This entry is intended to satisfy the curious who are interested in going cruising.
This is Barry writing today but don't run away as Linda will return very soon. I want to talk about where we have been with Mardi Gras and where we had planned to go as well as report how we have enjoyed owning a cruising sailboat so far from our home.
For the last 30 years I have had the dream of one day sailing away to a tropical paradise. Family, work and mortgages postponed my dream until I retired. Linda had some trepidation as I was shopping for and ultimately buying our fixer upper sailboat but she is adventurous and has been a fully involved partner in our cruising life. Just reading her entries in this blog will show how she has enjoyed the journey.
I shopped for a year before buying this one. I had a of couple bad experiences with boat brokers. One lured me to Rhode Island with a promise that a certain boat could be bought for a particular price just to find that the owner actually wanted twice what the broker said. The broker thought if he brought an offer the owner might sell. My airfare and expenses were over $1000. Another broker that we had an appointment with in Miami cancelled at the last moment because he had what he thought was a sure sale with another client on a different boat. That appointment had been set long in advance. He also told me that he wasn't that interested in selling a boat for less than 40k which was what the boat that I was interested in was selling for.
Anyway we bought our boat directly from the owner.
Don had owned the boat for 10 years and had never sailed it. He bought it in Fort Lauderdale, trucked it to Pensacola and let it sit on the hard for 7 years. At that point he hired the marina to clean the green water out, and start an expensive overhaul. The repairs cost a lot and the workmanship was sometimes questionable. He lived in Nashville and had a job that left him little spare time. Just like many other boat owners, his decision to buy a boat was a mistake. In every marina that I have been in you can walk through and see sadly neglected boats. Often some of the well maintained boats seldom see their owners but rather just see marina personnel keeping them clean. It is a strange phenomenon.
I'll try to make this brief.
We bought the boat in Pensacola FL in May 2010. It had new paint, propshaft and prop a running Diesel engine ragged out sails with new standing and running rigging. The interior was basically disassembled.
I worked on it for most of a month to get it ready to cruise. I added a generator, bought sails, cleaned, and polished and finally brought Linda down to see our dreamboat. Linda put her touch into the galley and our cabin and we started to use the boat. Pensacola has a lot to offer and we really enjoyed it.
Our long range plan was to move the boat to different marinas along the coast of Florida and to travel back and forth from our home in St Louis using our boat as our movable residence.
I have the belief that you have to be careful to not scare your mate in bad weather or with daredevil maneuvers so that she will not be scared away from cruising. So I assembled a crew of friends to help me cross the Gulf to Tarpon Springs, Florida. SInce that time in November 2010, Linda and I have been through some rather tough crossings with big waves and have learned that not all crossings are smooth but if the boat is ok, it can handle it. It may be a little uncomfortable but we know we will be ok.
We traveled 300 miles in 50 hours and successfully arrived at Anclote Harbor Marina in Tarpon Springs. Six months later we moved to Tampa. Then we spent a year in Ft Myers Beach and liked it so much that we will probably return to Bonita Bills Marina in the near future. While in Ft Myers, we also explored as far as Marathon, Key West and Dry Tortugas.
In January 2013 we left Ft Myers and went to Miami to get ready to make the big jump to the Bahamas. It's not really that big; just a 13 hour run in daylight to Bimini where we had our first customs and immigration experience. We spent 2 months and had a great time. Friends flew in to Nassau and they stayed with us for two weeks. The water is so clear, and the fish are so colorful! We met wonderful people who were cruising as we were and made some great friends. When we returned to Florida, we sailed from Bullock Harbor in the Berry Islands directly to West Palm Beach and checked into customs there. We had researched marinas and had decided to go to Loggerhead Marina in Stuart FL where we kept the boat for the next year. We traveled back to the boat when we could and continued to work on her, make improvements, take care of needed maintenance but always enjoy her.
In January 2014 we left Stuart and traveled back to the Bahamas again going as far south as Georgetown. We spent nearly 3 months this year and really enjoyed our time there. We returned to Stuart and left the boat there for one month before I returned and moved the boat north to Jekyll Island GA as we continued our plan of exploring other areas. We have since moved another few miles to St Simone Island.
That brings us to today as we are leaving in the morning to spend a few days on our Mardi Gras. Thanks for reading. Email me if you have any questions as like any other sailor, I love to talk about our our boat. Barry
