Living the Dream

[MtnMike]

We finally did it. Sold our house in Colorado and bought a boat. Shopped for a long time up and down the east coast and the Gulf and ended up with a 1990 38' Island Packet Hull #114. Purchased it in Mobile, Al and spent several weeks doing a minor refit. We did enough to cross the Gulf to St. Pete, Fl for a more major refit. Or so we thought. Got pounded around in the Gulf for a couple of days and ended up in the Apalachicola, Fl area working on our engine fuel filter system. It got shook up real good in 5-7' seas and loosened up some paper towel material. Apparently there from clean up while fueling in the past. Anyway we found it stuck in the uptake pipe in the fuel tank. Weird!! At the present we're waiting on a window out of the Pan Handle to St. Pete. Living the dream and working on the boat in strange and exotice places. We've found that you can't hardly get a radio check without talking to folks from sailnet. It's amazing. I've also been leep frogging with "Criusingdad". He put in at Pensacola, Fl while I was at Mobile getting ready for departure. I came into Pensacola the day CD left into heavy weather. He ended up bailing out into Panama City, Fl. I went out the next day and had to bail out into Apalachicola, Fl. the next day. Then CD passed south of my position and crossed over while I worked on my filters. Hope to catch up with him soon and have a beer....... or two. I sure CD will be on soon to fill in the blanks of his travels.
I'll try to keep everyone up on my travels. I'll also will attempt to post some pics of the boat.
Mike Mount
S/V Moonshine
IP-38 #114

[joeybkcmo]

congrats, enjoy, and keep us posted

[kwaltersmi]

Always good to hear of someone living the dream instead of dreaming of really living!

What are your plans? Where are you headed?

[LandLocked66c]

Awesome man, subscribing to this thread!!! Looking forward to updates!

[JohnRPollard]

Aww, shucks, they just grow up so fast. I remember when MtnMike was boatless.

Congrats, Mike.

We appreciate the update on CD, too, although thanks to numerous phone inquiries from the Coast Guard, we have been tracking his progress pretty closely. When you finally catch up with CD, please do us all a favor and explain to him that his EPIRB is for real emergencies only. And see if you can make him understand that untying the docklines or running out of charcoal do not qualify.

[Faster]

Congrats on the boat and good luck for the rest of your adventures..

You know more than the rest of us about CD... thanks for that. I guess the USCG is not informing we poor northerners on their false alarms!

[mobilchuckje]

Congratulations. It'll be the greatest thing you ever did. It was for me.

Enjoy,
chuck.

[CaptainForce]

MtnMike, We have family in Breckenridge and we're working our way down to the Abacos by March from the east side of Florida. It's unusually cold here now, - maybe we'll cross wakes in some warmer water. 'take care and joy, Aythya crew

[MtnMike]

Thanks all. Cruisingdad was alive a well down in Ft. Myers last I heard. I told him to check in here so folks would know how he's doing. He'll probably be around soon to give you all an update. We'll be headed down his way on Monday if the window stays open.

Later
Mike
S/V Moonshine
IP-38

[wind_magic]

Thanks for the interesting update, and also the update on CD's progress! I had been wondering how CD was doing. I had expected to hear about a charcoal briquette shortage in Florida but I haven't seen it in the financial news anywhere ...