Mischief Managed Afloat: Dumbledore Edition

Whew, this has been quite a week on the canal!  Honestly, I'm not even sure how much time we've been here. Our new gypsy lives have us constantly questioning and debating what day of the week it is. I do know we set out on our adventure Tuesday morning, though! We pulled out of Buffalo on a clear, beautiful day and headed north from our slip at RCR Yachts towards the entrance of the Erie Canal in Tonawanda. We went under the Peace Bridge. So close to Canada! This meant going down the dreaded Niagara River. When we first started our sailing lessons, I distinctly remember our instructor pointing at the Niagara River and saying, like Mufasa to Simba, "You must never go there." The Niagara River is an extremely fast moving body of water that culminates with the overly dramatic Niagara Falls, which I had no intention of going over in a sailboat. The river moves much faster than our measly eight miles per hour, so it is very easy for sailboats to get stuck i...

It finally happened! We.... (drumroll) .......... (dramatic pause) .......cleaned out the transom locker! Oh, yeah, and we left! Our last view of Buffalo's inner harbor until May. Probably.  But before I can talk about our departure, we had a lot of exciting things happen back in Buffalo. The most important thing, of course, was getting our furrier crew members on board! On Wednesday afternoon, we plopped them into their carriers and drove them to the local community college to get rabies shots. They weren't terribly happy about the whole getting-in-crates-and-leaving-home-for-the-foreseeable-future thing. Apollo was angry.  Sputnik was terrified.  Tiny was just confused...But then she's always confused... You know what? Why am I doing all of the talking? I'll let them describe their experiences. Tiny: Meow, meow meow! Meow meow....Meow! Meeeeeow, meow meow meow. Sputnik: Meow. Apollo: ( Hides.)  I just remembered most of my reade...

We are so close to leaving! After months of planning, we're in our final stages of preparation. And by final stages, I mean we still have roughly 87 gazillion more things to do. But we'll get underway before the Erie Canal closes or die trying! We'll definitely have to clean the boat up before we go. With all of the projects Justin and I have been working on, it's a bit of a mess. Right now, our seaworthy vessel is taking a short vacation as a landlubber. We had Mischief Managed pulled out of the water a few weeks ago to repaint the bottom with special saltwater paint. Lucky Justin got to spend a week literally bending over backwards sanding the old paint off, and then I got to come in and put the new coat of paint on. In case you also plan on painting the bottom of your boat, I have one recommendation for you: wear a hat. There is nothing more miserable than trying to pull disgusting, sticky boat paint out of your hair. Unlike normal paint that goes on walls, ...