Full Circle

The Bayliner is almost ready for sea trials. We even floated her at the launch ramp, still on the trailer, to see if everything worked okay, since we were having problems with the shifting. We had it hooked up to the hose while running it in the driveway, with Dave going back and forth from the helm to the engine compartment trying to shift it and make adjustments, all while I am watching the propeller, yelling Forward! Neutral! Neutral! Neutral!....and no reverse, or it would stall when in reverse. We finally took a break for the night, to give the neighbors a rest from the screaming (it was hard for Dave to hear me with the engine running), and the next morning it dawned on Dave exactly what needed to be done and now it shifts fine. Sometimes you have to just walk away for awhile.

The pictures below show the inside accommodations and it has a small ice box/cooler, and sink with running water behind the helm. There is even room for a portable Coleman type stove.

Sleeping arrangements in the enclosed V-berth area are small with the port-a-potty under one of the berths.


Dave will be sleeping on the top 'shelf' and hopefully he won't roll down on me while I sleep on top of the toilet! Since we are at the age when we both have to get up during the middle of the night, we are bringing a spare port-a-potty, that will live out in the main helm/living area (in our big boat I would call it the main salon) to relieve those 3AM urges. We'll be the only 21 foot boat with two heads!

We plan on an overnight excursion to Valcour Island in Lake Champlain to see how the whole system works, before our week long Rideau Canal trip August 6th. The Rideau is a series of canals with hand operated locks that also opens up into small lakes, which will be ideal for the kayaks that we will be carrying on the hard top roof. This trip has been in the planning for a year now, and we have several other friends from here and the Hope Town Sailing Club that are joining us and renting boats in Canada. For more information on cruising the Rideau Canal click HERE.

So, why did we name the Bayliner Full Circle? Mostly because we owned another Bayliner many years ago, but also because our humble beginnings of boating together started with a small trailerable boat with minimal accommodations and very little headroom. Our first boat was a 22 foot sailboat that we actually spent a month cruising the Florida Keys on back in 1982, and another month around the Sanibel area the following year, even crossing the Okeechobee Waterway in it. We called our adventures being "young and having no sense." I guess now that we have come full circle 30 years later, we're just "old and senile and don't remember what it was like!"