I worked on the Cascade at Ortega River Marina through the end of that year. I made list after list of all these things I needed to do and buy. The To Do lists got longer faster than I was able to complete the projects, and I was burning through my 401k savings at an alarming rate. I prioritized the lists and identified the most essential tasks and equipment. Eventually I got the bulk of the work complete, and decided to move from the slip at ORM to a mooring at Green Cove Springs Marina. This was a first step toward leaving the security and convenience of a slip in a really nice marina, walking distance to stores including a West Marine. I would need to start using my hand-me-down inflatable skiff to get back and forth to the boat. I would have to live on DC power. And it was quite a bit less expensive than the slip.

I intended to do a number of shakedown cruises, but ended up doing only one, I sailed and motored upstream on the St John, spending a couple days to reach a town called Palatka. Sadly, I don’t have any pictures from this trip, and this period in general, because I lost my cell phone on the 2nd day of the trip up the ICW. And it seems I had neglected to back it up for quite a while before that. And I wasn’t saving them to the cloud. Damn!

During that one shakedown cruise, I sailed the boat extensively for the first time. The helm on the Cascade was just the opposite as the Pacific Seacraft. I’d motor into the wind, tie the tiller off amidships, and run up to the mast and start raising the main. Almost before I started raising the sail, the bow would blow off the wind and I’d run back to the cockpit and bring her up again. Many told me I needed self-steering gear for the trip, but my Scotch stinginess didn’t want to spend another $500. But I realized I needed it to even get my mainsail raised, and bought one and installed it. I ending up using the self steering a lot during the trip and, looking back, cannot imagine having completed the trip without it.

Note: I do plan to add more content to this section.