Sailing Miles

Buying a large boat, and learning all the systems, can be nerve-wracking. Especially if she is an older boat, and many of the "learning experiences" involve repairs or upgrades. Our trucking experience has taught Cindy and I to be vigilant about changes in how things work, a change means something may have broken. For instance, if black smoke suddenly starts billowing from under the hood, something may be amiss. That visual clue is a message that we need to check something out. The changes also include if a new sound pops up. Neither one of us could abide a new rattle while we were on our sleeper break. That noise had to be discovered and stopped! It might be simple, like a zipper tapping on a plastic closet door, or it could be serious, like a chain slipping of the chain-hanger about to go under a drive tire. The worst-case scenario is what keeps us up, I guess. We can even sleep with a sound going on, as long as we know what it is. When we got to Florida in our 1989 Ste...

A short sail today, although the weather was great for sailing. We went from Rodriguez Key to Hen and Chickens Reef to snorkel, and maybe dive. The seas were a bit too heavy to moor off to one of the buoys provided by the state of Florida and get in the water, so we passed on by. We found a very crowded anchorage near Long Key. We were the only boat. It took us some time to find a place we could fit between the huge number of crabpots! We saw two loggerhead turtles and a huge man o' war while underway. The sea was an amazing color, after last night's heavy wind. forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/16040246

After Miami (No Name Harbor), we sailed to Carysfort Reef, where we spent two nights. Really fun, we were more than five nautical miles from land, tucked in next to a lighthouse that was built in 1852, and operated until 2015. We snorkeled, Steve had a cell so he could work, we completed a few boat projects in the plumbing department, and fixed a couple of things that broke. Today we had nice sailing weather, although the seas were a bit big. We sailed outside the reef line, then cut into Hawk's Channel. We got an early anchorage at Rodriguez Key, near Key Largo. Click here to see the full Facebook post.

Click here to see a Facebook post about our trip through Miami

Click here to see a Facebook post about going up the 65-foot mast.

NOT the Miami dolphins. Atlantic spotted dolphins, we think. They didn't actually introduce themselves. Our first day two-handing our boat went well. A few challenges, but that comes with the territory. We were thrilled with our choice of weather windows, and we made better time than we anticipated. Click here to see a You Tube Video of our dolphin day.

Click here to see a Facebook post about us wrapping up our projects on the har d.