The Great Wander

People always said that cruising on a boat is simply fixing a boat in exotic places…I’m ready for the exotic places to begin.  In early August I flew down to Florida to begin preparations for the boat to go in the water.  Then at the end of that week, One Life would go in the water, and then we would wrap up a few projects and then set sail, ideally north to hopefully be out of the path of any hurricanes.  That was the plan.  The other thing that people have said about living on a boat, is don’t make any plans, they will change before you blink.

It was a bit of rush to get the boat in the water, because we couldn’t live on the boat while it was on the hard.  The boatyard had changed its policy about that shortly after we left in March.  We couldn’t afford to live in a hotel or an AirBnB here, so that meant get the boat in the water and take care of the projects while living on board.  Plus, getting the dogs on and off the boat while it was on the hard would have been near impossible to do.  So we had to get the boat in the water.

That week was stressful, because my to do list never seemed to get any shorter, in fact it just seemed to grow and it also seemed like nothing was getting crossed off the list.  Every day, I would drive to my cousin’s house feeling pretty dejected because I didn’t get anything done and every day I would drive back to the boatyard optimistic that something would happen that day.

Somethings got done.  I got the battery bank changed out, since after over a year of non-use they had dropped really low in charge and needed to be replaced.  The bottom paint was done by the time I arrived, which was great to see.  The saildrives (the transmission) oil and seals were replaced.  Things that need to be done got done.  So, at the end of the week, the lift put the boat in the water and a friend helped me motor on over to the dock, where hopefully we would only spend a week at the most and then we could set sail on the adventure of a lifetime…or so we thought.

We actually ended up in a hotel for a few nights so that we could have some respite from the heat.  We cleaned, we organized, I looked for someone to help me rig my sail and check the tension on the standing rigging.  We then found new things that had to get done.  Then hurricane Idalia rolled around and chose to stay put a few more nights to avoid the surf advisories on the East Coast of the US.  Then we found something else that needed to get fixed before we could go, but finding the parts was challenging.  So we’d take a break, motor out into the river for a bit and then come back to the dock.

Then we were all set to go, one of our dockmates (more about that in a later post) was helping us with some electrical issues and we started up the engine and he said, “Do you hear that rattle?” , yeah, I’ve heard it every time I started the engine, just does it…”Yeah, that’s a broken engine mount. You need to replace that before you get underway.”  Turns out, we really do need to fix that, because that can jack up everything from the propeller to the sail rigging.  As I write this, we are waiting for the part to be shipped.  Then, we are going to have to enlist some help to lift the 400lb engine, pull out the old mounts and put the new one’s one.  That’s a space that’s six feet wide by about 10 feet long.  So, it’s going to be tight and challenging.

We knew that there would be challenges in this lifestyle…I think we all thought they might start a bit later, like after we’d been sailing a bit.  I don’t think we expected the challenges before we could even get off the dock.  Have there been days when we’ve all said, screw it, lets sell this and figure something else out.  Yes, there have.  But we’ve all also resolved to be on the boat for a year before we make that decision.  We have also resolved to sail somewhere, anywhere before we make that decision. 

We’ve had a lot of disappointments and setbacks, but we’ve also had some big wins, too.  One of the biggest wins we had was our dinghy.  I’ll share that now.  So, the day we launched, the boatyard crew asked me about the dinghy, what was I going to do with it.  “Uhhh, I’m keeping it, but shit, I haven’t thought about it.”  So we recognized that I could hoist it on the davits and then it’s with the boat.

Here’s what I forgot about, mounting the 4 stroke 30hp outboard to it before we hoisted it.  One day we decided to take care of this, at the dock.  The water was relatively calm, but still maneuvering this on the water was going to be a challenge.  So, we set the dinghy down in the water, connected the engine to a davit and used the winch to hoist the engine up and then maneuver it into position.  Then once it was in position, we fired it up and it started!  That was a pretty exciting day for us!  So there are some good things, big things that have gone well with this process too, but we are ready to leave the dock and explore some more.  That will happen…soon enough!