Scoots (almost) going away party!

Well, we were a little premature, but brats, beer, and lots of good eats brought out the Gate 11 gang to say goodbye. We had a wonderful time and enjoyed visiting with our good friends!

As you know, our exit date keeps being pushed out. We have decided that our final, final, final date is Tuesday, October 7. We still have lots of fun things to keep us busy, but the required list is getting shorter. Hope all goes well! More photos...

Boat Explosion!

Not really, but it looks like it! Doug's got the fridge running. It seems like it is going to work just fine and we will be able to make ice cubes. Yeah! We still have some finish work - like getting the sink back in - but we are getting closer.

Unfortunately, that started another project - rewiring the new batteries. Everything is everywhere. We have been sleeping on the settee (couch) the last 3 nights. Looking forward to being back in our bed. Cooking and cleaning up have been a challenge, but we are surviving!

Stop on by. We have cold beer in the ice chest, but we will probably put you to work!

Gate 11 - Wonderful Friends!

Our boat buddies surprised us yesterday by dropping off a cart full of ice cold beverages to help ease the stress of our boat projects - it worked! We quit early, joined a happy hour in progress, and then were treated to a wonderful dinner at a local Italian restaurant. It was yummy food, plus enjoyed spending time with our friends. We are going to miss them!

Tim even gave up his Saturday to work with Doug and get our new batteries installed. We really appreciate the labor, plus all of Tim's wonderful advice. Thanks, Tim!

Refrigeration project - oh my!

New Corian counter tops - yahoo. Still more work to do, but we are getting closer. Doug thinks he will actually fire up the new refrigeration system today!




Before we head South, we (Doug) needs to completely gut the our current refrigeration system and build a new one. We have all ready bought the parts - just need to get started. Our main goal is to be able to make ice cubes in Mexico and the South Pacific. We shall see!

Tearing out the old fridge.



Yes, there is a big whole where the fridge used to be!

New fridge is in progress - lots more insulation - 6 inches or more in some places.

Deadline looming -
only four days until our new
counter tops get installed...


Getting closer!

Jellyfish in the Marina - oh my!

Well, we didn't make our projected sail date of September 15. The refrigerator project is still in progress, plus we have a bunch of stuff to finish up before we leave. We are making good progress though.

Our new sail date is September 30 - at the latest. Wish us luck!

Friends Ana and Victoria!

"A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost."
Marion C. Garretty

Dan's Memorial

Lots of friends and relatives gathered to give Dan a wonderful send off. We are really going to miss you Dan!

More photos can be found in Picasa.

Zin tasting with friends...

Judy and Michael hosted a blind Zin tasting on Milagro.

To our surprise, we aren't the savvy wino's that we thought we were.

But the wine flowed and the snacks were yummy - a wonderful time was had by all!

Redneck Dishwasher

Not really, but it will do when you don't have a sink or water!

Gate 11 Drink Fairies

Here are our neighbors, Michael and Judy, testing out their new kayaks - very nice!

They are known to serve wonderful cold drinks to their thirsty and tired neighbors - who really appreciate it!

Do you think it will all fit?

We have been ordering lots of big, expensive stuff. Can you tell?



I think our dock (and our boat) are going to sink!

Major Boat Work in Progress!

Finally, we can focus on our boat projects! We have set a date of September 15, 2008, to start our cruising adventure.

We have a huge list of projects to work on - most of them are in Doug's name (unfortunately)! A lot of it involves ordering big stuff that we will store on the boat until we get to Mexico. We are spending some serious cash!

The short list that has to get done before we leave the slip is:

• Completely rebuild the fridge
• Windlass (electric anchor winch)
• Inverter (DC to AC)
  
• Staysail and spinnaker sails
  
• Bed (yeah)
  
• Autopilot
• More big batteries

Unfortunately, all of this requires lots of hours of installation. Buying the stuff is the easy part!

So far, Doug has only cussed a few times, but I am sure there is more to come!

We have caught up to the present - finally!

All prior posts were to give you some of the history of Moondance and share with you some of our good times and good friends.

From now on, you should see only current events. I will try to keep things short and sweet so I don't bore you too much!

Our friend Dan

Dan passed away last Sunday after a long battle with cancer. No one could have fought harder or longer than Dan did - it has been over a year since we had his "Going Away" party last August - pretty amazing.

Dan leaves behind his wife, Crit, his boat JASDIP, and lots of friends that are going to miss him.

See you in another life, Dan. We were thinking you could come back as a Sea Turtle: live forever and always around the oceans!

Gate 11 Get Together

June, 2008: Celebrating retirements, birthdays, Steve and Ana coming home, Marv and Ardy visiting, and life in general!

Aunt Florence

Aunt Florence was on the Preston side (Doug's side) - married to Uncle Harold. She passed away this year, but lived a long good life. We enjoyed visiting her when we visited the LA area, plus she even joined us on the boat for happy hour.

Aunt Florence was always interested in our adventure and we would have loved for her to hang around long enough for us to get to Southern California and take her for a sail. In another life...

We are going to miss her!

Gate 11

Our stay in California has been exciting and full of adventure - so much to do in the San Francisco Bay Area and we did a lot!

Our first year, we lived in an apartment while awaiting our live aboard status. We had forgotten how easy it was to live in an apartment - no chores. We were supposed to be working on the boat in all of our spare time, but were easily distracted by fun things. Oh well!

May, 2001 - we moved aboard Moondance - it was a very easy transition, but involved squishing all of our belongings into a 42 foot boat. We did great, but had a little overflow that went to storage.

We were fortunate to end up at Marina Village Yacht Harbor's Gate 11. This was a perfect place for us - we just didn't know it. We originally thought we wanted to be at Gate 8, but were wrong. Gate 11 has lots of boaters that are either getting ready to go cruising, have gone cruising, or just love the boating life. We have made some great friends and have had lots of wonderful times. This is a very social group and we fit right in. Plus, we have learned so much from their adventures. Better than subscribing to all of those magazines - these are real life experiences.

Gate 11 has regularly scheduled parties, like the Lighted Christmas Boat Parade, Christmas Progressive Dinner party, plus the Junk sale and BBQ. Plus, we throw impromptu happy hours, BBQs, and other fun stuff.

If you are ever in the area, stop by and say "Hi" to the Gate 11 gang. They will make you feel right at home!

Scott family...

Doug's side of the family:

David and Lynette live in Sparks, Nevada, and love to show us a great time when we visit - gambling at all of the best places and eating at wonderful restaurants. They are semi-retired and trying their hands at tax preparation - David is even teaching a class this year. Their kids (Kenny, Tim, and Linda) live in the area too with their four grand kids (Michael, Taylor, Nicholas, and Nikayla). Nikayla is brand new to the family!


Sally passed away in 2004 and we all miss her. She left behind two great kids (Katie and David), plus Sally now has two grand kids (Raeanna and Zachary). Sally would have loved to see them - they are beautiful kids. To follow them growing up, check out their web site.

Warren family...

My side of the house. Our last get together was to celebrate my Mom's 70th birthday. We chose to rough it (right!) and rented a beautiful house around lake Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. We spent the time fishing, playing in the water, and generally having a good time. It was wonderful to see the family - it might be awhile before we get everyone together again!


At our reunion, Ken announced that he and Lisa (newby to the family) were getting married soon. We were surprised, but very happy for both of them. We like Lisa!

Next Warren get together might be in Mexico!

Retirement - finally!

I retired on May 29, 2008. The SWIFT team gave me a wonderful send off, plus we got together for a picnic. We had lots of great food, plus got to meet a lot of families of the SWIFTees - what a nice treat. We even learned how to play Bocci ball (I didn't win!).

I miss them all, but I can definitely say that I don't miss going to work or the stress. I would have liked to see the roll out of our new portal, but the project was successful without me. I am not surprised! What a great group of people!

Doug, after a few date adjustments, finally retired on July 23, 2008. He had a very nice get together organized by his department and got to see some good ol' friends one last time.

Back to the boat to get started on all of those projects - oh my!

Sidetracked...

Well, we had hoped to retire and sail away in 2007, but Doug was miserable at work and needed a change. He applied for a position in NM with a group that was working on Air Force security and got it - life just got very interesting! We moved him to New Mexico in September, 2007. The big plan was that Doug would spend a year traveling around the world working at different Air Force bases designing and installing their security systems. All of this traveling would increase his pay which would be applied to our cruising kiddy - yeah! Places visited: Florida, England, Germany, and Italy. I got to visit him everywhere and enjoyed every minute of the traveling.

While Doug wasn't traveling, he was fortunate to have wonderful ABQ friends to stay with. First, Joe and Leah then Kathy and Deb. Without all of their help and support, we would have never survived these crazy times. We will never be able to thank them enough.

Unfortunately, the year turned out to be a year and 9 months. Doug's project was going well and he wanted to finish up some projects. It was a little stressful on all of us and involved lots of travel back and forth to NM and lots of other places, but it all worked out.

We were able to see some beautiful sites during that time. Kathy and Deb were even able to to travel to Germany with us. We had a great time visiting Germany, Italy, and Austria!

Fun at the Boatyard!

JUNE, 2006: Well, this was an adventure. We took the boat out of the water on June, 1, 2006. 6 weeks later, we put her back in. We didn't think that it would take that long, but we were able to get lots of work done.

Doug fixed lot of blisters (small ones), had the bottom repaired, replaced the standing rigging, mast steps installed, and much more. We had one one unexpected item that caused the big delay. We found water in our rudder, so decided to gut it and have it filled with a material that doesn't absorb water - just in case water leaks into again. This was a big chore and involved lots of glass work by Nelson's. We were able to keep our self busy while waiting for the rudder. I painted and sanded, scrubbed and polished, and caused a few electrical smokies - I hate working with electric stuff!

During this time, we stayed at Ana and Steve's boat (thank you), a week at a hotel, and the rest of the time at the boatyard, which is a very interesting place to live! The local guys took very good care of us.

We didn't get our mast back on until the August 10, which was another adventure. We just got the boom on today and hopefully, the sails will follow soon. As always, everytime we start a boat project it takes a lot longer than anticipated. But, we are very happy with our progress and we are that much closer to sailing away forever!

Moondance Stats

Moondance is a 1981 Tayana Vancouver 42 Center Cockpit - a cutter rig. It was built in Taiwan in 1981 and commissioned in 1982. She has a gorgeous teak interior with all of the usual stuff - two cabins, two heads (bathrooms), galley (kitchen), and main salon. She is a blue-water cruiser and meant to sail across the big oceans. Moondance will probably never win a race, but we will sail in comfort and in style.

In order to retire early, we decided that we would have to live aboard until we sailed away. So, we needed lots of interior storage. Moondance has it! We were able to move everything we wanted and needed aboard and continue to add more - almost daily.

One thing we really love is our bed - it is huge - approximately 10 x 6. Of course, that means lots of custom bedding. Thanks to Shirley, my Mom, we have a complete set of sheets, blankets, and bedspreads. I think we wore out her sewing machine! Mom also made the upholstery for our settee and chairs in the main salon. What would we have done without her!

Searching for Moondance...

We had a great time searching for Moondance! We traveled from ABQ, to the west coast and all the way to the east coast. We saw so many boats - all different sizes, shapes, and colors. It was a whirlwind! Doug also did lots of surfing on the web, which was limited back then but did give us some places to look and ideas on what we wanted.

We found Moondance, which was Kindred Spirit at the time, in the Solomon Islands, Maryland. On our first inspection, she was covered with snow - unusual for back there. It was hard to really check out the exterior, but we did like the interior. She had a few things that were on our "not" list, but no show stoppers! So, we made an offer - very scary for us.

The offer was accepted (eventually) so back to Maryland we go. Of course, we didn't mind. We loved the Annapolis area - blue crabs (crab, crabs), great bloody mary's, and all of the nautical shops. We highly recommend it.

While we we were there, Moondance was surveyed and we went on our first Moondance cruise. With one exception, she was in fine shape. We re-negotiated our offer and purchased our boat - how exciting!

We hope this isn't an omen, but the first time we captained the boat (by ourselves) we hit a squall while moving Moondance to the boat yard. It was a little scary since we didn't know the boat, didn't know the area, and were not prepared - rookies. Doug actually ended up docking her with only one contact. The other one was washed away when the main sail dumped on him. Oh my!

About the Scoots

Doug and I met and fell in love in Oregon 1979 - my sister, Becky, introduced us. After two sinful years of living together, we married. Two weeks later, we packed up and moved to Albuquerque, NM, where Doug had received a job offer at Sandia National Labs as an Electrical Engineer technician.

Doug's family homesteaded a wheat/pea farm in Athena back in the 1800's - they traveled from Illinois by wagon. One of his granddads was an Oregon State Representative; one was superintendent of schools in Prineville. Doug was the youngest of three kids.

My family originated in Texas and followed the iron working trail through NM, CO, CA, and ended up in Oregon - by that time there were 5 kids! My Mom and Dad both came from big Texas families - 10 siblings on each side. So, we left lots of kin behind, but some followed. We moved around lots - from trailer parks to nice homes to the groddy motel - it was all an adventure.

Scoots nickname: We got this nickname traveling by train in Mexico with best friends from ABQ. Our tickets were printed "Scoots" instead of "Scotts" and the name stuck.

Welcome to our life!

We purchased Moondance in 2000 and moved from ABQ, New Mexico to the San Francisco Bay Area so that we could get Moondance ready to cruise the world. Moondance is a Tayana Vancouver 42' center cockpit cutter rig.

Our current plans are to retire/quit work in 2007. We know that we are taking a left after we pass under the Golden Gate Bridge, but we aren't sure if we are going to head towards the South Pacific or the Caribbean. Our major objective is to fine warm water and white beaches and all that comes with it. Guess we have time to make a decision.

We do have lots of work to get Moondance ready to go like, new sails, watermaker, generator, refrigerator, and lots of safety equipment. Wish us luck!

Doug and Carla (Scoots)