HOME!!

Happy Dance! Happy, happy, joy joy! WOO!

So when I started this particular evolution I expected it to take a couple weeks, no more than a month. I packed like I was going on a quick four day hotel based excursion. Yeah that was a mistake. It's been since mid February and it has been a difficult time both emotionally and financially. There has been more than a few really great times, matched of course by the extremes of bad days. Most of my bad days were induced by hugely high expectations of the boat actually working, followed almost immediately by the crash when something else breaks, or the fix I tried didn't actually fix the issue. Those match some of my costliest days. Oddly enough the corollary is much the same, large sums of money are usually required for joy, at least in boat repair world. HUGE Thank you Betty for awesome support! I think this trip was harder on her as there really wasn't anything for her to do but listen to me whining about the latest broken this, that or the other. And convince me not to either sell it, or burn it to the waterline.

Once I got out of LMC Betty and I puttered down the North Fork of New River to Fort Lauderdale City Marina, which was right off the beach area and had a great week, doing nothing, nothing at all. I was having a serious brain lock deciding how to progress, was just not able to decide. Do I go outside? ICW? Where to anchor, which marina, how many fuel stops, where is the fuel dock, and is the weather going to support my plan? Either to much or to little information warring with insufficient personal experience. So while fighting my version of brain fog Betty and I decided to hire a professional Captain to both deliver the boat and maybe teach me a few things along the way. It was a great decision! The captain came with an extra crew member so that lessened the work load for all of us. It actually ended up that they mostly did the boat stuff, and I watched. Occasionally relieving one or the other when I wanted to drive. Which TBH is mainly sitting in the helm seat watching the ocean pass by, monitoring the gauges, looking for AIS targets, and looking for other boats that don't have AIS (Automatic Identification Ship) installed. Such a great system, it tells you ship name, speed, direction, and the little computer tells you if that other boat is going to intersect with your chosen bubble of space which in our case was 2 miles. I found it amusing that in the giant, mostly empty, ocean how many boats ended up close enough that we had to maneuver to avoid collisions. I did have some great days while out offshore, it was mostly fun, with only a couple days of OMG!! WHY AM I DOING THIS?

So things I learned:

Sailboats are highly resistant, almost allergic, to set schedules. 

Attempting to adhere to a set schedule causes you to take the boat out on days you should realistically stay tied up, make some hot chocolate and curl up with a good book. 

Ten foot ocean waves are murder on your boat, body and peace of mind. Really takes the pleasure out of pleasure boating.

Moderately bad weather on the ocean will induce anti sailboat trama. 

Sailing a small large boat on the ocean is a noisy endeavor. 

Having a wave top slam into the bottom of your bridge deck sounds like a cannon shot and feels like the boat is about to come completely apart. 

The brown water in the ICW will stain your boat brown as well. (Hope that washes off)

The bugs in the Dismal Swamp and Great Dismal Swamp are truly of nightmare inducing proportions and quantities. And seemingly all of them want your blood.

Florida is infested with both blood sucking no-see-ums that come right through the screening and Trumpists. The bugs are easier to tolerate.

Few things are more frustrating than to have a dodgy engine.

Volvo-Penta engines are the red headed step children of the boat mechanic world.

Long distance cruising in the open ocean is for the most part boring.

And the follow on, everything is calm and peaceful till it devolves into chaos at the blink of an eye. And it seems like it's always chaos!

Nothing good ever happens at 3:00 AM!

Marathon Harbor daily boaters net is just a bunch of old folks huddled around their VHF kabitzing.

There are a bunch of people living in what looks like floating junk yards down in the Florida Keys.

Got to keep the dinghy filled with air or it gets floppy on the hangers.

You can, and I have, run aground in the marked channel.

People who say they have never run aground are lying.

Everything is stupidly expensive, mainly because these are very small lot items. Not many companies make this stuff and the boating community is small there is no real economy of scale.

I hate crab pots. I know crabbers have the same right to use the waterways as I do, but still...

Provisioning a sailboat is a difficult and learned process. Not being able to run down to the local grocery for a forgotten whatever is a difficult adjustment for me.

Somebody always has a bigger, fancier boat/widget and loves to talk endlessly about it.

I can't honestly say I had a great time, it certainly wasn't a vacation. I learned a lot about how things work in the marine world. Most boat fixing companies are really only doing support things, it's not like taking your car to a mechanic. You need to be able to diagnose your own issue and occasionally you can get a mechanic to do the work, but mostly you are on your own. At least the companies with which I interacted. Met some interesting people, and some not so stellar examples of humanity. So really about the same as shore based life. There is just a lot more opportunity to meet and greet and that is very different from my onshore life.

I was compiling my boat repair list this morning, it's a very long document. I still need to compile and record my detailed expenses. I am not looking forward to that.

Anyway for now I'm tied up to a floating dock in a weirdly difficult spot, and catching up on sleep, Betty time, and the endless boat list. And laundry! Trying to plug back into the daily routine of shore life.

Attached is the single most fun minutes of the trip.