Who we are

The nice waitress at the Jolly Roger on Green Turtle Cay took our picture

We realized our dream to become full-time cruisers, made friends and co-workers envious while sprinkling inspiration amongst same.

We are Russ and Lori, who traded in our land-based life for life aboard our 41’ Maine Cat catamaran, s/v Ortolan.  Our dearly loved home went on the market March 2010 and sold April 2011.  Every means possible was used to lighten our load of worldly possessions: tag sales (met some wonderful people, including the first owner of our house), craigslist, donating, consignment, dumpster and what remained that we didn’t take with us, got stuffed into a 10×10 climate controlled storage unit.

Our first cruise south along the AICW began Oct 10, 2010. Our journey took us west to the Dry Tortugas and as far north as Sarasota on Florida’s west coast. Our second year, as well as the third and fourth, took us back down the AICW with a hop over to the Bahamas where we saw for  ourselves that the Bahamas are better! Summers were spent either on a marina dock or on a mooring ball, mostly in Deep River, CT

Many have joined us vicariously on our cruising adventures.

And then the wind shifted; our new home became a land boat, aka a motorhome called m/h Annie. We picked her up in VA on Sept 8, 2014 and spent two months in CT getting her spiffed up and ready to travel south for the winter. Off to Florida- where else would we go the first year!?? 🙂

Uh oh- Sept 2015 and Annie is being replaced by a 2006 PDQ34 power cat we’ve named Twin Sisters.  Our reliable land cruiser served us well, but just couldn’t compete with the call of the sea… “Russ, come back, come back….”  And as of Jan 2022 we remain full-time cruisers.

Signing up to be a follower is easy and you receive an email when we post.  Send a note or write a comment – we promise to reply 🙂 We live this life for us and we write our blog for you! Many thanks to all who have and continue to “visit” us; we love your “likes”!

18 thoughts on “Who we are”

  2. Hello, my mom always talks of how the sea is in our blood. She always mentions captain rackliff being our relative (I forget the story of it) but we’ve gone to where his headstone is in myrtle point. I guess that makes us family? Lol anywho, my mom has a 32’ sail boat, we are currently making our way back home from sailing up here in canada in a bunch of the channels and inlets. I was googling stuff on captain rackliff and I came across your blog, how funny that you guys are seafarers also! Although not surprising haha. I’ll tell her about your blog I’m sure she’d love to get any information from you guys about family history.
    Safe travels!

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  3. Russ,
    I’m very close to purchasing a PDQ34. Your Nova Cool mods and genset raw water strainer upgrade will be on my to do list. One question: did you mount the pancake fan over an existing hole in the bulkhead?
    Randy

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  4. We are looking for a PDQ just like yours! We circumnavigated on our sailboat for 7 years, coming back in 2004. The “call of the sea” is loud and clear to us!

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  5. I am having similar issues with our NovaKool fridge. Can you provide some details on your thermostat replacement? How is the new digital thermostat wired?

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    • It was fairly easy. Look for the Inkbird (12 VOLT model) thermostat on Amazon where it is highly rated. It hooks up the same & in place of the factory thermostat to the “C” & “T” terminals of the controller, as well as 12 volt power to operate. It comes with a remote temp probe you can snake from the controller into the fridge (there is a pathway you’ll see if you remove the interior fridge light.

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      • No – I was originally planning to flush mount the thermostat, but didn’t want to cut such a sizable rectangle in the fiberglass. So I ended up simply using Velcro to fasten it under the edge of a shelf – unless you bend down you can’t even tell it’s not “properly” installed. Love that thermostat! Have also used one to control an exhaust fan for a new inverter I installed – works flawlessly.

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  6. Hello,
    My wife and are are interested in buying a PDQ 34 and would love to be added to your email list. We live just north of Ft. Pierce in Melbourne Beach.

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    • Greetings Tod. Good to hear from you. To follow, just click on the “follow” button on the right side bar of the home page. I think once you do that you receive an email asking you to confirm that you requested to be added to “email notification of new posts” list. Cheers!

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  7. Had I known you were passing thru Wrightsville Beach I would have offered you a slip at
    WYC – just hauled my boat for a bottom job. I have some questions regarding your Maine Cat.

    David

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  8. Did a search on anchoring in York Harbor and came across your interesting blog. We are going there today and it will be interesting to see if we anchor or get a mooring!

    I would like to follow your adventures!

    Madi

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