So it has been a long time since I have written a blog, mostly because I havent been with the crew. Just before they left for Haiti I had to return to Los Angeles to put money together for my move to Ireland for medical school at the end of August.  So have spent the past month doing any jobs I could find and plan on getting back at the end of July or early August to doing a little more work and get everything together for my big move.  But until then, I am back with the crew, living my life one adventure at a time, waking up in a new country where I hardly speak the language but still find ways to communicate.  It truely is a beautiful way to live sometimes, and here is how the first week went.

So I arrived here Tuesday morning around 8am, a pleasant flight all in all, but the real trip began once I landed. Unfortunately the gentleman who was supposed to pick me us got into a car accident shortly before he got there. So he arrived just after 11am and we went over the “body shop” where his car was getting fixed. I say “body shop” because it was really a few guys with a small welder and a few hammers trying to pound everything back in line. I slept there for 2 hours, until our friends uncle arrived, and he was going to bring me out to the crew. Unfortunately (for reasons I still do not understand as the language barrier made this whole endeavor quite scary), he only took me into the city center which is heavily populated where I was going to transfer to a public bus (van) which was going out to the area of the boat. While I waited for the van I had to stay in the car as my handlers worked out the details because it is not safe for a white guy to be there out and about. When they worked out the transport, one of the guys I was already with (there were three guys taking me this far) took my bags to the van and hoped in. Then I was told to quickly get out of the car and into the van about 30 yards away. We eventually got going, but the most interesting part was how I felt like such an attraction to them. Everyone looking (staring more like it), kids with a curious smile, and many adults with mild malcontent. I have discovered after talking with many Haitians from this area that the sometimes resentfulness from adults is because of how many other non-profits have been working. While I have met a few since the airport I have not really seen any others doing anything for the people. The ones I have seen seem to just walk around with cameras and take pictures of the locals. They stay separated, except for one guy I met at the airport who is working in an orphanage in an outskirt of Port au Prince. But many of the locals do not trust most NGOs, because all they have seen is them coming in and taking many of the resources that are available (of which there are few). Around town here though, I have been welcomed by warm faces. In this area we are the only NGO that is currently in operation, and being the only white guy for the van ride, once I got out everyone just assumed that I was a Floating Doctor. Little kids would come up giving me high fives saying “big boat! Big boat!” or “le blanc” (meaning white or non-Haitian). I was dropped off at the place where our clinic is held and the school and orphanage are being built. I got a quick look around, still a little confused as I didn’t know exactly where I was or where the boat was, not sure how to get there, and no one understood what I was saying. It was a very lonely feeling, but the smiles the people gave me made me feel better. Shortly two motorcycles rolled into the compound and my travel escort and I got the bags and ourselves on the bikes which took us down through this, I guess it can be described as a cross between a dirt road and an alleyway, to where the beach is. Our skiff showed us shortly, with Nick driving, we loaded it us with my bags and equipment and I finally made it back to the boat. The flight from LA to Haiti took 9 hours, and the travel between the airport and the boat took just over 10. Interesting. Since then I have been working in the clinics. First it has been a change in position as I have been advised by Ben to focus on the clinics and not the boat. If anything happens on board, to let Nick fix it, and for me just to focus on learning as much of the medicine as I can and pretty much taking on the role of a visiting medical student for a prolonged time, until I have to once again leave for medical school. The first day, I spent with Ben in the clinic learning the questions to ask and how to take a proper history and things to keep an eye out for, and I got to close the day out by helping remove a large growth on a girls earlobe, which we are doing the other ears growth in the next day or two. It is the closest I’ve ever been to surgery, and even though it was a very minor operation, it was still so fascinating and I cannot wait to see more. Ben said that when we do the other ear I can sew it up. So excited! Today I was with George for the part of the morning then began doing triage for him which turned into me doing beginning diagnostics with a local nurse and recommending treatments with George quickly looking over my notes and confirming or rechecking my thoughts. I was happy that he only had to go back and change the treatment plan for a few people, but my knowledge of diagnostics and treatments has already greatly improved. We are seeing lots of skin infections, STDs, poor nutrition, but a few instances of other problems like scabies. Many of the problems, especially the STDs appear to have been a problem for some of these people for years the infection is so bad. It is very sad to experience. At the end of today I helped George with an incision and drainage of a very large abscess on this girls foot. We got most of it drained (LOTS of puss and blood) and she is going to come back tomorrow for a follow up. If it needs to be reopened George says he will need to give her a much stronger shot in the hip to numb all of her pain better, as today it was still quite painful. Sometimes it is very sad to look around, especially on the drive in, seeing all the devastation from the earthquake, wondering what it may have looked like before it hit. But its gets sorted in my mind and the work gets done. I am continually impressed with how well the crew has done in the past month. Getting down here and establishing our organization as a positive group unlike any other, which has given us a unique place among the people. When we walk down the street they all yell out and welcome us by name or by group, they know who we are and appreciate our help. So the last few days have been pretty cool. We went and did a shore side clinic down the way from where we are docked (so far we have been operating out of a clinic that already existed, but had no supplies and not a lot of personnel. So it was just Ben, George, Tom (a really cool EMT guy who is working with us) and me. They set up a few blankets as dividers in a small area inside some trees right along the water. Ben saw the kids, George saw the adults, Tom did triage and I ran the pharmacy. In just under 4 hours we saw just about 50 patients and all this without any real translators. Goes to show that even though there is a language barrier, you can always find a way to make it work if you are willing to try. Then today I ended up needing to stay on board with Tom (someone has to stay with the boat!) while the others went up into the mountains for a day off. It wasn’t bad really. I spent the day hanging out with these four Haitian kids that come around a lot, and ended up putting on Avitar, only in French. I spend most of my down time reading and studying ahead for Ireland. I’ve been going through and reading about clinical examinations, how to take a history etc., and the medications (what, what for, how much) for all the stuff we take into the clinics. I’ve already been able to learn so much, and every day brings more lessons learned. The scenery here is also just so beautiful. The weather is nice normally, hot and humid with some rain in the afternoons, but clear. It makes it so you can see all the way across the island. We are docked on the south peninsula of the island but we can see the north peninsula every day. And the hills are a beautiful green. If this place wasn’t such a disaster it would be a beautiful place to visit. An update on the travel front. We are planning on staying here for another two weeks or so then we are going to head out. So Ben and Sky decided that Jamaica is just too dangerous so we are going to bypass that. That means we are probably headed to Honduras, but since I still cannot find my immunization card, I may have to head home sooner than I thought. But if we decide to go up to Belize instead that won’t be necessary.

(sorry there aren’t any pics in this one, i will upload them soon)

I had a HUGE nerd moment this week.  Ever since we got dropped back in the water, we have been taking turns staying on the boat all night to make sure everything is okay.  And the other night I was there alone waiting for some of the crew to get back from the house after cleaning up and getting their stuff, just listening to the radio.  But let me really set the picture.  Before I left to NYC I bought a pair of suspenders which I happen to like (shun all you naysayers out there!), so I was sitting there at night, around 8 or 9pm, in my suspenders, a knit cap, in front of the SSB/HAM radio, in our dimly lit editing suite (where our radio is mounted), scanning the frequencies to see how far away I could hear.  I am sure it was a sight to see.  But I did hear from as far as Germany (for those of you who know what this means, our antenna is over 60ft. long [along our back stay], our SWR is 1.1 with our automatic tuner, and it was just past dusk so the ionosphere was at the ideal condition), which got me really excited!! Tomorrow I am installing our last battery, a small car battery, next to the radio so we can assure ourselves the necessary power in order to transmit.  If anyone out there has an FCC call sign let me know and we can try to find each other on the airwaves.  My call sign is KJ6EXJ. Not the coolest one in the world, but it’s mine! If you let me know, we can arrange some times to call and check in and I can tell you about what the crew and I are up to at the time!

On a personal note with the radio: I wanted to thank our friend Bob Matson who has helped us out every step of the way.  He has helped us set all of them up and tutored our crew so we could take the test and pass to get our FCC licenses to operate our HAM radio.  He has truly been an angel on our shoulders.  He has also taught me a lot about radio electronics so someone can fix some of the problems that can happen while we are gone.  He is one of the people I will truly miss when we leave. 

So speaking of leaving, it looks like our time in Florida is finally coming to an end.  These past 10 months have flown back in retrospect (although sometimes it dragged on), and the last few weeks have been even faster.  So far…engines-check, hydraulics-done today, navigations-check, water maker-check (THANKS AGAIN SEA RECOVERY!!!), generator-check, long distance radio-check, haul integrity-check, general electric-check, and the list goes on.  Now most of it is just trouble shooting a few kinks in the systems and we are gone!

Now we are just finalizing our 2m radios, life rafts, and maybe upgrading the membranes on our water maker (Sea Recovery was awesome and gave us a 450 gallons/day unit, but we are trying to figure out if we will be able to upgrade to larger membranes so we will be able to make 1400 gallons/day giving us plenty to give people where ever we go).  I have also been talking to a company RFD Beaufort, who is one of the best life raft companies in the country/world from what I have heard and read.  To tell you the truth, so far they are living up to their reputation.  They have been incredibly helpful in terms of information and what we will need with safety equipment. They have really given us invaluable advice on how to prepare for the worst case scenario.   

There was also a serendipitous thing that happened while I was in New York.  Someone I knew back in high school, Cristi, lives there now and works for Nautica.  We met one morning for coffee during a break she had from work and I was telling her about everything we are doing and how close we are to leaving, and an hour later calls me back and, because they are a company who is heavily involved in with anything on the water (did their name give it away?), asked me if I could sit down with her boss and tell them about the project.  They have already given us 4 brand new heavy duty duffle bags/suitcases for us to use as “go bags” on board and for our clinics.  These things are perfect! They have wheels for easy transport, a heavy canvas to deal with the harsh conditions we are going into and have all the space we need to load up our medical gear in each one (internal medical, minor ops, general, and dental).  I loaded them up a few days ago, and like I said…they are perfect! Thanks Nautica!

Well it’s time to get back to doing laundry.  I have to start packing up my personal gear so I can move permanently on the boat soon.

So the past few weeks have been crazy. We got put up on blocks and let me just say the boat looks HUGE out of the water.  It truly is amazing, and now you can see how so much stuff and so many people are going to fit on board.  So let me tell you what we have been doing since we got lifted.  LOTS OF GRINDING!! And Noah and Sky have been working on patching a few pieces of the hull that were going to need replacing sooner or later, so we did it now.  We start off by grinding and sanding down the bottom so we could redo the bottom paint.  This was particularly fun, because the paint is dark and for days on end I tasted copper in my mouth, even though we used full suits and respirators.  Nick, Ben, and I have gone home more days looking like raccoons than I care to count.  It has taken days but the bottom was done.  It involves grinding down the steel keel down to bare metal which took me two days, getting all the blisters, flakes and imperfections off, which then needed to be patched and sanded again, another few days.  The hull above the water line also needed to be sanded.  There were tons of blisters that needed to be taken off, as well the rub rail which needed to be replaced.  We also needed to cut a few holes in the hull.  One needed to be cut to get the old generator out, and the new one put in, and a few others due to rot, but at least we got it all.  So all those patches needed to be prepped, ground down through almost a half in of faring in some areas, to make a 8-12 inch frame around each hole.  Then Sky and Noah were able to cut the replacements, put them up , then we sanded them down. 

Getting that generator in and out was a chore.  The old one was well over 1500 pounds, which presented a problem.  We didn’t want to cut a hole to get it out, since as we all know, holes in a boat are bad. But it was so heavy and the only other way to remove it was to try to crane it over the other engine, which would require taking apart several part of the exhaust and hydraulic lines.  So the best way was to just cut the hole, because if it fell (and Murphy works that way) then I don’t know what we would have done.  So we got it out and eventually go t the new one in without too much trouble. 

I have been able to spend a lot of time over at Polaris while we are at the dock, since the shop is now only a mile down the road.  I have gotten to learn so much from Rick, Tom, and the rest of the Polaris team.  For the time here they have let me go into the shop and take care of the preparation of the equiptment that we are getting from them, which has allowed me to get a ton of hands on experience.  They have showed me the hows and whys for electric set-up. Allowing me to prepare that much better for any problems that could possibly arise while we are underway.  It is always good to know another skill.  These guys truely are amazing.  Great teachers, great people.  I will miss them when I’m gone.

We also may have a new member of the crew.  Nick #2.  We already have one Nick, who is a great guy and knows engines, and works his butt off.  But we met another Nick, who is a marine mechanic and is a pretty cool guy too.  So now we have engine guys who can both take care of whatever needs to be done, and they can be on opposite shifts so one can get rest if something needs to be looked at on the engines while we are underway.  Not a bad setup. 

Also on an even cooler note for me, since its taken me a while to get it, but we finally a water maker!!  Right when we needed it the most, and just in time for us to leave, Sea Recovery, one of the most reliable water maker companies I have come to find out, donated a water maker.  I mean, I must have looked at a dozen or so water companies, most of which had units that were pretty small or complicated in their maintenance and use.  But Sea Recovery’s units, from everything I read and the people I talked to say, are easy to use and maintain. Almost a push button system that monitors itself.  Pretty good, since we have a lot of stuff already that needs to be monitored at all times.  So thank you Sea Recovery, you gave us a huge piece of the puzzle that is allowing us to get going! 

We also met another amazing specialist, through the guys at Polaris actually.  Clay Hansen, is a guy who owns a shop here in town and has fixed all of our A/C units and has given us great advice on how to properly set all of them up.  He has also tried to get us in touch with people he knows to try and get us additional units.  He is a specialist in marine A/C, generators, water makers, and refrigeration.  He has offered his time and resources to help us out, and has taught me so much about all of these things.  He truly has been there and genuinely wants to help.  If sometimes the donation of time and knowledge is better than resources, he has gone above and beyond, helping us with both.  He truly is a generous soul. (and not to mention, quite funny). 

But the hardest part of the past few weeks was leaving.  Originally we were going to be leaving for south FL this last Sunday, and I have a medical school interview at the Royal College of Surgeons this coming Friday, so I planned to leave before the crew did so I would have a definite ride to the airport.  But because of the additional hull repairs that took an extra few days, and a delay in getting the paint, the team is in FL for an additional week.  So I left just before they started to paint, and I am just killing time and doing as much admin work as I can in West Virginia (now), and while I am in NYC (leaving for tomorrow and getting back to FL on Friday) .  But I hate being away fro m the team.  I can imagine them working their butts off every day that im not there, and me in this little coffee shop answering emails and contacting companies.  First off, I hate sitting behind a computer. And secondly, I hate that I’m not there to work and sweat and get tired along side the Floating Doctors team.  We truly have become a family in the last few months, and while I’m not there, I miss them.  So, they told me they started painting the other day, a few coats on the bottom and above the waterline should be done shortly.  Then we will get dropped in the water a day or two after I get back, then off to Haiti as soon as we can load and get everything ready (another two or three days probably). 

So I getting away for a few days I’ve had a lot of time to think.  Normally I (along with everyone else) are going so fast throughout the day, that it’s hard to find the time to stop and think about personal stuff.  But I have had time now to take a look at everything and everyone back there.  They truly have become like family, and we work well together.  We have learned to work and feed off each others strength and help each other with our weaknesses.  We are a team, and I miss them.  I also realize, that although its hard work, and there are days that I think “Why am here sanding all day” or the like, I love what I do.  I mean, how bad can life be working outside, with people I love, whom I respect?  I can’t wait to see what is going to happen in Haiti and beyond.  I have had time to think about just how much of a difference we are going to make.  We aren’t just going to make a difference in health, and fix problems from one dimension.   In Haiti, we are going to help improve health, build a school and an orphanage.  We are fixing problems from many directions, making a lasting impact.  We are going to help in every respect that we can.  There isn’t much more that one can hope for his life.  Being an instrument of positive change in the communities we are going to is a great feeling.  I never really stopped to think about just how it makes me feel, and words don’t really begin to describe.  I guess the only way to let you know is to have you come with us.  Any takers?

So it all started last Tuesday, January 19^th.  We had been scheduled to leave the following day for St. Augustine to get dry docked, but there was still work that HAD to be done before we left (can you believe the Southern Wind hasn’t moved in 7 years??).  The bilge pumps needed to be double checked and trouble shot, the starboard engine’s starting solenoid needed to be rewired, the battery bank needed to be prepped, which means a water refill (which takes a while), and recharge which on a huge battery bank such as ours (2x starting batteries and 10x 8D batteries!) also takes a while, wire up the inverter/charger, and set up our engine gauges (which is most important really, but we were getting them back that day).  We all got up and started at 9am and continued all the prep where we left off at around midnight or 1am.  The bilges weren’t that bad. I was able to get most of them up without a problem. 8 out of the 9 were fully functional, able to respond both automatically and manually to water intake.  And the 9^th was an additional backup we had just bought, but also had a 2500 GPH (gallons per hour) manual in its place so I wasn’t worried.  They only took me two or three hours.  The starboard starter took about 15 minutes, but before I can start on my next project the guys from Polaris Marine come by for a final check before we make our first journey aboard the Southern Wind. Now don’t get me wrong I love it when these guys show up.  I am now confident that I can wire a lot on a boat but having these guys around, guys who really know the ins and outs of everything, is reassuring.  They look over some of my work, answer A LOT of questions that I always come up with, go over the engine room set-up (which is the one frustrating part, when people who know what they are doing tell you that you need to redo something.  But the most frustrating part is that I know they are right, Damn!) and end up in the bridge with sky talking about our set-up, and what else can be doing.  These guys know pretty much everything there is about boats/sailing.  During this conversation we got our gauges back from Telcor, who originally made them 20 years ago but agreed to service them for us and supplied us with new sending units for the engines (the sensors that actually take the RPM, pressure and temperature readings).  And by the time they were done answering all of our questions it was almost 3pm.  I take full advantage of time they are here and really pick their brains!  So after they leave, I double check a few things around the boat and start cleaning the bilges, which is actually a continuation of the bilge pump preparations.  See, if the bilges are dirty as ours are when they try to pump water out, they will suck up all the dirt, sawdust, etc which will clog them and make them break.  So I spent a few hours cleaning the forward bilges.  This is quite possibly my least favorite job since to clean under Ben’s bedroom I have to climb down and fit in a space about 20in. high with a pressure washer, scraper, and shop vac to get it all our which is tedious and awkward.  Thank goodness a friend of ours came by to help me out as my runner. So that was done by 6pm. 

Then I began reading the directions for our gauges.  They are not all that complicated, but they take a long time and everything has to be very precise and exact.  The cables get run, which requires running new PVC pipes through our aft space since I am out of room in my other cabling areas (I have already run a couple thousand feet of cable between all the lights, pumps, navigations, etc.).  Luckily Bryan Adams and Lona Smith, the two main film crew members who will join us documenting the voyage, were out here for a few days.  They were such a huge help, I can’t hardly begin to describe.  Let me actually tell you about these two.  They have worked in TV for a few years on shows like Ice Road Truckers; both have a great sense of adventure and an even bigger sense of service.  Early last year they were in between projects and were trying to think of what they could do next.  It turns out there was an article about us in a small magazine, The Mariner, and while they were sitting down for pizza in LA Bryan opened it up and started reading and said, this would be great for a documentary show! So they got in touch with Ben and came out last May to film some stuff and ended up helping around the boat.  That was really the start of our filming process.  Lona has been busy the past few months, so hasn’t been able to make it back out until now, but Bryan has been here a few times.  Lona is our producer and Bryan is our camera man.  They are both going to be of such help as they both are incredibly gifted on the filming side, but also are people we can trust on board to help out around the boat when we need.  Not to mention that they both are people whose company I really enjoy. They are just good people. 

So Bryan was helping out with the electric and also lent a hand to Nick in the engine room prepping our engines.  He wired up the Inverter/Charger for me while I was starting on the gauges.  I don’t know where the time went but before I know it, it was midnight.  They were finishing up in the engine room, but I still had a lot to do.  Ben came back down and told us to call it a day, but I needed to keep working.  He advised that I should get to bed by 2 since we had such a long day ahead of us.  So that was fully my intention.  But unfortunately it didn’t go that way.  All the prep that goes into setting up the gauges required cutting and making over 200 cables that isn’t that hard but tedious.  So they everyone woke up at 7am to find me still working in the bridge.  I felt like a surgeon huddled over the body of patient for hours on end, not really moving except to cut and crimp cables as I need them.  It was a long night, but it needed to get done by the next day.  They were up and running, but like doing all things for the first time, there were a few glitches.  The oil pressure gauges weren’t functioning properly when we started the engines the next day, but I’m getting a head of myself. 

I think this is a good time to introduce our new captain so long as he can get a leave of absence from work, Ryan. Yes, that gives us two Ryan’s and a Bryan on board (and to think my parents named me Ryan because no one had that name!).  Ryan and Morgan (his wife) are quite the pair.  I met them one day in the canal when they were going by in their small skiff.  Both are in their late 20s and moved here from living on their boat in the Bahamas around the same time Ben and I got here.  They were interested to see what we were up to and the project so they came aboard and took a look around.  It was great to meet people around here that were our age.  It turns out that Ryan has his 100 ton captains license and has lived on boats all his life, and has served as a great knowledge base to draw from.  Morgan is also a nurse.  What a great pair to have along!  Now if only we can convince them to join us!!!  They came by for dinner and kept coming back now again to lend a hand.  They are the sweetest people I have met in a long time.  They laugh a lot, which tends to be infectious.  They have also brought their boat dog, Rutter, by a hand full of times, so Jiles has a friend.  Well, kind of, they are still getting to know one another.  But Ryan and Morgan have become new members of our little family.  And now we are trying to get Ryan to be our captain.  They are just a perfect fit for our crew.

So that morning I went up to the house got some coffee and some breakfast and went right back to it.  Ryan got to the house and we did more prep work.  And at 9 we fired up the engines. So then we began doing the trouble shooting for the engines and their gauges…which took a while.  Capt. Ryan helped me get the battery bank water refilled and charged. But by the time we got it kind of worked out it the tide was ebbing and we missed our window to get past the canals.  And we decide it is far better to wait anyways and make sure EVERYTHING is worked out.  It is now between 2 and 3pm, and I’ve been at it for almost 30 straight hours and am exhausted, so Ben and Ryan tell me to take the rest of the day off and go rest.

The next day Capt. Ryan has off work is Friday, and because he is piloting our boat, we wait until then to give it a shot.  So the next day we continue fixing everything, I got the gauges working…finally, and the engines are working great.  So Friday we are finally able to take off.  A bunch of our neighbors come out to send us off and we get the boat into the canals!  It hasn’t moved in years, and we are all on deck high fiving each other.  It is a long time coming, and we are all so excited.  We start making our way up the intercoastal making great time, but soon our Port engine won’t get in gear.  But we still have one functional engine and still making 5-6 knots.  Not bad considering the size of our vessel.  It starts out beautiful, not a cloud in the sky.  But in less than an hour we look ahead of us and see what we thought was smoke in the canal a couple hundred yards ahead, but didn’t smell any fire.  In minutes we are sacked in with fog and can hardly see 100 yards in front of us.  So some of us are on deck trying to spot the markers for Ryan and everyone does beautifully.  But then we hit the notorious Matanzas Straight.  This is the area known for having boats run around, where we ran aground a few months back on our friend Art’s boat.  Luckily we had two tow boats escorting us there just in case.  They pull us out, thanks to some great captaining by Capt. Ryan.  The tow boats then leave, and we are on our own from then on.  It takes a few hours to get up to St. Augustine, and it is a gnarly adventure with Morgan, Ben, and I at the bow spotting for Capt. Ryan but we make it up just as night falls.  We dock and are so relieved.  But the slip our boat yard said was available, wasn’t’ so we had to dock a couple hundred yards down where they were not set up for us and we had to go a night without shore power. So no lights really, just two extension cords.  Ryan and Morgan take off as they both have work the next day, but we stay put and start our nights on watch.

 The next day we the owner of the yard we are at says we have to move.  So once we fix the port engine (which turns out just needed a $.75 piece to be replaced!) Ben pilots the boat as the rest of us are his spotters.  But guess what?  We try to move 300 yards and run aground when trying to turn the boat around.  A tow boat happens to be right there and tries to get us off but with the tide he can’t.  So we have to wait until 11am the next day.  But the problem is that the tide keeps going out and by low tide that night we are leaning at a 45 degree angle.  That was a trip!  Everyone and Jiles trying to keep their balance on a severely angled floor in darkness.  Around 11pm, the tide came back up and we were free.  All of a sudden Ben yells down to me from the bridge, “We’re free, get everyone up now!”  So we try to maneuver around and dock but there are some very expensive yachts that we are trying not to hit.  We get within 10 feet of the dock, but we can’t make it any closer.  Luckily two guys from one of the docked boats come by and we toss them our lines.  Finally, we are docked, safe, have power, and get on land.  We hang out there the rest of the weekend and try to get hauled out yesterday, Monday.  But the winds and tides were too strong to try and fit our boat, which is 22ft wide into their lifting dock which is only 24 feet wide. We play it safe, no sense in risking everything right now, and decide to wait until today.  So it’s my shift again, Ben went and stayed back at home last night to finish up some work and Rachel is having trouble sleeping with all the noise on deck (we need to put more insulation in her ceiling). So it’s just Nick, Sky, Noah and I tonight.  And it’s my watch, which started at 5am.  I am getting more and more used to working strange hours, for long stretches at time.  But we are having a blast.  The boat is functional; we are that much closer and will be leaving in less than month.  Where has the last year gone, it has passed in what seems like a blink.  Well the sun is starting to rise and I need to get everyone up.  Then it’s time to head back to the house to get Ben and Rachel, and then at 1130 we are getting picked up and put on blocks for two weeks.  This is going to be a long two weeks, with many long hours, but again, we are having a blast.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

So this was a great week.  I mean, it wasn’t all good, but all in all it turned out great.  I’ll get the bad stuff out first. I had to be rushed to the hospital on tuesday night.  I was kind of achey all day and just thought I was getting sick, and was a little nauseated.  Then around 10pm I went to the kitchen to make some chicken soup and keeled over in pain on the counter.  I couldn’t really stand so I crawled toward the bathroom but couldn’t make it and just layed on my back rithing in pain (noah actually does a great impression I hear).  Ben called the paramedics who rushed me to the hospital and told me I had pancreatisis.  I had never hit a 10 on the pain scale before, it was a new experience for me and at least now I know what it is like.  But now, at the end of the week, I am feeling better, back to work (too early some would say, but hey I like my work), and getting things done.  I also got rejected from another medical school. I applied to 30 schools, and so far all the one’s I have heard from rejected me, except for GW which put me on hold (which is better than a rejection I guess, so I’ll take it). I mean I don’t really blame them.  My grades were okay, but not great. I probably should retake the MCAT again, and besides co-founding Floating Doctors I have not done that much to distinguish myself that much, and Floating Doctors hasn’t even run its first clinic yet.  But I still have 14 more schools to hear from, and maybe one of them will be the school I meant to go to.  Who knows, but my spirits are high. 

They are high because all in all it WAS a great week.  We scheduled our haul out for January 21.  We have up to two week s in the yard, and then we leave.  We have set our sailing schedule.  I have done all of the electrical work I can until we get more supplies (hopefully some that will be donated…please be able to Blue Sea Systems!!)  But the boat is running great, we ordered our replacement windows today and they should be here on Monday or Tuesday.  Yesterday we finished apoxying the hull underneath my bunk (of course it would have to be under MY bunk!!), so now we just need to fiberglass over it and we can put the floor back on and I can finish building my room.  The good part about having to wait so long is that I have been able to help everyone build up their rooms and both learn how to do things better and…because I helped all of them, they get to help me J.  Some of the crew are still back in CA, so there are only 6 of us here in FL finishing up the prep work, but the dynamics and attitudes have been a lot of fun.  It is a little like it was back in the beginning.  We are able to spend more time with each other, and I think it is doing us a lot of good.  We are all getting along and talk a lot about what it is going to be like once we get underway and in our first clinic.  We are all very excited, but also nervous.  We have all worked so long, and so hard for this, so the excitement is more than I express here in the blog.  The nervousness is setting in though, especially for me.  Will I know what to do when we get there?  But luckily my coping mechanism for nervousness is more useful than harmful.  Whenever I start to think about the clinics and get nervous about my knowledge level, it inspires me to sit down and study more.

I also started confirming people who are going to be joining us along the way.  Today I confirmed a Canadian Medical Student who will be joining us in Belize.  I have talked to her on the phone a few times, and she seems like such a sweetheart.  One of those people who is genuinely excited to help people, but also seems to have the skill set to not just want to be of service, but actually will be.  I, and the rest of the crew, are excited to have her coming out.  I am also sending out an email tonight to all the people who are waiting to get our schedule from me.  Hopefully that will bring in a few more confirmed people.  I like this part of my job.  Working out logistics for people in this setting is cross between and game of chess and putting together a giant 3D puzzle.  You always have to think 3 moves down the road and balance everything just right, or the whole thing will fall apart just as the queen puts you in checkmate. 

I have also been in a better mood the past few weeks.  I was starting to spend way too much time inside my head, which is a dangerous place to be for too long.  And it was sucking all the energy out of me.  But now I have been able to just let things be, and for a while now, I have been a lot happier.  It sucks every time I get a rejection from a medical school, but I have done everything I can for this round of apps and whatever will be, will be.  I have done the best I can, and I am content with that.  It is the same with work.  Sometimes it is stressful but I, along with everyone else here, have done everything we can to get the job done, and it is getting done great! We may be leaving later than we expected, but in many ways it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  If we left Nov 1, we would have been hit head on by hurricane Ida, and the additional time has given us a chance to get better equipment, training, and resources from many avenues.  The production company we have been talking to has been great, and because of the additional time we have worked out a fair deal and we are excited to work with them.  I am especially excited to have Bryan and Lona back here.  They are great people, both of whom have a great ability to make me laugh.  Plus they are great at what they do. (Bryan is a cameraman, and Lona is a line producer.  Both of them are the ones that found us and have been trying to turn our project into a documentary TV show) I am excited to have them come back and very excited to see what of job they can do with filming our project. 

Well it’s about 1030 and I have to start filling out some more grant applications.  A few years ago, I never would have thought I would be spending my Friday nights filling out paperwork preparing to sail around the world.  Life could be worse.

During one of the news interviews aboard the Southern Wind

So it has been about two months since my last post and things have been absolutely crazy here.  We are FINALLY about to get out of here, but it is amazing how much we have gotten done.  Most of our main systems are fully operational now. Plumbing, Engines, Rigging, Fuel, Hydraulics, and ALL major construction.  All that is left is the electric but I am still trying to find the last of pieces I need to finish it.  I have only gotten as far as I have because of Rick, Tom and Cheryl at Polaris Marine in St. Augustine, Bob Matson from the HAM radio club here in Palm Coast, and because of Blue Sea Systems.   The folks at Polaris Marine have given us wire, fittings, and electrical accessories at cost, they are donating a 15KW Onan generator, and have made the trek down to Palm Coast over and over again to help us figure out how to install and connect the thousands of feet of wire I have had to put in.  Bob—besides training us for the upcoming FCC license exam, coordinating our Single Sideband Radio installation, and helping us repair and troubleshoot our system—has tirelessly worked on our behalf trying to get us support.

A few months ago, Christmas came early for me when Blue Sea generously gave us some very vital components (350 Amp Fuse, Battery Switches, several top-of-the line Distribution Panels, Bus bar, and our Bilge Pump Control Panel).   On a personal note with their equipment, I have been continually impressed.  The equipment from Blue Sea has not given me one problem and has been the easiest stuff to work with.  Several other products we have used have fried and we haven’t even left the dock yet.  But the Blue Sea Systems have gotten our system running and running effectively. 

This panel controls all foward lights on-board

This Blue Sea Panel controls our bilge pumps.

This makes isolating our battery banks possible

This piece keeps our inverter/charger from overloading our battery bank.

You should see the boat, it looks entirely different.  Supporters here who have seen the boat when we first arrived here, and who have dropped by to see it now, are shocked at the transformation.  The Salon…wow.  The benches are padded and covered, walls painted, cupboards sanded and stained, charting table sorted out, and Editing Suite completed. It is incredible to think that we did ALL of it—and it is amazing what you can do with pressure treated wood, stain and varnish—our boat will never be a yacht (nor should it be), but it actually turned out to look really good.  Over the past few weeks, especially just before Christmas, when it was just Rachel, Sky, Noah, and I here we took to watching DVDs in the salon every night. It has become quite a comfortable place to relax.  Pretty much all of the crew has moved themselves into their cabin on-board and sleep there every night.

The Bridge-the main electrical set-up is done, the solar panels are fully operational and refilling our battery bank, the captain’s chair, navigations, and basic communications are all completed.  One thing left though is our SSB radio.  However, in Bob Matson we have had an angel on our shoulders.  Bob Matson has been an electric and communications expert throughout his crew in the Navy, and is an honorary member of the Navy seal association, and he has been a blessing to us.  He is reviewing all the knowledge with the crew on getting our HAM radio licenses, has helped advise me on how to set up various components of our system, including our emergency lighting system, and is helping me set up our radio antennas (which is quite complicated, as our backstay is pretty much an antenna but needs to properly adjusted).  It is actually really fun, but when we unpacked our HAM/SSB unit he and I strung up a 10ft. make shift antenna and just tried to find something, anything, on the air, and even with that little thing were listening to Morse code and transmissions from Texas and as far north as Maine.  So that night I got a program for my computer so that I could plug my laptop into the unit which would then automatically translate the Morse code so I can actually understand what is being said. Now if only I was fluent in the abbreviations they use. O well, I will get it in time. 

Putting up Christmas lights on the boat

The galley is looking great.  We put down padded linoleum which makes it feel much more homey, the walls are freshly painted, we put a different freezer in there that Habitat for Humanity provided, which doubled our freezer space (very handy on a boat!), and we are in the process of getting our atmospheric water maker from Generative Planet setup.  Now this is one cool toy!  All it needs is a certain humidity (and we will be in the tropics!) and it condenses that humidity into fresh drinking water.  How cool is that?  It makes enough to sustain the crew’s drinking water throughout the day, and will also help keep the boat dry and prevent rot. 

Most of the cabins are done like I said.  Nick is living in his.  I have been working with him to help put “sexy lights” in there for him.  We were digging around in the garage and found some low power, very nice nautical lights that flush-mount and so I distributed them where they were needed and he got the extras.  They are going to look GOOD.  Rachel is also living down in her cabin. She has come along quite nicely in the area of carpentry too.  She actually built most of the storage areas, and helped modify her cabin in every aspect that needed to be done.  I was quite impressed and she was very proud of herself, as she should be.  Now the crown jewel cabin has got to be sky’s.  The bed was extended so the whole room is either bed space or storage space level with the bed, a closet, or more storage space under the bed.  They re-stained the some walls, and padded/upholstered the other wall so that it is a comfortable backrest, as she does A LOT of computer work in there.  It is covered in pictures and just feels like a home.  Especially when you go in there and find our boat dog, Giles McCoy, lying down, sleeping right next to her. 

Sky, Rachel, Noah, and I decorated a tree in our salon, with construction material

The heads are fully plumbed.  The Hydraulics are working, and the steering system is primed and ready.  For a while I would actually go up to the wheelhouse and turn the wheel back and forth just because I knew it worked and it was a good feeling to have something on-board(the rudders) that was fully operational that I can play with. 

So as far as most of the boat goes, we are just finishing up small odds and ends, but the electric still needs some help.  We are still using home AC circuit breaker panels for our 110v system, which is okay, but marine units would be better, and I still need to get the rest of the bilge pumps up and running, I need to find a couple new gauges for our engines, and the rest are just little projects here and there.  We are going to try and haul the boat out of the water the Saturday after next to paint it, check the through-hull fittings, and load the boat for departure.

I am definitely a man of quotes.  Throughout any given day quotes from movies, book, friends, or just random quotes I have collected over the years (so far about 20 pages) go through my head.  This week has been no different, but a few quotes in particular kept coming to mind. 

“What a long strange journey this has been” —Jerry Garcia

“In order to succeed we must first believe that we can” — Michael Korda

Change can be so constant that you don’t feel a difference until there is one.  It can be so slow that you don’t know that your life is better or worst until it is, or it can just blow you away, make you something different in an instant. –life as a house

 It’s not about getting it right, it’s about knowing when its wrong and doing something about it.–Dawson’s Creek (yea, I know what you’re thinking, but hey I like the show, back off)

If you take too many sticks out of your ass, then you have no backbone” –Friend from long ago

Accept that some days you’re the pigeon and some days you’re the statue.” –unknown

It has been an interesting week that has once again gotten me to think about the past six months.  We are so close to being done, but our hydraulics guy keeps on delaying, which in turns delay our departure.  The boat is looking great; most of the work is done.  Today the plumbing was finished, the A/C units are installed, the engines are working, and all the major stuff to be done is the hydraulics (which is kind of out of our hands) and the electric.  It has been frustrating for me the past few weeks trying to figure out these systems and make sure they work.  I know that if I mess up or overlook something it can be catastrophic for the boat and crew somewhere down the road.  Yes, I do have people/experts coming down and checking on my work, but they can’t see everything, so after thinking about only this for weeks on end, it has taken a hard toll. I haven’t been sleeping well.  Most days I sleep for an hour or so then wake up and can’t get back to sleep until around 4am, then I only half asleep once everyone else gets up to run or whatever around 6 or 630.  I have just been in this place of exhaustion and frustration for weeks. But it has been frustrating, although I am frustrated mostly at myself.  By now I should be able to have a better handle on all this, but still confuses the hell out of me some days, and I know that I am better than that.  We had our solar panels installed yesterday, while a news crew from channel 13 out here was interviewing Ben.  A company here The Energy Outlet arranged for the donation or the panels and they installed them but added them to a system that I am struggling to understand, even though I built it, has been more difficult than I thought, especially since I am finally putting together the navigation portion of our electronics.  Now it should be a relatively simple set-up, ask any marine electrician.  But for a guy whose entire electric background is in theatre and a little bit of housing, it is not quite that simple.  I have three different people who stop by sometimes to check my work, and they all tell me to do things differently.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  Ask any three experts something and each will have their own way, but they are just confusing me more.  So this is where my second quote keeps coming in.  I consider myself a relatively intelligent guy, so like I said it is frustrating when I can’t fully understand the job in front of me.  So I took a step back today and just cleared my head.  I thought to myself that I have been able to understand systems and concepts far more complex and difficult that this and I pushed all of what the experts told me out the window and found my own answers.  I found and read all the expanded versions of marine electronic installations I could find and put together a wiring diagram of exactly how our system needs to be with all the components I have.  So the frustration I have had all week was finally solved by simply taking a deep breath, and first believing that I could succeed.  A lesson that I have often found myself forgetting (maybe my friends are right in that I am too hard on myself).

But a lot has changed in the past few months, let alone the past few years.  I have spent the past 4 years beating myself up over a mistake I made that in essence changed my life.  After the walls came crashing down and I lost one of the most important people in my life, I started to finally get my life on track.  I had said for years prior that I wanted to and that I would but I never seemed to really get right.  But this was the final straw that got me to take myself and my life a little more seriously.  I got more direction and confidence in myself, but it has been a long uphill battle to try and dispose of long time habits.  I have always been a flirt, and probably always will be, but it has been trying to keep it in check and not using solely as a defense mechanism that has been a change, which is a long process.  Trying to convince myself that I am worth forgiveness and good enough to make a positive difference is something that is even harder.  I don’t know why it has taken so long to try and put the past behind me, but it has.  Maybe this trip will allow me to put things into greater perspective and just let it go while still taking the lessons I have learned with me.  I guess it is true that life is not about just getting it right, but rather about living your life and realizing when you do something wrong and doing something about it. 

A friend of mine from high school once told me that if you take all the sticks out of your ass, you will have not backbone.  I never really knew just how true that is sometimes until recently (wow, it has taken me till the age of 24 to learn what a friend of mine said I high school? that’s a little pathetic. or maybe she was just beyond her time).  In trying to help Ben and Sky lead the team out here, I have had to ask people to do jobs when they are tired, or repeat jobs that weren’t always done as good as they could have been, just as I have been asked to do those things too.  It is just being a part of a team.   We try to work together in all situations.  But as I was friends with most of these people for years before we came out here, it has been hard sometimes to find a balance between being the VP (even though really here, titles mean nothing) and being the guy they knew in college.  I could easily try to be the total pushover and take all the sticks out of my ass and just totally go with the flow, in which case no one is better off.  Or I could try and find a middle ground and let the small things roll off my shoulder while trying to get everyone (including myself) to do the right thing.  But in doing so I find that sometimes I’m the pigeon and some days I’m the statue.

Well it is Friday night in Palm Coast, and now that the electric is more or less figured out, I think it’s about time I start reviewing the medical knowledge again since we will be leaving soon. Is it bad that I look forward to making time to read medical texts?

This is has been one long, painful week.  I have been having trouble sleeping lately, so I’m getting maybe 2-3 hours of actual sleep in a night and coffee is the only thing keeping me going throughout each day.  But a lot of work has gotten done.  The salon is looking beautiful. Noah and Graham built a few extra cabinets that give us a lot of extra storage room (very important on a boat) and make the entire room look more like a place we will be living.  The hard rail around the boat is almost done, and the rub rail is fully installed.  For me it was exciting to see our solar panels arrive.  I have been working for weeks on getting us 6 solar panels but apparently there was a miscommunication between my contact (a guy who owns a solar panel store here in palm coast) and his supplier in Texas, so we only ended up with two.  it took hours to figure out what happened, but in the end we got what we were supposed to on their end but they are both going to look for additional panels for us, so we will see how that goes.  I am done with everything can do electrically until the rest of the supplies we ordered arrive.  Also one of our spreader lights didn’t work when I put them up, so I had to redo that, but it looks great now. It is truly amazing to see the boat lit up at night now, the entire deck just comes alive and it really feels like I could be on it for a year now.  I find myself imagining what I will be seeing for the first time in what seems like weeks.  Work has been so crazy here that I have barely had time to breathe, but less than that is think about the future (and the only thing I force myself to think about when it comes to that is med school apps).  Speaking of which med school apps are pretty much done. I am not counting on hearing anything back from the rest of UC med schools so all my others are completed and done, what a relief that is.  Applying to 29 schools, rejected from 6, at least I still 23 left to hear from. I never knew how much these apps would take out of me.  All the time and energy of writing them, and then the emotional energy of trying to give us with each rejection (which by the way are the nicest go to hell letters I have ever gotten).  But I guess medical school is going to be like most other things in my life, I never really seem to take the easiest or common path. I often find the other ways of doing things or finding my place.  Maybe the medical school thing will solve itself, and all I need to do is keep working.  While it has gotten me into some trouble and times haven’t always been easy, because of this I have gotten to experience and learn more than many people twice my age, and look where I am now. About to sail around the world, going to help people. It is truly amazing.

The wife of Ben and Sky’s cousin, and one of my best friends from high school, is out here helping us do some filming and some web work for two weeks.  She filmed an interview with me last night, and afterward we were talking about motivations to come out and do something like this.  Whenever people ask me that I always say that I’m going to help people, and that is true, but of course it’s not the entire story. Everyone has something that they want to gain from this, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot.  I have heard the motivations from the rest of the crew, so I thought it would be a good idea to write mine down and see if they change once we are underway.  so my motivations: of course to help people, learn how to be a better doctor, sail around the world, be an instrument of change, help get into medical school, become more globally aware, learn lessons I never knew I never knew, and help others do the same.  Some of these are selfish and some are selfless, and still others are somewhere in between, but they are the truth.  Of course I would love it if this helped me get into medical school, but it is also so much more than that.  Doing something like this has to be something in the middle I think.  It is recognizing the true motivations, and pursue all of them with all your heart, just focusing more on the selfless side than anything else.  It is the only way it will work.  But as time goes by I think the motivations I have will change as soon as we run that first clinic.

I guess the only thing I know for sure is that things are changing every day.  The boat is changing, and I hope I am with it.  The next year will bring lessons, challenges, and changes that I have not yet even dreamed.

 

So Saturday I woke up and got straight down to the boat. Ben and Sky had interviews and meetings up in St. Augustine and Michelle and Justin were up there as well, so we had a limited crew on board today working until the afternoon.  But in the morning I was able to get a lot of work done.  The backup freezer, engine room, A/C pumps, the galley lights, and the forward distribution center all got

The electrical team

 wired up.  I was pretty pleased.  Then around 3, our new media contact showed up.  Nicole is a journalist from SF who came out for a few days to write put together a story about us. She left this morning, and I have a feeling about how well she is going to do in writing this article.  She seems to genuinely care about telling our story and not putting any odd slant on it.  It is a good feeling.  My back is also better.  I messed it up pretty bad a week and a half ago, very much limiting the amount of work I was able to get done.  But I’m back, not quite at 100%, still a good amount of discomfort and pain, but at least I’m able to move around.  So once the rest of my supplies arrive, engine starter, float switches, shower sumps, macerator pumps ect. I should be able to have the electric done soon.  We also found a great deal on a welder who is going to do the rest of the jobs we need for quite a deal.  The hydraulics is getting started this week, and that is a 5 day job, so hopefully we should be out of here. Soon.  I am also still trying to bother the solar panel guys so they can come install everything ASAP.  I am getting so tired lately. Eventually I’m going to need a few days off.

O yea, I got the dumbest ticket today.  I was driving to airport to drop off the journalist this morning and here the speed limit is 70mph, but they allow a 10% over, so 77mph.  But they pulled me over for going 79.  Bummer!!! So that’s another $131 gone.  I’m going to try to take a part time gig this week to earn some extra money I can use to pay for it, so we will see how that goes. 

We got our new website up this weekend too.  Still has a few glitches, but Jamie is working on it, and man did make this website look

Our newest crew photo

 good. I am very impressed.  There is a little time limit on when it will be completed though.  Our CNN interviews are coming out this week, so we want our website at its best.  CNN.com is running their story starting tomorrow (Monday), CNN International is starting their story Tuesday, and CNN is running a looped story about us wed-fri, so hopefully we will get some added support from that.  I just hope it goes well.

I have found myself reading a lot more lately, so far this month I have made it through, The Last Lecture, Tuesday with Morrie, Sacred Origins of Profound Things, and the New Testament Background (a religious history book), and restarted the Fountainhead.  I still cannot believe that I never really liked reading.  There is so much to learn, and so many different perspectives to try and understand.  Being able to do this is what makes it possible to learn, interact, and make the world a better place on a grand scale.  I’m trying to put together more of a library for the boat before we leave. (if anyone actually reads this and has old books of any topic they think the crew may like, please feel free to send them to 146 Cochise court, palm coast, FL 32137 in the next few weeks)  I know we are going to be immensely busy on the boat, and I am already determined to spend this year learning as much of the book knowledge for the first two years of med school as possible, but a good book on any random topic is just so freeing.  I love being able to escape into a different world, learn something new, or just give myself a lesson in how to feel.

I have had a little problem in the past few years, really letting people in and understanding what it means.  But I’ve asked one of the members of the crew, Michelle, who is such a sweet heart, and her boyfriend, Justin, who is our photographer, to help me learn to be okay with accepting and expressing emotion.  So in the meantime I’m trying to also read some of the poetry I used to.  Everything from Pablo Neruda’s 100 Love Sonnets, and just general poetry, Whitman I am starting to like more.  Ben has told me several times that he has already seen a big change in who I am, just in the 6 months that we have been here. And in Florida we haven’t really done that much what I would call life changing work.  The next 12-18 will be amazing and I think that it will be such a changing experience for me.  I have been asked by so many people how I think this voyage will change me.  The truth is I have no idea. But I do have some hopes as to the lessons I learn. (but for now those are my secrets)

I also want to try to get back into shape. So tomorrow I need to start working out again, maybe a morning swim and workout session.  So that means it’s time for bed. Sleep well out there, and take care.

So in the past week we have all been working tirelessly.  Rachel, a friend from SF who is also with us, is heading up our finishing team, working on making everything look good.  Sanding, varnishing, etc. Noah, whom I met through a friend in SF, and before we came out here I had never met, is continuing to head up the major construction. Building the hard rails around the boat, ceilings, etc. And I have been trying to finish the electrical systems.  Last week we moved our main power board out of the engine room, since it wasn’t safe in there in case of fire, and a few days ago i plug it back in to our shore power (without the previous connectors that were used) and for some reason the one bathroom fan that was on, sparked and caught part of our A/C system on fire!!! But in the last few days I went around and found out that the cable that came with the boat was macgyvered differently than i tought, causing 220v to run through it without a ground. So it was still my fault, but not as much as i previously thought.  So i fixed that and the boat electronics are back in working order, and more importantly they are safe for the crew.  I have also gotten most of the 12v system back in line and wired up, and should be able to be activated in the next few days.  The engine room is also mostly complete.  I finished one of our engines (with the wonderful help of michelle and justin) and the other i am just waiting on the starter celluloid to get back from being repaired.  There is still a lot of little projects to be finished on my side, and i am still waiting on several parts, flood lights, float switches, etc, but should be completely done with all the important aspects of my system soon.

Personally, this has been a hard week to work. I threw my back out last week, which i had never done before, and has been incredibly painful.  Whenever i get injured i tend to continue to push through it, much to the dismay of Dr. Ben and others on the crew.  So it has taken a little longer to heal than i had hoped, but started to improve today, making it much easier to work.  We also had a little visitor this week.  Over the past few months, we have had manatees, dolphins, crocks, etc swimming down past the boat, but never have any of them stopped to hang out.  This week we had a manatee come by and just hang out in the shade of the boat for a half our.  It was pretty cool.  A few months back those of us who were here went swimming with manatees on the west coast of FL, so it was nice to see one of them again.  They really are beautiful creatures (not in some ways definatelly, but they are just so relaxed and peaceful). 

Medical school applications are also in full swing.  Yes i have been crazy enough to apply even with all the stuff here to deal with.  I have put in secondaries to over 20 schools, and still are waiting on a few others, but i decided last minute to apply to the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland.  So i got that one done, and still have a few others to finish for the states, hopefully i will make time to get them done soon.  It is a little stressful getting them done to say the least.

I am also running into a few snags in planning the logistics for the trip.  I have been the one planning and coordinating everyone’s comings and goings, but this week several back steps have been taken as more problems with the number of people have been brought up.  The main concern being how much food we can actually store on board.  So Ben, Sky, Capt. J (who is going to captain our boat for a while), and I are going to have to sit down and figure out the logistics so i can actually have some answers for people.  We still do not have a departure date, but it should be coming soon which will make my job easier.  I have already had to redo the sailing schedule 8 or 10 times, which is hard enough as it is with all the other changes going on, but i guess it just a learning experience that i may benefit from later. 

Anyhow, Sky has worked up yet another amazing dinner, and the table is set for all of us to sit down and go over todays jobs and plan for tomorrow. 

More stories to follow…