And that's a wrap.

Our years of being gypsy liveaboards started with Nomad teaching us the basics on Lake Carlyle. Nearly a decade passed while we stepped up to the bigger and far more capable Kintala while still on the lake. We then moved aboard to meet the challenges of wandering to our hearts' content along the East Coast, the Bahama Islands, the Florida Keys, and the west coast of Florida, a lifestyle we enjoyed for the better part of a decade. But Kintala went up for sale while I went back to the aviation world to try and fill a depleted bank account. It wasn’t long before the idea of trying the trawler life and doing the Great Loop became a new challenge that we made happen. It turned out to be more of a challenge than we expected, complicated by a heart that quit working for me and a shattered wrist for Deb. With the help of many really good people that became close friends and enriched our lives, and a bit more than two years worth of effort, First Light finally settled into her slip near St. Louis and home. That was more than a year ago now. We thought that we would be happy river runners, taking grandkids out for day and overnight trips. We did make a few trips with family and everyone had a good time. But the cost plus work effort to fun ratio was pretty trying. After a lot of serious soul searching, Deb and I have decided that our long-term wandering days have come to a close. It was not an easy decision, but it is the right one.

I have enjoyed a life far better than the one I probably deserved. Deb and I have ridden more than a quarter of a million miles on a collection of motorcycles. We have owned airplanes, both of us being pilots. We have thousands of nautical miles under our various keels, have lived in four states, raised three daughters, and have eleven grandkids. Our oldest granddaughter just got engaged. Our oldest grandson is with us for a while as he works toward his pilot’s license with the intent of having an aviation career of his own. I will admit that one of my biggest disappointments is that, having lost my medical, I cannot act as his instructor, though we are working our way through the ground schooling required. And I have a promise that I will be his first official passenger. It is a bit wistful on the one hand, being back around the perimeter of the world of aviation where I made a living for better than 50 years. But it is kind of fun as well. 

Some might find the idea of a life winding down a burden. I do miss the sky, big water, and bending a motorcycle into a fast corner right on the edge of traction. But I do not miss the effort, the endless work, and the many times I skated way too close to the edge that comes with that kind of lifestyle. Deb has often joked that there are a lot of cats running around short on lives—lives that I “borrowed” as my nine were used up long ago. As for the rest? I certainly would not have guessed that we would end up keeping a decades-long running commentary on our life on the water that we shared with whoever was interested. Or that we would end up writing and publishing six books between us. We could not have imagined all we would see, the adventures that we would have, or anticipated the number of people we would meet who became good friends that we have enjoyed and cherish to this day.

We may still to a bit of exploring. Once First Light finds a new home we will explore getting a van-like vehicle in which to do some traveling. Visit friends and family and see some places I have only seen from the cockpit of an airplane far up in the flight levels. They will not be long trips. “Home” takes on a special charm as life settles down to its last few chapters. And we are home. 

https://www.curtisstokes.net/motor-yachts-for-sale-kha-shing-40-first-light-2843707.html

U.A.S.

Our time as cruisers led to several deep changes in the kind of life we live. It is hard to explain the difference when one's world view is expanded by years spent on a boat, time spent in different countries and cultures, and the challenges (and dangers) that come with  living so close to nature. It also led to a minimalist approach to life, keeping things as simple as possible. But that minimalist approach to life did run afoul of another change that happened while we cruised. That of  my being exposed to playing music on a ukulele.

It had a disarmingly innocent beginning. The other part of my family that was living on a sailboat gifted me a modest soprano ukulele. A cute little blue plastic thing well suited for the harsh conditions of the sailing life, conditions not particularly friendly to wooden musical instruments. One might suggest that I got a little hooked. I wrote a short book about the journey from being a drummer to playing notes titled, Learning from a Uke,  a journey I am still enjoying. 

It may be that being "a little hooked" might be a tiny bit of an understatement. The soprano is a little thing, so I bought a slightly bigger concert size. That was fun and has a bit more room for my mechanic's fingers. Noodling through a music store one day one of my granddaughters picked up a baritone sized uke, two steps up from a concert, and suggested I try it. I did. It is tuned differently than the others and sounded really good. It came home with us. With a soprano, concert, and baritone in the collection, it seemed only fitting to fit in a tenor, the size between a concert and a baritone. So I did.

Part of getting First Light outfitted for the trip to St. Louis was finding a place to safely store the ukes that would be taking the trip. After some brainstorming, we decided to build a cabinet that would fit behind the lower helm station seat. That was a fun project. Each of the ukes rested on its own shelf, nestled in a custom cut foam cushion and protected with a latched door. To top it off, one of my granddaughters painted the top with a picture of my original blue soprano uke and a music score that was the first song I learned to play, The Blarney Pilgrim. By the time we got First Light to St. Louis, a year behind schedule, we needed room for three more ukes and Deb's guitars (2). They ended up resting in a storage area under one of the settees in the salon.

Once settled back in St. Louis, we needed to find room for the ukes and guitars in our little apartment. There was some empty wall space that was put to good use, a good place to store the seven instruments. Along with Deb's two guitars, I now have access to fourteen ukuleles hanging on the apartment walls—tenors, baritones, concerts, and sopranos. Each is unique. Some have alternate tunings. Two are made of composite materials. They have different makes of strings and different body styles, all making for different tones. One has no front sound port at all, only side ports. I'm told it is called a "violin" uke. You play it like any other uke, not tucked under one's chin with a bow. So I don't know how it got its name. Three of the tenors and one of the concerts are electric / acoustic and can be run through an amp. I don't have a baritone that can be amped...mmm.

The early wall...

A little later...

And the current state of the wall.

They are all "rescue" ukes—bought at used music stores or from owners who simply didn't play them anymore. But there is no doubt that I have been badly infected with U.A.S...Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome. It seems to be a rather common ailment in the ukulele community. My collection is actually rather modest.

They all get played on a regular basis as my "retirement schedule" usually includes several hours of practice every day. It isn't really practice in the sense of me striving to meet some goal or prepare for a gig. Sure, I am a little better at it than I was at the beginning. But the damage done to my hands and fingers after years of being a mechanic, added to that done by car and motorcycle accidents and the growing tally of years (I'll be 70 next month) limit how far I can go on this musical journey. And, oddly enough for someone who has been a teacher and regularly spoke in front of crowds of people for various reason, I apparently suffer from a serious case of stage fright. Anyone in the room other than Deb or grandkids, and my fingers and brain get completely disconnected. It makes for some truly frighting noises pretending to be music.

At best, I might reach the level of being a modestly capable amateur ukulele musician. But that is of little concern. In fact, I tend to look at it the other way around. A perfectly played "C" note or chord, even if surrounded by some not so perfect, is still a perfectly played "C" note or chord. A perfect anything, no matter how small or short lived, is a gift to be treasured. And I do take a bit of encouragement from being a pretty good drummer. Along with the ukes there is an electric drum kit, a djembe (really fun and really loud) and two different pan drums. Having someone around while I am pounding out a rhythm with any kind of drum isn't a problem at all. Though, truth to tell, most of my drumming is done when Deb is out doing other things. A djembe is overwhelming in a two room apartment. If I happen to be playing it outside, it can be heard several blocks away.

Music is also a place where, while I am playing, nothing else in the world actually matters. I can get completely lost in a single riff, one line of notes, or a simple chord progression, utterly oblivious to the passing of time. It is a magical place to be and has become my primary hobby in more ways than one. 

One of the ukes on my wall, a wood tenor, I built out of a kit the family bought me for Christmas. All of the parts were there, they just needed fit, assembled, and finished. It was a fun project, one I may take on again. The very artistic granddaughter who painted the cabinet finished the uke with some really cool custom artwork. It now hangs as the center of the collection and it sounds as good and any of the others.

   

Another of my ukes, a tenor strung as a 'low g" (not important) I modified by cutting a side sound hole in the body. I wanted a uke with just such a port, (it is kind of a new thing with ukes) but the one I played at the used music store had an eye-watering price. (One can spend a lot of money on a uke if one is so inclined, more than ten grand. I am not so inclined.) It worked out even better than I had hoped.

I wouldn't know what to say if someone asked me which is my favorite. Each one feels different when being played, and each is fun to play for different reasons. Each one sounds a little different. For some magical reason certain songs sound better on certain ukes. I guess my favorite is the one I happen to have in my hand at that moment.

Music is one of the better ideas that human kind has come up with. I am starting to believe that, if one isn't touched by music in some way, one isn't really much of a human at all.

One of the best parts of playing music is playing it with the grandkids. This was our first attempt to play together and I hate being recorded so be kind...

Our grandson started playing guitar while he was on First Light with us just two years ago. Having the next generation pick it up is so satisfying.

Getting it all done.

It has been a few months, about five actually, since First Light settled into her new home in Alton, IL. For the first couple of those months we were just getting settled back into land living again. We would check on the boat now and again and even got a couple of projects done before winter hit hard.

The first of those was replacing the starboard side cleat that was torn off of the boat while tied to a free wall waiting out a storm on the Great Lakes. That turned into a bit of a task as much of the shower stall had to be disassembled (you can read that as destroyed) in order to install a new one. When it was all said and done we managed to both replace the cleat and improve the shower at the same time. By then winter was at hand. A long day was spent winterizing the boat. Which is a bit of a job when there are two engines, a generator, head, and water systems involved. With that done and First Light tied into her slip with about ten different lines, she was ready for winter. We checked on her pretty regularly but working on the boat was not high on the list of things to do.

New shower wall behind which is the starboard midship cleat

Come the first hint of warmer weather, that changed. Deb took on the job of repairing some of the interior wood in the V-berth. Wood that had, truth to tell, been begging to be fixed since we first bought the boat. I took a deep breath and then started the repair on the aft deck cover. The one that also supports our solar panel array. I had already repaired it once, replacing the rotted plywood with new bits that I had coated with fiberglass, glued in place, and painted. But it turned out that wasn't sufficient and the new panels started to rot and peel away before we got out of Canada. Which chafed at the mechanic in me. I had clearly missed something.

It took a few days to pull down and sand off all off the rotted stuff. As I did, I noticed that virtually all of the worst of it was where the solar panels were mounted. The roof was an add-on. Which was pretty well done. Solid structure carrying the load to the hull.  The Solar panels were another add on, and not so well done. They had been simply been mounted on top of the 1/4 in ply with no thought of transferring that load to the more robust structure. Ply that was not up to the task of supporting that kind of weight while pounding through the Great Lakes. It is a bit difficult to describe, but we added 2x4 and 2x6 supports to carry the weight of the solar panels directly to the main structure that supports the roof itself, bypassing the thin plywood. Several cans of short haired fiberglass filler were then applied, sanded, spot puttied as required, sanded again, filled, and painted. All of it work done over head, a bit of a challenge for this well-used bod of mine. But it got done, is much more robust than it was, and looks pretty good. Part of the work was aided by two grandsons and a granddaughter who helped with the easier sanding and painting. Which made the whole exercise a lot more fun.

Reinforcing beams added for solar panel mounts

While that project was underway, Deb did some more interior repairs and handled some plumbing issues that popped up over the winter. She also changed oil and filters for both engines and the generator. We were delighted when all three fired up with zero hesitation, and no leaks. 

A couple of weeks later, the rest of the family was on vacation down south. Deb and I took advantage of them being gone to fire up First Light and take her out for a shakedown cruise. There is too much of the pilot/mechanic in me to have a boat full of grandkids along for the first foray out on the Mississippi River after a long hiatus and several projects. Everything worked just as it should and we declared First Light as a going proposition once again.

A few days later, First Light left the dock with five of the six grandkids we live with along for the ride. Three of them got a chance to drive the boat. One is too young and the oldest wasn't interested. We ambled up the river a while, pulled a U-turn and headed back to the dock, tying up after just shy of two hours on the river.

Once tied-to, the two grandsons helped us splash the Dink and lower its outboard into the water for the first time in many months. Given that it had proved to be a major hassle during our previous months on First Light, neither Deb nor I had any faith that it was going to start. Much to our surprise, that Yamaha 9.9 took just a little coaxing to get it putting along. The grandsons and I took it out for a short spin, each of them getting a chance at the tiller.

While the boys helped with the dinghy, the girls made use of the cooler pool temperature (the air temp was hovering around 100°).

And later we fired up the air conditioner and enjoyed having one on the boat.

So our first summer of being local river boaters is officially underway. There are still projects to do. But being back on the water felt really good. We are going to enjoy it for as long as we can.

Some of our slip neighbors

And That's a Wrap!

We've been home for awhile and I honestly haven't had time to think about the stats for the Loop trip. Getting home meant several trips to the boat to carry things back to the apartment that we need there, many hugs and kisses and volleyball games and and poker hands (yes, even the five-year-old plays poker with Grampy), ukulele playing, gardening, winterizing the boat, holidays...it's been a whirlwind and tonight I'm finally sighing a little with relief. I'm really glad we did the trip, but I'm equally glad that we're home now, especially in light of the damage that hurricane Helene has done to all parts south of us. I'm unbelievably glad that we don't have to be the ones making the decision of how far and how fast we're going to be moving south. I think if it was us, we'd be finding a place to park First Light for the winter and going home. Thankfully, we're already there.

So the stats for the trip:

We did 2,424 miles. 458 of them were last year from Oriental, NC to Pasadena, MD, in our abbreviated attempt to get the boat back to St. Louis, derailed by our medical mishaps. The balance of the miles—1,966—we did this year between Pasadena, MD and St. Louis.
We moved 143 days with 372 hours underway at an average of 6.2 knots. (Ignore the max speed above of 54.2 knots - that was because I had the app tracking us while we were in a car with a friend :)

I tried to keep track of anchoring nights vs paid dock nights vs free dock nights but we just had too much else on our minds to keep up with it. The reality of it is that we spent way more time on the dock and lock walls than we did anchoring. We anchored primarily when we were traveling with our grandson in 2023 from NC to MD, but once we started on the river system, there weren't near as many opportunities to anchor as on the ICW and coastal cities. I kind of like the wall tie-offs though. It's nice to just pull up to some cleats on the wall and be done for the day with town and services being just a few steps away. It's also much better for socializing since everyone is right there and it gives you the opportunity to pull up a folding chair and chat with your travel friends for the evening. When you're anchored, it requires launching the dinghy to have the same opportunities so there's a lot to be said for the walls. The New York and Canadian portions of the Loop had many better lock walls than later in the trip. Once you head into the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, you're much more limited in stopping places.

I've had so many people ask us if we're going to finish the Loop or not. We have done a little more than 3/4 of it between the time we spent on Kintala and the time we spent on First Light, but the answer is a firm "no". I'm incredibly glad we made the trip. It was a fantastic experience, but it was much harder than we expected it to be. The sheer volume of lock transits, and the schedule that you have to keep in order to be where you need to be before the weather changes, can make it pretty exhausting. To be fair, a lot of the stress we experienced (other than having our boat dropped in the railroad lift...) was because of doing it so soon after Tim's cardiac arrest. That experience had a huge impact on our whole view of travel. Anchoring in the more remote places in Canada without medical services more readily available was making it tough to relax. Going through something like that tends to change your outlook just a bit.

So First Light is settled in her home base at Alton Marina and we'll enjoy her over the season with the local grandkids. After that? We're not sure. We may sell her in the fall and do some land travel for awhile or we may keep her another season. In the mean time, we're making more memories and adding photos to our screensaver. And that's a pretty good way to spend the year.