A Day Of 'Town' Fun ~ January 20th...

It had been a while since we had casted off to shore and had a fun day in town.... So we headed in to Fort Myers for an awesome time at the Medieval Faire. While the boys and I were there, Tamer paid one last visit to Raoul before he left on his journey.

Above, Blayde receives instruction from Caleb (The Sleeping Samurai) on the best way to win an actual sword fighting contest. He did awesome, made it to the second level, but had some unfair competition with the 16 & 17 year old trained fighters. He had a blast, and really enjoy himself, which was the important part!

The duel!

This was a performed, 'real', jousting competition. The gentleman above was the announcer for both sides.

Because of the side we were on, we ended up rooting for Prince Philip and Lady Guenevere. This was the Bad Guys.... Prince Vincent and his little Lady friend.

Rousing up crowd participation!

Getting ready and armed for battle!!!

It was amazing to watch all of this happening right in front of us, as it had so long ago. You could hear the swords smashing into the shields and the armor.

The Lady Guenevere bows her head in embarrassment as Prince Philip loses the sword fight to Prince Vincent... Awwww...

It is a little hard to see, but if you look closely, you will see that the jousters are about to collide. When they would hit, wood would splinter everywhere, and the loser would usually fall from his horse. The battle ensued with Philip finally succumbing to Vincents sword. He then proceeded to kiss Lady Guenevere, who combined forces with Vincents Lady and beat him to the ground. Then, each of the Ladies stomped a foot into Vincent's chest, and won the battle :-)

A cute side note is that there was a little girl about 6 or 7 on her Dad's shoulders next to us who exclaimed at the end of the battle, "See Mom, girls do rock!!"

Here is a new one for ya.... Camel rides for only $5.00 :-)

The end of our wonderful day came to a close with this 'human' chess game (battle) between the English and the French peasants.

The English King, in all his glory.....

~The playing field~

We stopped for a moment before leaving to watch these two guys (taken from the audience), get completely humiliated by the 'Washing Wenches'.

Blayde, the athlete, getting to the top of the rock climbing wall.

Sailing In The River

Finally, after many years of waiting we were able to raise all of the sails and enjoy the power of the wind. Here Shep and the boys get the stay sail raised.

This will be a post of few words, as the pictures themselves will tell thousands.

Shep and Tamer quickly had all four of the sails raised. Here are the fore sail and the stay sail ready to catch the river breeze.

With the main sail raised...

The captain and his wife, busy at the helm!!

The deck view....

As soon as we were safely underway, I went to my favorite place.... In the dinghy, trailed out on about 100 feet of line off the stern.

Heeling, just a little bit.....

In a wing and wing configuration.

The side view, with a busy crew.

This is also the picture that they put on the front page of the Caloosa Belle, the Labelle newspaper. More on this later....



Sailing into the sunset!!

While I was below prparing my first dinner underway, I came out to check on the grill, and found all the boys singing; It's all for my grog! What a great end to an awesome day :-)

Steady As She Goes

After we launched, work progressed at a slow and steady pace. We had been working about 12 hours a day, and really only took breaks for mealtimes. We all needed a little down time to adjust to our new environment, and to a new schedule.

A close up of Raoul doing the finishing touches to the crow's nest basket.

Tamer's new shop on the starboard side of the cargo hold, which is still to this day being perfected and re-organized.

One of the last major projects is making the interior more livable. Of course you need lots of lumber for this, and it is difficult to get aboard in the dinghy.
Tamer's ingenuity has once again proved successful! He made himself a towing barge out of the inflatable dinghy, the sailing dinghy, and the inflatable kayak.

Lots o' lumber.....

Off loading is only half the fun :-)

Valin and Drake helping to install the interior shelving and cabinets in Valin's berth.

Blayde, in his on the Port side.

A still shot of what it is like to live and work aboard a sail boat.
A couple of energy drinks, an frs radio, a selection of polyurethane stains, and of course a bookshelf for the focsul laying across the starboard settee.

One evening we found water pooling in the aft bilge (where there should not have been any). Upon close inspection we found that the shaft post was leaking under the bed in the aft cabin. The rudder post is what keeps the rudder attached and able to steer the boat properly.

After repacking the seals, and doing a bit of clean up... my bed can now be reinstalled and we can fall into it knowing that the boat is not going to sink!!

Our First BIG Trip!

We loaded up Matt, Margaret and their dogs Jackson and Cody and off we went!! We were taking first real trip into Labelle!! Here is Matt, getting us started on our journey.

Margaret, getting a chance at the helm.....

Thank goodness that someone other than me has a camera sometimes :-) Valin, Drake and I, enjoying the ride...

Drake really wants to have a pet aboard, so he really enjoyed borrowing Cody for the day.

One of the many infamous gators!!

Jackson and Cody, Chillin'.....

Going through the Ortona Lock for the very first time! When you are headed west from Glades towards Labelle, they bring you in and drop the water level about 6 feet. Thankfully, it was much easier than we had anticipated. We left without a bruise or a scratch!!




Oh yah, we did learn one major lesson during our 'first time through'. Never, ever use your own lines, because they have ones installed for you. Shep had to climb to the top of the rail after we had dropped down 6 feet, to retrieve our line (the black one) off of the cleat.

Gotta love this picture!!
Go, go speed racer :-)

~The Captain and his First Mate ~

Drake taking his turn at the helm, while Mom watches out for wildlife.

Hmmmmm..... That's odd, Valin is reading another book.... Who woulda thought???

Blayde, looking very serious about his time at the helm.

Valin is great at the helm, but we can tell that he would LOVE to be behind the wheel of a speed boat too :-)

~My boys~

Her first night in port, looking more beautiful than we could have imagined.

Third World Water Fill

Soooo.. This is where the story begins.....

It was a dark and stormy night ~ Oh, wait that is a future blog post!

It was a sunny and calm day, and Free Spirit was in need of replenishing her water supply. So Captain Smyth decided that we needed to practice a 'third country' water fill. There will be many places in the world that we travel to where there will not be the convenience of a dock to pull up to and fill the tanks. As you can see, during this daring and amazing trick, we also had Raoul at the top of the mast installing the crow's nest netting that he hand made for us.

The first step was to set a bow anchor and basically run aground withe the stern, and then set a stern line ashore.

Shep and Valin Heading in to set the stern line.



Everyone in the crew was directly involved except me, the ships photographer, who wasquite busy on shore taking care of all the gawkers who could not help but wonder what the heck we were doing.

Here is Shep looking a tad bit uncertain about swimming through the alligator infested, dark and dirty Caloosahatchee River, to bring the hose aboard from shore. We had to borrow hose from all around to have enough to reach from the tanks all the way to behind the shower house in the boat yard. I would guess about 200 feet all together.

YAHHHH!!! He made it!! We did successfully fill the tanks, and Raoul was able to finish his work just before sunset.
Special thanks to Raoul for his hard work and dedication to our beautiful and safe crow's nest :-)

Spinning Brodies and Flipping Dinghy's

Ummm... Raoul, I think that the Sailing Dinghy would perform better if it was right side up :-)

The crew of Free Spirit, joined with Raoul and Margaret, decided to take our first real river trip. About 2 miles up river, Blayde noticed that his dinghy was catching a little air, and he was concerned that it might flip over. After speeding up a little it started doing it even more... So he went to Dad and told him of his concerns. He was not convinced when he was told that it should not be a problem. I was down in the cabin during this discussion and had no idea what was going on until I heard yelling and complete chaos on deck. I emerged just in time to see Raoul launching the Sevylor overboard, Blayde's dinghy flipped over, and the contents of the dinghy floating down river. Here is 'the rest of the story"!

It ended up that Raoul and Blayde jumped ship to attempt not only the rescue of all the stuff that was dumped out, but to also right the dinghy. All the rest of us (including the ship's photographer), watched and offered probably way to many suggestions on how it could be done better :-)

Well, now what do we do???

Here is the dinghy, almost righted.... It is hard to see, but Raoul was having to stand on it while at the same time trying to flip it over.

Blayde, in the Sevylor, grabbing whatever he can, before it floats away!

YAH!! Let the bailing begin :-) I gotta hand it to Raoul. He was really stoic, brave and super wet after this was all done. Thanks dude! Also, Blayde exhibited safe & amazing kayaking skills during the whole experience.

After getting everything re-secured, we sent Raoul & Blayde back towards Glades in the Dinghy, under sail only because the engine had been drowned. They were searching the shoreline for stuff that was in the dinghy before it had flipped over. Shep donned his tri- corner hat for their cast off.

Shep takes the helm while he waits for his hot chocolate. It was really chilly out there that day (maybe even as low as 50)!

Spinning brodies?? In a sailboat in the Caloosahatchee River?? What in the world??
Thanks to her modern under body, Free Spirit has the ability to spin on a dime. With the wheel cranked, you can turn completely around and never leave your own wake circle. Margaret really enjoyed testing out this theory :-)

Tamer takes a little break on the bow sprit.... When we left Glades that morning, he had been trying to come up with a drill for the crew to do while we were underway. Like maybe a buoy overboard that we would need to retrieve.... He definitely got more than he bargained for!!

As we come around the final bend, we see Raoul and Blayde waving franticly from the shore. Apparently, due to the strong wind conditions, the boat had become fairly hard to control. During a close to shore jibe, with all the sails raised, the tiller broke off in Raoul's hand. So then they had to beach the boat and wait for us to arrive. So this time, Shep was off in the Sevylor to tow the dinghy back to the safety of Free Spirit!! It was a very exciting and fun filled day for all of us :-)

Life On The Water Part 1 (of 100's)

There is a little story behind the half of a fishing pole that Drake is holding over his 'biggest catch' ever....

Arriving for the first time at the Labelle municipal dock, was in itself quite the accomplishment! (more on this in a later post). As soon as our dock lines were all secured, and we were hooked up to shore power, Drake was fishing away. After about 2 minutes he comes to us with a missing hook and tells us about the HUGE catfish that stole it. Although he was a bit frustrated, he immediately put on new hook & bait and tossed it over the side. Not 2 minutes went by and he is back with the same plight.... You get the picture :-) Finally, we here a bunch of chaos on the dock, and the dang thing has not only stolen the line yet again, but the hole pole is broken in half!!! Now the fight is really on!!!! Next thing you know a very stubborn boy is out there, now with 60 pound line and an even bigger hook. Finally, after only a couple short minutes he has caught the "biggest fish of his life, at an astounding 24". We cannot wait for him to reel in his first tuna :-)

Hugo happened to be driving by on his way home, and was there to help the boys remove the hook. Drake was really proud to be providing dinner for his family!

Stefan just hanging around for few cocktails....

~ Gina & Ken ~

"I really do not think that I need a haircut Mom!!!

Drake out for the first time alone in his very own Sevylor Kayak.