SPLASH!!!!

FINALLY - all the standing rigging replaced and we splashed the boat. Captain Mike expertly steered Ka'imi through very narrow channels to the FKG riggers where we had the new roller furling installed and then spent the night on their docks. It was great to finally be in the water, and our biggest joy was being able to use our own bathrooms and not walk through dirt and fiberglass city to relieve yourself and take a cold shower in muratic acid rinsed showers.......they don't know what Drano is here they use Muratic acid to clear the drains - however - that doesn't work so you end up with really white feet.


The next day we left FKG's dock and Captain Mike took us back through the narrow channels and we finally anchored in the lagoon at the Witches tit. We got the Main Sail and shade cover on then spent a very relaxing evening enjoying our new home, playing backgammon and realizing what a great life we have!!!!!! The only problem we had at FKG was when they asked for the sheets to finish installing the Genoa Sail....Mike looked at Kim very puzzled - that was a big mistake, cause Kim had the deer in the headlights look. Finally after a couple of uhs - Mike finally asked what a sheet was, just before Kim was about to grab the bedsheets. Their lines - the ones you use on the sails - need to read up on our terminology I guess....
Captain Mike in the dinghy checked out the snubber line and took a couple of pictures of Ka'imi finally settled in. The last pic is a view from our cockpit. We are doing very well, taking a couple of days off to relax, though we still have to run errands. Then we'll start working on things above the water line, and in a couple weeks take off for our first shakedown cruise, most likely Anguilla. We're looking forward to New Years and maybe we can even stay up till midnight this year on New Years Eve - since were sooo relaxed. Till the next time - Happy New Year to you, cheers from Ka'imi

Christmas Day

We had an excellant Christmas. We took the day off and went to the beach. It was a beautiful day!!This was Captain Mike enjoying the plunge, he needed a day off. All boat projects were finished so the day really was relaxing.

Kim took her wine and stayed in the water most of the day, and the Captain looked on.


If anybody was wondering where Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer was this year, she was here in St. Maarten - we found her. After spotting Rudolph Kim had to find a phone to make her Christmas phone calls. The only problem was we forgot our new zip code so we couldn't charge them to our card. Kim had to call her mom collect and relay messages to everybody. Sorry Kris and Linda that I couldn't call and Happy Belated Birthday to Linda, Kim's sis.

Merry Christmas from the Caribbean

Merry Christmas
Well, were still in the boat yard, but at least the Captain has had a cup of coffee. The good news is we are set to go in the water this Thursday, the 22nd, so by Christmas we should be anchored off in the lagoon. We have made friends in the boat yard, and have a wide variety of animals here. This is our neighbor cat. There are many other cats and dogs wandering around, so we have lots of company. We've completed alot of projects and are waiting on the completion of the rest. The dinghy davits are repaired, we've bleeded the fuel from our new tanks to the engine, we've sanded the bottom and will put the first coat of bottom paint on Tuesday, we will get the rest of rigging to the riggers on Monday so the new rigging and new roller furler will be ready to go on Friday morning. They are putting us in the water on Thursday, and will leave us in the bay overnight so we can get the motor going alright. We have been working from dawn to dusk, so we decided to pay a local kid to polish the hull, wish we'd thought of this before :) he's only charging $100 to do the whole thing. We could of saved some achy muscles on the boat bottom sanding if we'd known it would be this cheap.We are still waiting on the guy who manufactured our fuel tanks to finish some stuff for us. He also has to come out and fix the batteries. When we load tested the batteries we found out that when they replaced the tank and put the batteries back in they did it all backwards, this explains why our battery voltage wasn't reading right.Happy Birthday to Kristopher (he's the one on the left), Kim's son, he turned 27 on December 14th!!! He's still living in Hawaii, and Kim misses him alot. Happy Birthday Baby!!!
All our love to our family and friends and we wish you a very Merry Christmas. The next time we write, we will probably, officially be boat people :)

What can we say, still here

Good morning all, don't mind the Captain he hasn't had his coffee yet. Still have some work to do to get out of the boatyard but we've accomplished a few more projects. The fuel gauges got installed, we painted and changed out the chain in our steering pedestal. We've polished the chain plates to get ready for the new rigging .



And of course then there is the end of a long day when we can see all the work that we've done and know we are one day closer to getting in the water!!!! Cheers Mike and Kim

Still Working

Hello all we're doing fine and moving right along. Mike is back on his feet, his foot infection has completely healed and he is doing great. We've had a diesel mechanic out here working on the engine to make sure she is in good condition when we take off. The mechanic is an old salt named Ray Longbottom and he is the greatest guy, he's been at sea since he was young and has stories to tell. He also knows everything there is to know about diesel engines and been quite willing to share the info with us. He is one of the good people that we have enjoyed meeting. His assistant Soie was also very kind, on the day our shipment was to arrive, he left us his cell phone so we could keep in contact with the port and the guy who was to deliver. We didn't even have to ask, he heard Kim having trouble using her cell phone and just offered. He left it overnight too......speaking of our shipment everything has arrived.
We spent a couple days sorting through it and putting it away. What didn't fit we figured we didn't need. We traded all the stuff we were going to toss to Willie, a local guy who works in the boatyard, for helping us with a few projects. One of which was taking down the rigging. The surveryor had told us we needed new rigging for the mizzen mast, but we've also decided to do it for the main mast since it is already 6 years old and we want to be safe rather than sorry.
We're still in the boat yard working on various projects. We've accomplished quite a bit but won't go into all of them. Mike has updated our propane tank system and we have gas to the barbeque and the new stove inside (by the way the new stove works awesome). We've also installed a new faucet on the sink, which makes doing the dishes a lot easier. We haven't had much time for play as were trying to get out of the boat yard as soon as possible. But we look forward to sharing the more exciting parts of living in the Caribbean soon, until then we wish everyone well, and we must get back to work!
Cheers Mike and Kim on Ka'imi :)

Caribbean Thanksgiving

We searched Sint Maarten in the dinghy looking for the perfect new stove for Ka'imi and to cook our Thanksgiving dinner (the traditional Pizza and salad). We finally found the perfect one with 3 burners, a nice oven and a broiler to make toast. After we found the oven we had to search for a store to provision. We found a great one on the French side and stocked up on a few items. It was then time to test it all out and start cooking. The food is excellant here and we love having the time to finally cook it ourselves. Shrimp, rice, cheeses and some great wines from the french side, and the occasional veggie burger. We're going back to french side today to get Mike a great big steak since we got the barbeque up and running.
We're getting ready to repaint the name on the boat to Ka'imi, install the raw water strainer, fix dinghy davits, paint the bottom, replace a few hose and through hull fittings and if we find nothing else, then we'll launch the boat. Cheers from Sint Maarten, Mike and Kim

Life in Dry Dock

Cheers from Sint Maarten. We're settled onto the boat living in the boat yard. Quit a experience.....but we're loving it!!! Michael had a minor misshap, his foot got infected and swelled up like a balloon. We went to the doc and he gave him some antibiotics, a diuretic and pain pills. All of this for just $35, doc visit $25 and meds $10. At home we would have had to pay twice that plus our insurance premiums. Life is good here. The doc told him to stay off it for 3 days, so we've been taking it easy a bit. We have our new car a 10' dinghy and call her Weedie. With the 15 hp motor she goes fast...it's a blast. Since we can't swim in the lagoon we take the dinghy to the ocean about once a day and tie up to a mooring ball so Kim can get her swimming fix. It's so much easier running errands in the dinghy, there's no traffic and just about everything is accessible by water.
At the end of the day we usually kick back in the cockpit for some R&R and check out our view. The boats in the water that you see is where we will anchor after we get out of the boatyard to finish up any odd jobs on the boat. We pick up the stuff we had shipped over here tomorrow so we have to find places aboard to store it. But were looking forward to getting the tools so we can get some major work done (and the air conditioner is sounding pretty good right now :). It's hot, hot here, how's the weather where you are? Everything here is going great, we have met some very nice and interesting people. A local guy, Macklan, has helped us out a couple of times with different projects, he's a great guy. The mosquitos here are crazy...they love Michael - he must taste really good cause they eat him up, they don't bother Kim unless Mike's not around, so wherever Mike goes to sleep, Kim follows :)))
Tomorrow we clean out the water tanks so we can actually drink the water on board. Up to now we've had to buy it. Forgive us for the humdrum updates, we haven't had much of a chance to get out and explore because we want to get the boat into the water as soon as possible. We'll take pics of the interesting things on the island as soon as we get a chance to tour a little more. That's all for now, we wish everyone well. Cheers Mike and Kim

Move Aboard Day

Today we move aboard Ka'imi, get our dinghy and return the rental car. We spent yesterday cleaning out the boat to make her livable and to free some space for our stuff. We went to the store while we had the car to provision the boat with some necessities. Mike got the tabbing done under the master bed, so we could put the mattress back and have a place to sleep. We forgot to pack some sheets, so today we have to find a place or we'll be sleeping on towels, cause we each have one of those :)...... We put some stuff aboard and then had a great dinner aboard Ka'imi last night. This update will be the last for awhile. We don't have internet access anymore so we will have to go to the internet cafes to update. Isn't it great that life can be such an adventure. Until next time, Cheers Mike and Kim on Ka'imi.

Sint Maarten Pics

Here's a link to some of our photos. We will add photos of Sint Maarten to this link as we have access. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/klangelk/album?.dir=/8763&.src=ph

Another Day in Paradise

We worked until 12:00 noon today and then decided we needed a break. Why.......because we can :) We closed up Ka'imi went to lunch, then headed for the beach. It was a beautiful day as always.

A storm came in so we headed to the hotel, dried off then went to Ka'imi for dinner and cocktails. Life's good here in Sint Maarten.....Cheers Mike and Kim

Boatyard

Good morning all, we haven't been able to receive any email since yesterday, something about the email server here so we can't check it. We still have internet access though and can update the site. Ka'imi is sitting pretty in the boat yard, we have a great view. Got lots of work done yesterday. Kim rewired the water pumps, hooked up the manuel water foot pump and removed the salt water faucet that needs replacing and Mike worked on reglassing some loose tabbing in the aft cabin, hooked up the wind generator and helped Kim:). We found out there is a shortage of new dinghies on the island so might have to buy a used one or wait a month for the new. Our rented car goes back on the 16th so we need a ride!!!
We're starting to be a bit more conservative on our meals. We just bought the mega size Peanut Butter and Jelly jars, so that's lunch for awhile. Mike doesn't mind. We went to Philipsburg yesterday to try to track down a dinghy and went through the middle of town after the cruise ship came in. We had to wade through the people (locals and tourists) in our car, but we had a great time people watching. That's all for now and you still can't slap the smiles from our faces. Cheers Mike and Kim

Sint Maarten

We're here. This pic is after a 13 hour red eye flight. We arrived, checked into our hotel, rented a car and headed to Shrimpy's for some grilled garlic shrimp and beer. We also met Bill who had lots of advice, and another guy who cooked at Shrimpy's after we told him what the cab driver told us. He recommended we don't listen to the to the cab drivers. The rain was coming down when we got there and continued throughout the day. It was GREAT. After our meal we headed out to see Ka'imi and it was hard to pull us away from her, but we hadn't had any sleep since we left and needed some good zzz's. We were up this morning and worked all day. Today was St. Maarten day and all the stores were closed, but we found a gas station open and bought some water and beer.

We have a really inexpensive Hotel room, just the basics but it has an ocean view. We are just a block from the ocean beach and on the other side a block from Simpson Bay Beach (in the lagoon). Here's a pic of our view. We've noticed that this is the place that the locals come to after the bars close......hmmmm. The hotel overlooks some neighborhood houses and we can watch the locals go to work and enjoy the fact that we don't have to!

Here's us after the second day of work, Mike's brother Steve (a wine connoisseur) would love the beer here it's as big as wine bottles. We have an internet connection here at the hotel, so we will take advantage of it while we're here. When we leave the hotel the updates will be far less frequent so we'll get in as many as we can.

We're off to the boat, we have a long list of to do's today. Our first priority is to make the boat livable since we'll be moving aboard in just a couple of days. All is well with us and we hope the same for you.

Cheers for now Mike and Kim

Bon Voyage USA

We said goodbye to Mike's family at the family reunion in Tahoe and we're currently in Southern California saying goodbye to Kim's family.  Now that all the work is done, we're relaxing and the excitement has finally hit us....we are on our way TOMORROW.  Our focus now is soley on the boat.  We won't update again until we have something interesting to tell you.  We will be in the boat yard for about 3-4 weeks getting Ka'imi ready for the first shakedown cruise.    Cheers Mike and Kim

Kim's Birthday

Kim's Birthday today..so now we are both a year older and only have 56 more days until our last day of work. We moved the date forward a little, to October 19th instead of the 21st so time is short, but again nobody here is complaining. Kim's sister Linda and her husband Tom came to help this weekend for the Gargage Sale which was a success - but we didn't get rid of everything so we may have one more. That's all for now,

Mike and Kim.

Mike's Birthday

Today is Mike's Birthday, happy birthday Mike. Kim has given her notice at work, so both Mike and Kim's last day on the job is October 21, 2005! We will be heading to Sint Maarten the first week in November....lots of stuff to do still. Finish painting the inside of the duplex, the big garage sale (that's this weekend), travel arrangements, shipping our stuff to Sint Maarten, the copper pipe job, aye carumba the list is long, but no one here is complaining. Until next time...Mike and Kim

Continued Preparations

The time is slipping by.  It seems like it is taking forever, but our lists keep getting longer, making the time left insufficient....I wonder why that is.  Mike has given his notice at work, so our time to leave has been narrowed to mid November.  Kim will give her notice on September 2nd and there will be no living with her then!  We are still working on the duplex, we need to paint inside one unit and finish a little bit of landscaping at both units.  The hard part is going through the cabinets and deciding what to throw away, what to keep, what to give away and what to garage sale.  We have very little room on the boat for personal things so the decisions are tough, but it will be nice when were done and minimized.  Our excitement is growing, if you know us and see us and we have this huge smile on our faces, you know why!!!  That's all for now.  Cheers Mike and Kim

Family and Friends

We hope this blog will let us communicate with our family and friends while we are out and about in this great big world. We don't want anybody worrying about us if we don't post at regular intervals, it just means we are having too much fun to stop and check in, but neither of us were very good at doing that while we were land based, so I think most of you will understand.

You can also leave posts for us to let us know how your doing or what you think. Our regular email addres will be klangelk@yahoo.com. We will be able to pick up email at this address while we are on land and can find an internet cafe or library. We will also have email on board as soon as we set it up, but those emails must be short and sweet with no attachments at all. We will have ten minutes a day to look at and reply to messages at that address.

Cheers Mike and Kim

Starting Out

We are Mike and Kim and we're starting our new life living aboard s/v Ka'imi. Ka'imi is a 42' Vagabond sailboat and we will be starting our new life in Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles where she is currently on the hard for hurricane season. We plan to leave by November 1, 2005 and start preparing her for our life aboard and all around...We bought Ka'imi in April of 2005, she was the boat we wanted and we got her. We have some repairs to do on her while she is in dry dock, then we'll launch her in Simpson Bay and live out there on the hook until we finish preparing and provisioning her then head out for a few shake down cruises. Once we have most of the bugs worked out, we'll reprovision in Sint Maarten, where prices are good for the area then start sailing down through the Caribbean stopping wherever we choose and get out of the hurricane belt by June of 2006.