville, NC and a daysail that Sue did in Buffalo, NY when she was co-oping at General Motors. We've owned a 17' Jetboat used in local lakes since June of 1998, but that's usually 4 or 5 hours max at a time on relative calm waters. 

So what happened to get us on the Sailing kick?  Buying a Krispy Kreme box truck and visiting friends in Annapolis, of course!  

Our business was expanding and needed an additional installation vehicle.  I found an ex-Krispy Kreme delivery box truck that fit the bill, being sold by Penske in Baltimore, MD. (It smelled amazing, by the way).  In order to get it back to Raleigh, I'd have to fly up to Baltimore on a Friday, pick up the truck and then drive back to Raleigh with Sue staying in Raleigh to keep things running.  

Our super-close friends, and best-man (Jesse) and Matron of Honor (Lisa) live in Annapolis and invited me to spend the night at their place before having to drive back.  "Oh, and by the way, one of the largest sailboat shows in the country (probably world) is going on, so let's go there after you get the truck?"  Sounded fun to me. 

We arrived in downtown Annapolis and had a lunch and a few drinks.  It was becoming obvious that Annapolis is a drinking town with a sailing problem.  After lunch we walked to the show and it's a big show, focused just on sail boats.  Remember, at this point, I pretty much knew nothing about sailing.  I peppered Jesse with questions, since he is an avid sailor that grew up sailing on the Finger Lakes of NY, crews on racing boats often and Bareboat charters in the BVIs every year.  Me: "What's this rope for?" Jesse: "First, that's called a line or sheet."  Me: "Why does this sheet go to there?"  Jesse: "That's actually a halyard"

After walking around for a while, we starting visiting big, beautiful catamarans and as it turned out, Lisa and Jesse's retirement plan is to sell everything and live on a 40-something foot catamaran in the Caribbean.  We probably toured at least 8 catamarans, each have 3 or 4 cabins, 3 or 4 heads and having amazingly open and inviting interiors.

By the end of the show I was hooked!  I wanted to copy their retirement plan!  The idea of having none of the responsibilities that come along with unnecessary possessions and being able to see new places all the time consumed my thoughts for the drive back to Raleigh and I couldn't even wait until getting back to tell Sue all about my experience and my epiphany.  We talked about it on my drive back and more over the next couple of days, and she actually seemed interested in learning more?!

The next step was to start learning and giving ourselves reality checks...

-Mike