Category: 2018 – 19 Sailing Season

Wow, what a sail we had from Marathon to Bimini. The wind was good from the south east and once we got into the Gulf Stream, we flew up the coast of Florida. We were expecting to take about 20 hours but we arrived at Bimini less then 18 hours later – unfortunately it was at 2 in the morning. Coming into any port at night is difficult and the entrance to the Bimini Harbour is crazy so we decided to anchor about 2 knots south of the entrance. I’m glad we were only there for 3 hours – the wind picked up a lot and it became super bouncy.

We headed into the harbour at first light and man it was a crazy ride. Wind was up to 25 – 30 knots and we rocked and rolled over some large waves. One rocked us so hard that our dishes came flying out of the cupboard (I forgot to close the sliding door) and I had quite a nasty mess to clean up. It was so nice to reach the calmer waters of the harbour and to get on the dock at Brown’s Marina.

We’ve now cleared in and have wifi working. We had our first rain storm since we returned south and it was big one – lots of thunder at one point. Well at least the boat got all the salt washed off! Mark is working on getting the Bahamian SIM card working so we can use the phone.

Next plan: we’ll stay here at Browns for Monday and then head to Honeymoon Harbour on Tuesday. Winds look good to cross over to Chubb Cay on Thursday and we’ll stay there for Friday and check the weather again. We’re making our way down to George Town to meet up with Caroline (who arrives somewhere around Feb. 19). Now it’s time for bubbly and some dinner 😊😊

After nearly 2 1/2 months, we’re finally on the move! All major jobs have been completed and it’s time to see how everything works.

Burnt Store Marina was an excellent home for us while we worked on the boat. It’s a nice marina with super helpful staff and very friendly neighbours. All this being said, it’s still fabulous to be away from the dock 😊.

We headed out on Monday, Jan. 14 at 8:40 am. Our plan was to sail straight to Marathon (a roughly 24 hour passage). The weather and wind was perfect for us – clear and sunny with winds from the north. We basically sailed the entire way. The moon was up for most of the night which made it really nice for sailing.

We arrived at the Marathon Harbour at 10:30 am Tuesday morning to find their mooring field full with waiting lists!!! So we’ve been anchored outside the harbour (it’s a bit rough and rolly but we’ve anchored in worse spots). The hardest thing to get use to is not having wifi 😉! We’ve spent a fair bit of time in the marina’s common area where there is wifi.

In Sept. 2017, hurricane Irma hit the Keys and you can still see damage from that storm. The marina lost a wooden pier that was used for water and pump out and they had some boat damage in the mooring field. The hospital was badly damaged and is being rebuilt. For the most part, the area looks good but there are lots of wrecked boats around.

The weather has been good with no rain (I just tried a new waterproofing spray for our enclosure and still don’t know if it works!). We’ve been checking the upcoming weather and it looks good to cross over to Bimini (Bahamas) on Saturday, Jan. 19. Our plan now is to set sail early Saturday morning and we should arrive in Bimini Sunday morning. The winds look good and it should be a good crossing.

Next blog post will come from the Bahamas! Yippy!

Time is going by quickly – it’s hard to believe we’ve been down south for 6 weeks! Our boat jobs are moving along. The solar panel is mounted and working well. It’s producing electricity even on cloudy days and keeping our batteries nicely charged. Today we turned on the freezer to give the solar panel a big challenge!

Mark has spent some time doing maintenance on both the main engine and the generator. There are a lot of systems on a boat (we one time counted all the pumps and we have well over 20 different ones!) and each system needs a bit of attention before we head to the Bahamas. We’re picking away at all these jobs while managing to fit in some Christmas shopping!

Speaking of Christmas, the Marina has been ringing in the season with lots of events. We went to an open house at the yacht club – free drinks and food!! There was a golf cart parade – all these golf carts decorated for Christmas (see photos below). Lots of people lined the streets to watch the parade (some with wine and other drinks in hand). And last night, the Marina had a boat decorating contest. Man some people went all out for this event! We walked along the dock and had a good look at the boats – very cool!

We’ll be heading home for Christmas on Dec. 19 and can’t wait to see everyone!

We’ve now been at Burnt Store Marina for a week and we really like it here. This Marina is very different from our east coast experience in 2017. This Marina is very relaxed and there are lots of live aboards here, so we don’t feel like we are all alone. We have some boat neighbours – Ron is on our starboard (right) side. He is from California and has been in Florida for 6 years. Our port (left) neighbour is from Spanish, Ontario and his son will be visiting soon. There are other people on our dock, including a young family who are getting ready to head to the Bahamas.

Boat jobs are continuing. Unfortunately, we’ve had some additions to our list since we launched. Both of our heads (toilets) had leaky handles (now fixed!), we had a problem with the propane system, and our fridge stopped working! Mark has fixed the propane and we are just waiting for the part for the fridge – luckily we had the freezer as our back-up (with a minor issue!).

We have about 3 more weeks here before we head back home for Christmas. Lots of work to do but we are looking forward to seeing everyone!

Well you can probably guess from the title that we have launched and moved to our temporary home, Burnt Store Marina. It’s now been almost 3 weeks since we arrived in Florida and lots has happened in that time. We’ve worked harder in our retirement than we did while working – well physically anyhow.

Our bee situation has been resolved with lots of effort on our part (and a lot of wasp spray). We spent about 3 days hacking away at the hive inside our mast. Mark cut more holes in the mast so we could get a bit better access to the hive. Using some pieces of our old stays, we poked away at the hive until we felt pretty good about the amount of material we’d removed from the mast. The mast was lifted into place on Tuesday, Nov. 20 and when it became vertical, a very large mass of hive fell out onto the ground- yippy for us but not so much for the guy holding our mast. He had beehive all over his shoes!😊

I think I’ve already mentioned that we are replacing our rigging. Mark removed the chainplates (long stainless steel plates that connect the stays to the boat deck) and we took them to the St. Peterburg’s rigger we have been working with to have them recreated. This was supposed to take about 2 days and instead it took 2 weeks!!!! We had to drive up to Clearwater on Tuesday morning to pick up the new chainplates and then install as many as possible so the mast could go back up that afternoon. And of course, it rained – the only rain we’ve had since arriving in Florida – when the deck has holes in it where the chainplates go. But we made it and both the main and mizzen masts are still standing 😉.

So what’s next – we have more rigging to do. The mizzen mast rigging will now be replaced and there are a few rigging parts on the main that need to be replaced. Our new solar panel needs to be installed – very exciting! We also have more boat jobs (the never ending story for a 38 year old boat!) that we will pick away at until we head back home for Christmas. Lots of fun!

It sure is great to be back on the water and living aboard again. Happy days. 🌴⛵️⛵️🌴😁

It’s hard to believe we have only been here for a little over 1 week! A lot has been accomplished in a short time but we still have a ways to go. Our launch date has been moved to Wednesday, Nov. 21 – we just couldn’t get all of the rigging pieces together for our first launch date.

Mark did a great job removing the chain plates from the boat but we are waiting for the new ones to be created. It only took us 2 days to make the new stays for the boat – some are completed but some are waiting for connector pieces. We’ll finish these ones once we have all the parts.

Our bee situation seems to be under control – I decided that we needed to be more aggressive with these guys so we bought some bee/wasp spray and taped up the entire mast. All holes were plugged and taped and it seems to have done the trick. We’re now working at scraping as much of the hive out of our mast as possible – not easy! The mast doesn’t go back up until Nov. 20, so we have some time to continue our battle!

This bee invasion has created quite a mess inside our boat. I have cleaned parts of this boat that I’ve never cleaned before. I’ve washed the little drapes and the cushion covers (thought they would follow apart or shrink, but they didn’t and they look great), plus washed virtually every surface (some much pee poop!). The floors still need to be done but I’m waiting for the installation of the new chain plates to complete this job.

We’ve met some really nice people at the boat storage. It’s a much nicer atmosphere here than on the east coast (we were working in a marina that was mostly power boat for rich people – no one was around). We met a couple from Boston area who are selling their boat and just getting it ready to move up the coast to Sarasota. We met another couple who have an older Whitby 42 (that’s pretty cool) and we’ve compared notes! The yard has been really good to help us with the bees and other things.

The Airbnb we are currently living in is very nice. Lots of room and fairly close to the boat. With the delay of our launch, I had to find another Airbnb to stay in for a week (our current place was booked) and this one is even closer to the boat!

Well, I’ll leave you with some photos of our work over the last week and a photo of Caroline’s art installation at the Warehouse. They had a (maybe) final show last weekend (Nov. 10 ish) that was very successful.