Report #1: 2007 to 2012 - School of Boating

Our boat "Kind of Magic" is probably at the smaller end of boat you'd live on.  There are lots of good reasons to have a smaller boat - money is always at the top of that list!  However, Magic is a center cockpit which makes her a big 36'.  Here is the layout:

The specs are NOT correct!  Displacement is over 17,000 lbs, draft was never less that 4'6"and the boat was never produced as a Ketch!  Other than that, the drawings give an idea of the layout.  Head room is 6' throughout and in the salon is closer to 6'2".  We are short so this is huge for us.  Being a center cockpit allows for two full height staterooms.  Ours is the aft stateroom and the bed is huge.  There is a large hatch overhead and two port lights.  The vberth is also one of the larger vberths we have seen on an older boat. 

Magic has taken over our schooling since we became her crew.  She has been diligently (and desperately at times) training us to look after her.  Well, Blair has spent 7 years in the school of Kind of Magic - she has been generous in providing lessons and courses in fibreglassing, plumbing, electrical, electronics, refrigeration, woodworking, gas fitting, diesel mechanics and lots more.  While Blair was taking those courses, Edith has been majoring in first aid with not-so-optional courses in tool recognition and location, mind-reading, parts sourcing, sewing, budgeting, cooking, more first aid (Blair has been a convenient source of surprise testing) and thankfully Edith is a star student in patience.  We also get ad hoc lessons in humility, self-reliance, swimming (!), communications, grounding recognitions (electrical and keel varieties) and surprise drills in smoke, fire and all sorts of failures.  At some point confidence started to sprout in our ability to not sink the boat we have been sinking everything into.  Graduation seems no closer though after 6 years!  Just when we get too confident she comes up with something else.

Along the way, we have also acquired the usual boating skills like sailing, anchoring, charting.  We passed the formal testing of Power& Sail Squadron courses, St. John's Ambulance and acquired our licences (boating, VHF, ham.)  So, we have had lots of other teachers than Magic of course, Ross and Bev on Raft being our longest suffering "professors."  However, better friends we have not had than   R&B who have also been our inspiration; their 5 year sojourn to the Caribbean fired our imaginations and their life-style, then and now, continue to make us re-evaluate our own.  Thankfully their return to Georgian Bay also coincided with the requisite knowledge to start finishing jobs allowing Magic to regain her status as a viable liveaboard!!

Finally now in 2013, Magic and we are finally ready for adventure.