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.
Update: March 2023- we loved our PDQ and we’d outgrown her. Time to consider landlubber life or buy a bigger boat! You can guess how that went. Fortunately, we’d met the boat, a Manta 44PC at one our marina stays the prior Fall. Russ wanted a tour and both couples were impressed, we with the boat and they with how very long we’d been full-time cruising. We learned she’d be up for sale come Spring but gave that no further thought until late January and our annual “stay the course or not” discussion.
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”!
Cruising along the East Coast and Bahamas 
I have the same frig you talk about. I have some of the same issues. My unit is 110/12v so I’m not sure about your timer setup but I’d love better info on your timer and replacing the thermostat.
LikeLike
I’ve afraid I installed them 8 years ago, so I don’t recall exact details, but there are many wiring diagrams for the Danfoss compressors on-line. To switch to an electronic thermostat you basically replace the 2 existing thermostat wires with the 2 wires of a new electronic thermostat (Amazon has many) – of course, the electronic thermostat also needs 12 volts & you’ll have to “fish” the new temp probe into the fridge box.
Once that’s working, you can continue with installing a timer (Amazon again) by wiring into the thermostat circuit so that the compressor doesn’t operate during the programmed, short times.
LikeLike
Please contact us about your PDQ catamaran being for sale. We are interested.
LikeLike
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!
LikeLike
Hi there! That’s so great and we too thought it an amazing life. And yep here we are nomads too.
LikeLike
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
LikeLike
Randy – Congrats!
I had a drill a new hole – easy to drill, but difficult to reach in (especially for the mounting screws).
LikeLike
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!
LikeLike
Good luck in your search! We love our PDQ. Glad you found us. Lots of info here.. and from others.
LikeLike
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?
LikeLike
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.
LikeLike
Did you mount the thermostat inside some kind of box or enclosure?
LikeLike
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.
LikeLike
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.
LikeLike
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!
LikeLike
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
LikeLike
Thanks, but we nabbed the last mooring at Carolina Beach and that was fine and good staging. Questions- sure; email us at RRLR@att.net.
LikeLike
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
LikeLike
Good Luck! hope you get one and say “hello” to the friendly harbormaster for us 🙂
LikeLike
What a cute couple and they even know how to sail!!!
LikeLike