The Votaws' Ocean Adventure » USCG License http://votaw.org Track the Votaws as they travel the world! Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:04:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 Mission Accomplished! http://votaw.org/archives/71 http://votaw.org/archives/71#comments Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:17:06 +0000 Daddio http://votaw.org/?p=71 Well our time in Galveston is rapidly coming to an end. The whole reason we have been here is so that we would be close to the USCG Regional Exam Center in Houston so I could take my Merchant Marine License test. Well today I took and passed the last section! Whew! This has been a long arduous process. I testedfor my 1600 ton Master’s License and Unlimited Chief mate License. I’ve held both licenses before but let them expire in 2001. Since they have been expired so long, I had to take all the tests over again. All as in 10 different sections: Flashing Light Signaling, Rules of the Road, Deck General, Safety and Environmental, Stability, Navigation General, Terrestrial Chart Plotting Problems, Terrestrial Navigation Problems, and Celestial Navigation Problems. Each section takes from 2 to 3 hours, so we are talking about around 20 solid hours of testing. I started on Monday and finished today. My brain hurts. I apologize for not posting recently but my brain has been sort of preoccupied until now.

It looks like we have an opportunity to carry some cargo to the Dominican Republic for delivery to Danita’s Children in Haiti. A gentleman in Oklahoma City has donated up to 100 computers to her school. We can carry about 180 cu. ft. of cargo in our forward hold area, so we’ll have to figure out how many that is. Hopefully we can get the boat ready to sail by the end of next week and get the cargo here and possibly be ready to depart Galveston by 12/14 or so.

Things we have to do to get ready to go include:

  • Get charts
  • Do maintenance on the water maker
  • Get the boom goose neck welded. Small hairline crack.
  • Get spare filters and parts for engine, generator, autohelm, toilets.
  • Work on sails – add staysail hanks, add tape to new genoa, repair 100% jib.
  • Fuel up

We have a car for another week and now that I’m not studying any more I will see how much we can get knocked out. We’ll keep you posted.

]]> http://votaw.org/archives/71/feed 0 Everything is coming together. http://votaw.org/archives/45 http://votaw.org/archives/45#comments Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:02:41 +0000 Daddio http://votaw.org/?p=45 Hello, and happy Friday 13th. This is a great day to buy a boat. We received confirmation today from our fine bankers that we are approved for funding to purchase Cannibal. The money is pending a satisfactory survey for valuation purposes. We are really pumped. The boat’s owners (C.A. and Betty) will be back in town from their travels next week and we will try to get the survey done before the end of the month. Then we should be able to go ahead with the purchase. Yippeeeee!

We also have been told by a friend that she has a family member that has a vacant house in the Pensacola area and that we can stay there for free. That is just such a God thing! You just can’t make this stuff up! If all is as it seems, we will be able to stay in the house there while we are getting things squared away with the boat. How awesome is that!

In addition, another friend has loaned me all of the study materials necessary for passing the tests to renew my License. Can it get any better? I submit that it cannot. Well, we could get a knock on the door from someone who wants to buy our house. However, we know that will happen in God’s timing; so I believe that today isn’t the day for that (although … the day isn’t over yet). In the meantime we are content to marvel at God’s goodness.

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