Here's where our boat is. You can see her at 5:05, she's the sailboat with the dark sailcover.
It's too bad that we don't still have April Witch, that would have been a great boatname for a boat in Waukegan.


http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=resources&id=9106157

Brian and I have been wanting to get a used sailboat for many years. We finally found one this year, the Joy Faye II, a 1985 Pearson 303. Which means it's a sailboat, built by Pearson boat company, in 1985 and it's 30 feet and either three inches, or a third of a foot. But I think it's 30 feet 3 inches.

If you know me, you know that I like to collect things that say "Joy" on them, because that is my middle name. 

So we had to buy the boat.

Now, Joy Faye II or as we are going to call her, JF, was taken very good care of. But it is a 27 year old boat, and stuff wears out, and gets lost. But things get added too. So it's a treasure hunt in a way. We bought the boat over the winter, so we didn't get to sail it before deciding. BUT when my son Josh was six months old, we sailed on a sister ship of our boat for a week in Michigan. It was a very comfy sailboat.

We figure that you need at least a 30' boat on Lake Michigan if you are going to go cruising. It seemed like a good length, sturdy, but still small enough for us to handle with just the two of us.  We also needed roller furling at least on the headsail, because we aren't 20 year olds anymore, and I told Brian I'm not going on the foredeck to put up sails.

The boat lived in Racine, but we live in Third Lake, so we brought her down to the nearest harbor, Waukegan. Here's a picture of the Joy Faye II in her slip in Waukegan. 

Here's another look, we were standing in the parking lot, looking East, over the walkway to the North section of the harbor. Our boat is in the South Harbor. Notice that lack of other boats. That's because it was still April and most people hadn't put their boats in the water yet. We were very early. 

Here's a picture of Brian today, May 15th right after we first took the boat out of it's new slip. We were at the fuel dock, filling the 22 gallon tank. We put 7 more gallons in, and Brian figures it will last us a very long time. 

I think Brian looks like a boy scout. He has his Wayne Farms cap, and his long sleeved blue shirt, over his short sleeved tan shirt. And then his auto inflating life vest. 

I bought the life vests, they are for offshore sailing. We are on Lake Michigan, but it can get rough. Today there was no roughness, hardly any wind, but since we are still so new to this second phase of sailing, we figured we'd wear them anyway. The people in the boat behind Brian in this picture, probably thought we were dorks. As did the people at the dock when we came in and I said "Hello! This is the first time we're docking on our own. Do we throw you a line?"

I have to interrupt myself to mention that any time I walk by someone on their boat at the dock, I say hello, I wave and shout hello to other boaters as we pass them, and I say hello to everyone in the harbor office. Yes, it's goofy. But our house is in a friendly subdivision, so it seems the right thing to do. 

Our first motoring trip through the cut into the lake was a bit harrowing. A big barge was dredging, and we had to go around and it was tight. Well, actually I don't know. Brian was driving the boat. He wants me to drive too, but I'm bad at parking my Prius, no way am I driving a 30 foot boat in tight quarters.

Once we got out to the open water, we unfurled the headsail.  This is what our headsail looks like from the safety of the cockpit. (well, you didn't think I was going to move around the boat with my iphone5 did you? On our first sail? What's wrong with you people?)