Broken Block, Lost Fish & Refugees – Day 2 as Sailboat Owners
It’s only our second day sailing as the owners of this boat and here we are with a broken block, loosing fish and finding what appears to be an abandoned Cuban refugee boat. If this is any indication as to the adventures that lie ahead…it’s going to be one wild ride!
Last time we left you we were busy with the logistics of moving our new boat from Vero to Ft. Lauderdale. We only made it a short distance to the Ft. Pierce inlet where we anchored out for the night. Little did we know our second day would be so action packed.
What a day! Finding that Cuban refugee boat was pretty exciting. Even Kent who has sailed all over the world had never seen an abandoned refugee boat before. Made us feel like explorers even though we were only a few miles off shore.
It was also an excellent reminder of how important it is to always keep an eye out for floating debris. We had our AIS and radar alarm set, but it doesn’t pick up everything. You just never know what might be floating out in the deep blue. We were all surprised the USCG came out and inspected the raft but didn’t sink it for safety purposes…glad I had my eyes on the water, a direct hit could have really damaged our boat!
Catchers Wanted
We love fishing but we love catching more. We only have a few basic lures and our one fishing pole we purchased in Alaska for catching salmon. If we want to have a chance at sustaining ourselves at sea…I think we may need to beef up our gear. We could use some recommendations from any of you die hard fishers out there. If you have some tried and true blue water fishing favorites, we would love to hear about them!
Sadly, as you saw in the video, our one little catch got away.
Night Time Arrivals
This was our first night time arrival and I can already tell you…day time will be much preferred. Similar to RV’ing, its not ideal to arrive and setup in the dark. The lights twinkling and reflecting off the water any other time would put me in a romantic mood. In this case, they are disorienting and nerve racking. I momentarily stopped breathing as I turned into the narrow marina at Harbor Towne. The quiet and perfectly calm water felt like a scene out of a Stanley Kubrick film. A line up of large vessels jetting out into the isle with their dauntingly large anchors out like eagle claws going for prey. It made my 43′ catamaran all the sudden feel small and fragile.
Ahh, but the views from sea are still romantic. I could have anchored out right about where this photo was taken, grabbed a nightcap and gazed for hours. I love the look of a distant city at night…it reminds me of Christmas lights.
What’s Next
The Boat – We have service appointments to make at Just Catamarans, a lot of maintenance to do ourselves and we need to pick up our books for our sailing classes. We’re going to slowly work our way through every nook and cranny of this boat. The goal is to get familiar with everything and do what maintenance we can on our own. The fantastic thing about buying a used boat from someone who actually cruised in it, loved it and wanted to see it taken care of…is the relationship we now have with the previous owners! They are great people and we’ve been emailing and texting back and forth with questions. If we’re not sure what something is, how it works or if it needs attention, we can ask. It’s invaluable (thanks John and Heather)!
Kent has also offered to come over and help show us how to do some routine maintenance…notice I say help show us. We’re dead set on learning how to do as much of it ourselves as possible and Kent is all about helping us get intimate with the engines. A little knowledge can go a long way in helping us become more prepared for ocean crossings. We’re going into all of this with optimistic attitudes but I feel some how not to videos in our future.
The RV – Our time is running out with the RV (our lease is almost up) so we are going to have to work quickly to get everything out of it. The RV will need to be at the marina where we can remove the technology and the last of our things to the boat. (We had to rush our RV tech and yard sale last week. Everything is moving along faster than we can edit video.)
We’re hoping to spend a few days at the marina getting fully settled and organized on the boat so we can focus on the maintenance and learning. We haven’t even started and I somehow already feel we are behind. How is that even possible? It’s going to be surreal saying goodbye to the RV and hello to full time sailing.
