Getting Ready Part 10 or "Put a Fork In It Its Done"

Pre-ramble:

Well as the saying goes: "time marches on"!  There are a lot of other sayings but I'll stick with that one for now.  Since my last up-date I have remained retired and despite what some think, am enjoying it.  Not getting a lot accomplished but that's ok.  Well I did remodel the lower level laundry room / half bath and fixed things as they needed fixing.  We have done a little traveling.  Most recently, down to Houston for the Southwest International Boat Show and a nice visit with the Kingwood family.  In early March we headed to Aubrey TX (outside Denton which is outside Dallas) to celebrate my dad's 82 birthday.  The whole event was hosted by my brother and his wife in their new home which is beautiful.  Relaxing in his media room made me wonder where I could put one on a boat.  Daughter #2 rode down with us and Daughter #1 and husband came down from AR and were able to bring grandson #1.   On the day of dad's birthday we were hit with an ice storm that made everyone's departure and trips home a little more stressful then we would have liked but all arrived home safely.

After a brief attempt at selling our home on our own, we have once again engaged the assistance of someone who knows what they are doing and the house went on the market in mid February.  So we are back to making the bed every day.  We also drastically reduced the listing price to the point it impacts the boat decisions when they come.  After a series of long discussions, we decided that the dream of being out on the water was more important than the "dream" boat.  This is not to say that if I hit on the Powerball that 50' Catana won't be on order.  Given my odds are both slim and none on wining the Powerball we have adjusted out wish list and are focusing on getting out there, wherever "there" is. 

Part 10, or the last time we went sailing:

If you know nothing else about Jo you must know she hates cold.  Not in the, I really hate it when __fill in the blank_______; no hate it in the most profound of ways.  The other thing you should know is that way out here in West Texas the weather can be best described as bipolar and really polar.  For example, this past Saturday 12 April it was 93 and on Monday the high wasn’t even 43 with a low that night of 25, in Texas, in April.  Now my friends up north are thinking boohoo, but again, it is Texas not Minnesota.  This particular fall it was unusually cold very early and that set the stage for all, well some, future decisions.  Being a college professor, as glamorous and high paying as it sounds, well it is neither and as a result, we have to carefully budget our sailing adventures.  For example, sailing one summer, a new driveway the next; never sailing two summers in a row, except!  Cold trumps most everything and one late October day in which we looked out into the courtyard and say white flakes falling from the sky the decision was made to book a charter for that summer even though we had just gone the previous summer.  So on the phone I went to contact BareCat Charters and booked a Lagoon 410 named Eyes of the World, yes the owners were Dead Heads.  We chartered her for 2 weeks, later extended to 18 days in late July through August, is way off season.  The other thing different about this time was we were not going to bring either daughter, it was just Jo and me alone on the boat.  Although we invited our neighbors later in the coming spring they could only come down for 5 days, but I am getting ahead of myself.  Winter continued to confirm Jo's belief that her attitude is determined by her latitude and I will admit that I too was quickly losing any fascination I had with the cold.  Spring came, slowly, then summer arrived like a freight train; all the while we checked off the days. 

One of the great joys we have is sharing our excitement and experiences on boats with others.  First Jo with me so many years ago, then with our son when he was younger, then our daughters, and this summer with our neighbors.  There is always a risk when you expose someone to something radically different then what they are use to that disaster will ensue.  We were pretty sure our neighbors would enjoy the experience and if not, well they would head home and we would never speak of it again.  We did our best to prep them for life, albeit for just a few days, on the water.  Stuff like Navy showers, no A/C in the tropics, potential nasty weather, the joys of a marine head (bathroom), etc.. but they were game.  We were flying in from different locations but met in Puerto Rico and flew on to Tortola  BVI. When we got in it was late and we shared a buss/taxi with another couple as we headed on a white-knuckle ride to the BareCat base in Sea Cow's Bay.  When we got there, of course nothing was open and our provisions weren’t scheduled to arrive until the next morning, there was, however, a bottle of Cruzan Rum waiting for us as a welcome gift, and Jo was smart enough to pack with us some Raman Noodles and Crystal Light, so our first dinner on board was Crystal Light, made with warm tank water and mixed with the complementary rum and the Raman Noodles.  Now I won't say it was the best meal we had on our charter but at that particular moment, it was pretty damn good.  The freezer and fridge weren’t working and an alarm kept going off that I misidentified as a bilge alarm (it was the inverter being overloaded by a laptop we were trying to get up and working) but we were all tired so we would wait until the morning to work the bugs out.  My instincts told me to check the shore power breaker and I should have listened to them because that's what it was.  We were stuck at the dock until early afternoon while we waited on our neighbors lost luggage but we were on island time so it gave us time to buy more rum, ice, beer, and other essentials, get the provisions from Bobby's Market stowed away and to arrange for a pilot to take us up to Anegada later in the trip.  When the luggage finally arrived we motored out of Sea Cow's Bay and set a course for Soldiers Bay went through the "Happy Hooking of a Mooring" drill described in Part 9 of this blog.  You might notice we sent our first night in Soldiers Bay on our last charter and did on this one as well.   This is no because it is a "special" anchorage but it is an easy sail from the charter base and somewhat secluded.  Being somewhat secluded, it is often missed by the guys picking up the mooring fees ($25 then now $30) for the privilege of using their mooring and being basically cheap I was hoping on a free night, which I got, this time.  The next morning, after breakfast we headed out for some basic sailing with no particular place to go.  The wind was barreling right down the Sir Francis Drake Channel so we got a lot of tacking and gibing practice in as we made it to the Cooper Island Resort located in Manchioneel Bay for a relaxed dinner at the resort.    The next morning involved a quick trip to the Baths, the rock formation not the tub and a sail over the top of Tortola down to what was suppose to a relaxing swim at Sandy Spit and some snorkeling but turned into an anchor recovery exercise when the anchor chain jammed on the windlass (the winch that raises and lowers the anchor).  Once recovered on deck we made for Jost Van Dyke and picked up a mooring outside the infamous Foxy's.  A little doctoring on the windlass and several libations at Foxy's and all was good.   Unfortunately this was not our last issue with the anchor windlass.  A trip to Cane Garden Bay, because as Jimmy taught us I hear it gets better, that’s what they say, as soon as you sail on to Cane Garden Bay.  We wanted to visit the Callwood Rum Distillery but it was closed for the Emancipation Holiday, as were most places but a nice visit was had.  Some snorkeling at Monkey Bay then it was off to Trellis Bay for our friends last night with us.  Early the next morning I took our neighbors to the dingy dock for the short walk to the airport and their flight back to reality and I hung around waiting for our pilot who was required by the charter company to take us to Anegada for the first time.  As I said earlier, you are never sure when introducing something like cruising on a sailboat to someone if it will be a disaster or success but I can say without a doubt it was a resounding success and they are almost as anxious for us to move aboard a boat as we are so they can come visit and welcomed crew they be.

 

Our romp across the open ocean to Anegada was uneventful.  I picked up a lot of pointers from our pilot, a charter captain from South Africa who looked the part.  Once into the only real anchorage we did that, anchor.  No mooring balls or fees and the anchor windlass behaved itself.  When we sailed in the Bahamas we almost always anchored.  The sea bed was a mixture of sand and turtle grass but in the BVIs, for the most part, all the islands are volcanic and where there is sand it is very deep the exception being Anegada which looked more like Abaco than the BVIs.  There were mooring balls to be had but why pay the fee when you can anchor for free.  We spent two wonderful days there.  Rented a car and went in search for the Pink Flamingos but all we found was some pink plastic staff stuck in a mangrove tree.   We swam at Loblolly Bay and had lobster at the Anegada Reef Hotel.  We also encountered the first of two "credit card captains" as we came to know them on this trip.  A nice enough couple came over to our boat for drinks and a visit.  They were on a 30-something foot monohull on a mooring ball off our stern.  They were quite amazed that we were anchored and were sure we would drag into them during the night.  Once I assured them we were, or should I say, they were fine the evening proceeded and then refused to end.  They told us their life story and that they were promised a power cat from the "M" charter company but the boat they reserved was unavailable and they were given a sailboat, told to just motor around in this and they could even pull out that white cloth at the front of the boat, or as we like to call it, the jib.  Of course they had no idea what they were doing and I was even more concerned when they told us they both had their Coast Guard "Six-Pack" operator's license; I doubted their veracity.  The evening came to an unceremonious end and in the morning they motored away and since I didn't hear of any "M" brand charter boats sinking for the next two weeks I will assume they or should I say the vessel survived; as for them, I won't venture to guess.  The rest of the charter to quote  Zach Brown: Flew by like a drunk Friday night. 

We had planned to sail to the Spanish Virgins and the USVI but had entered full cruisers mode, "no hurry mon,"  and just enjoyed the cruising grounds on a relaxed pace.  That's not to say it was uneventful, like the time we went to anchor in  a small little bay where there are no mooring balls and room for maybe three boats.  As we headed in there was already one boat there and of course in the prime spot but there was still room.  As we entered and began to find a location to drop the hook, I had Jo go forward to prepare the anchor rode.  As she inched it out, emphasis on inched, the afore mentioned windlass decided it was not finished with us and started running freely.  As I watched all the chain (200') followed by the line (rope) head to the bottom of the bay I wondered if the bitter end of the line was cleated off; and yes, that is why it is called the bitter end!  Well the anchor gods took pity on us and the rode did not all end up on the bottom of the cove but we did have several feet of line and all that chain to haul back on board by hand.  I am sure the entire escapade provided fine entertainment for the monohull successfully anchored in the bay.  Not wanting to trust our ground tackle, or precisely, the windlass we made our way over to Marina Cay and picked up a mooring ball.  The rest of the charter went from great wind to no, I mean no wind.  You come to appreciate a little breeze when trying to sleep in the Caribbean heat, in August, with no breeze but it did give us a taste of the cruising life; well maybe just a nibble. 

Earlier I mentioned two credit-card captains, the first being the couple we met in Anegada; the second was witnessed while resting peacefully one morning after the tropics version of a Pub crawl.  This one involves starting at one end of the beach lined with establishments specializing in "adult" beverages and making your way to the other end.  We had to do it, I mean we had coupons left from the Drinking Mans Guide to the BVIs.  Well needless to say, the next morning I was moving at a measured pace enjoying a cup of coffee while Jo slept when I see this monohull from the "M" brand charter company heading in towards White Bay.  Now to get into White Bay you need to cut through one of two channels at either end of the reef that surrounds it.  One is barely marked with a buoy of questionable placement and the other, smaller and not marked at all.  The channels were located, one at one end of the bay, one at the other.   Well this captain credit-card decided to split the distance and was going to go between the two channels.  I got on the VHF radio as well as others witnessing this to try and warn the captain but to no avail.  We heard him hit where we were so I can only imagine the noise on board the charter boat.  A few of us hopped into our dinghies and motored out to see if we could help the young man with his wife, kids, and parents on board get off the reef but he assured us he had it all under control.  We left White Bay several hours later, the monohull still aground.  As much damage as it did to the young man's ego and the vessel, the real damage was to the reef and that's the real shame.

Well the charter came to an end after a quiet night in a cove on Peter Island, just us and a 175 foot motor yacht from Puerto Rico.  The next day we fueled the boat back up cleaned it up and returned it to the charter base.  We learned a lot this trip about the life we thought we want.  We realized it can and will be boring at times, challenging at times, entertaining at times with us providing the entertainment occasionally, but in the end I walked away convinced that it is something we have to try.

Post Script-

Well this is the end of the  "getting ready" chapters of the blog.  The next step will be finding a boat, buying a boat, learning the boat, and a thousand other things that go along with it before we "cast-off".  If you have been following these posts you know that the execution of this dream is dependent on selling this house.  The other elements, selling our possessions, kids moving out, Bagel the Beagle going to the happy howling grounds after 18 years of tormenting me to my wife's amusement, oh yes, I retired, got really sick, got better, so here we are.  Additionally, if you have been following this blog you know shortly after we put the house on the market in March 2011 we had a contract for close to asking price and you might remember that deal fell apart leaving the dream hard aground.  Well although we don't have the check-in-hand as of yet we do have another contract on the house!  We have made it past the option period, the inspection (survey in boat terms) went well, now we wait for their sold home to close and as of 8 May (knock wood) we will be homeless!  The offer was nowhere near the original asking price but what is important is that it is enough to get out there because to quote the "pleasant" Captain Ron: if it's going to happen, it's going to happen out there! .  So stay tuned as we move into the next phase of this adventure that will include shopping for, buying, and surveying  a boat, taking all our stuff to the boat, getting rid of the stuff we took to the boat when we realize it is still too much stuff, and finally sailing off out there!

Getting Ready Part 9 or BVIs Here We Come!

Pre-Ramble:

 

 I realize it has been some time since I last posted to the blog.  No real excuse, just a lot of good intentions with little follow through.  Before I get back to the tale of how we got here, an update on what has been happening or not since I last posted.  At last post, we had our big sale, I got to ride in a big vehicle with lots of flashing lights, and had people cut stuff out of me.  I am happy to say, after some recovery, I am doing fine.  October found Jo and me on the road until early November.  The trip took us to Riverton NJ, Washington D.C. (during the shutdown), to Annapolis for the U.S. Sailboat Show, to the middle of N.C. for chicken and waffles, back porch sitting (and drinking).  From there we headed to the OBX of N.C. for time with friends, family, and time by ourselves wandering the lower OBX, walking in the sand, and enjoying the beach life.  Back on the road it was off to Biloxi via a couple ferry rides, short stops along the way, and a shock to our sense of all that is ascetically correct in "South of the Border" S.C.  In Biloxi, a large time was had with a former student and her family with a side trip to LuLu's in Gulf Shores and some time on the Red Neck Riviera, complete with a visit to the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola FL.  A long haul took us to Houston (Kingwood) where Jo fed her other passion at the International Quilt Show; we spent some quality time with her family before a pit stop back in Lubbock and then a trip to see my father in Colorado Springs.  Overall, it was 6,000+ miles, many hotel bills, an unidentified smell from the back of the car, a case of Kalik, one of Carib, and 2 of Yuengling beer, and most importantly the time-off from life, health, our house not selling, and time with each other.  Oh yeah, the house.  Well, as I said, it had not sold as of the trip and remains unsold today.  Currently it is for sale by owner and if you are wondering what kind of dump we are living in that has not sold in 20 months you can visit the website at

http://fbc-house.wix.com/4420-10th-4-sale

Tampa-Miami-Tortola :

Ok now back to the sailing.  When I last visited the subject, we had survived Captain Ron in the Abaco's and Homeland Security and Immigration let me back into the country after a few tense moments.  Having learned a lot while on our two week bareboat charter we realized we had a lot more to learn so it was back to school back on the s/v Kathleen  D, except this time with Captain Tracy in Florida, in February.  Now the Chamber of Commerce would have you believe that it is always sunny and warm in FL; it's not, and it happened to be especially not this February.   Even though, as compared to the Northern parts of the country, the upper 30's to mid 40's is relatively warm in February, when you are on a boat, on the water, it's pretty damn cold.  The plan was to complete ASA 105 Costal Navigation and ASA 106 Advanced Costal Cruising in preparation for a 10-day bareboat charter in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) that summer and for our life aboard that, we had hoped would be sooner, not later.  There was another student for the two classes, Bob (I think; sorry if not) from Pittsburgh and Jo was a ridesail-along.  As I mentioned, it was cold and we were cold, and of having believed the Chamber without cold weather clothes but the sailing was great, the classes were expertly delivered by Captain Tracey.  Bob, being an engineer in the real world helped me with the difficult (a.k.a. math) in the navigation sections.  We passed our classes and were qualified on spinnakers and kissed a migrating sandbar only once.  As you might remember form earlier posts, s/v Kathleen D is a Maine Cat 41, she is a fast boat, and we had seriously considered a Maine Cat for our live-aboard home but for a lot of good reasons (budget for one) won't go that route.  The sailing was wonderful with plenty of wind and surprisingly from the right direction.  We sailed into Tampa Bay under the Sunshine Bridge, met up with Bob's wife, who was staying on land during the class, one night for drinks and dinner and with the exception of Jo's hair freezing to the inside hull had a great time.  From there we made the short flight to Ft. Lauderdale and on into South Beach for the Miami and Strictly Sail Boat Show.  We had no idea what to expect and no way to expect what we saw.  If it went in or on the water, it was there.  From Cigarette Boats straight out of Miami Vice to small dinghies and everything in-between.    It was so big, that there was a shuttle between the two docks and the Miami Convention Center.  There were vendors of all things nautical and a lot that wasn't who tempted us like carnival barkers and the scene was completed with  girls in bikinis posing on the bows of sleek speed boats and grisly old-salts (Bob Bitchen) one of whom I swear had a wooden peg-leg.  Land Shark Beer had a rest area complete with cold beer and great beach chairs and the Florida Lottery commission was selling lotto tickets and dreams at every corner.  We looked at many cats, seriously  considered buying one through a charter company and putting it into charter service for five years but alas, my lotto luck was not with me (nor has it ever been) and the 56K needed as a down payment was beyond the balance in our check book.  Then each night, after our senses and feet could take no more it was off to the cultural roux that is South Beach; something right out of a Carl Hiaasen novel or Dave Barry feature.   The one negative of the experience was it was cold!  Damn cold with a northern front pushing through that brought extreme wind and rain one night.   Like all good things, it had to come to an end and life back in Lubbock beckoned so off we went, but still to come that summer waited a 10-day bareboat charter on s/v Birds Nest, a Lagoon 380 in Tortola BVI.

 None of us had ever been to the BVIs so a decision was made to stay on land a few days prior to our charter and enjoy what the island had to offer.  This meant finding affordable lodging.  We tend to book charters in the off-season, in this case the middle of the hurricane season.  There are several reasons we do this but the primary is that it is considerably cheaper.   In the Abaco's life seemed to go on at the same pace, hurricane season or not, in the BVIs however, most locals close down shop and head off island.  So I found this place to stay, The Jolly Rodger(JR) which had a restaurant and bar attached and  I paid extra for an air conditioned room (meaning it blew warm air instead of hot).  I got what information I could from online sources and it looked like it might be ok, and while not "cheap" was far less than the other resorts or hotels.  After a long and expensive cab ride from the airport on the north end of the island to the JR on the south end we settled in.  We were all very crowded in one room so since they had no one else staying there they offered us a second room; later I found it was not out of the goodness of their heart but the benefit of their pocket.  While we were having dinner at the aforementioned restaurant, the waiter said there was a party that night and for $20 you could drink all you want since they were closing the bar down as well as the restaurant down the next day; we had three more nights booked.  When I booked the room (now rooms) I was assured that they would not be closing down until 1 August at which time we would be on our charter.  Seems they decided to close early since business was slow.  This left us without food, drink, or any type of services for the next three days with the closest restaurant a 30+ min. (each way) walk along a dusty, buggy, and dark road.  We survived and had an adventure that included a grueling blister-inducing walk over the hill to a beautiful beach and a very kind beach vendor who offered us a ride back to the JR.  We rented a jeep, toured the twisty-turney island roads, and learned to drive on the left side, mostly.  The day before we were to start our charter we stopped by BareCat whom we were chartering from and after hearing what we had gone through the past several days invited us to move aboard Birds Nest early so that afternoon we used the rented jeep to shuttle all our stuff from the JR  to the s/v Birds Nest.   Along with it being the start of the offseason, also the Emancipation Week celebration resulted in a more difficult and time consuming process for returning the jeep that turned into a larger than expected bill for the cab ride back to the boat, but we were one-step closer to being on the water.  The take-a-way from this experience is that if you intend to spending some relaxing time before your charter don't go cheap, go with a resort of hotel that is a known quantity, your crew will thank you in the long run and your stress level will be much reduced.

For all the BVIs are not like the Bahamas, they do have catering to the chartering industry down since this is where it originated.  Provisioning the boat is one of the most thankless jobs there is and one in which the person doing the provisioning is often blamed for not getting the right stuff, or enough of this or that.  You have to go to a market (usually several) arrange for a cab and try and get your frozen and cold items back to the boat before they are neither frozen or cold.  Some charter companies offer to provision the boat for you for a fee but that has never appealed to me.  In the BVIs, several of the markets offer a delivery service, for free (well you should tip the delivery guy); we used Bobby's Market and are quite pleased.  How it works is a week or so before your charter you go online and fill out a form with all your requests, whatever you wish for the time you are there, give them your CC information and they fill it as close as possible.  Then at an approximate time (it is Island Time, mon) the stuff shows up at your charter vessel and you unload the food, beer, sodas, more beer, rum, well you get the idea and the delivery guy takes the cardboard boxes away.  Note: cardboard onboard equals roaches onboard so no cardboard of any kind is allowed.  You can rent about any water toy you want, including dive gear or in our case a hammock and even rent a local pre-paid cell phone.  So the morning of the charter the provisions arrived, the hammock arrived, we received our walk-thru and briefing which consisted of telling us where we could go and where we couldn't and  what to look out for.  The BVIs are comprised of the main island of Tortola that has a basic north-east to south-west orientation with a series of islands on the Atlantic side roughly south-east and one main island towards the west.   The body of water between Tortola and the islands to the south-east is the Sir Francis Drake Channel.   Now if the name, Sir Francis Drake sounds familiar then you are either a British Naval history buff or fan of swashbuckler pirate movies; that would be me.  For those of you who are neither he is described by the Google as a sea captain, navigator, slaver, and privateer; that is a sanctioned pirate by one government usually to pillage another countries ships, think of them as a government contractor.  While the English see him as a hero, the Spanish wanted to hang him as a pirate.  Yes my friends, this is the real Pirates of the Caribbean part of the world, replete with the real Dead Chest, so yo-ho-ho, here we go!

We motored out of the protected cove that was charter base to BareCat into a 25knt wind.  There is a saying that the wind is either too light or too strong but always from the wrong direction and this was the case.  Instead of beating into the wind inducing even more queasiness in daughter #2 we motored across to Soldiers Bay and grabbed a mooring.  Ah moorings!  In the Abaco's we had anchored everywhere with rare exceptions.   There the islands are low and the water depths are relatively shallow and the seabed is mostly sand and turtle grass.  It's what you might think of when you picture an island in the Caribbean or South Pacific.   However, the islands that make up the windward and leeward islands of the Caribbean, including the BVI, are volcanic in nature (some still active) with very deep harbors and for the most part coral seabed.    Anchoring in coral is never ok since it kills the coral, which is the heart and lungs of the ocean.  Therefore, throughout the islands the anchorages are placed and allegedly maintained mooring buoys to which, for a fee, you can tie your vessel.  It is not as easy as it sounds and takes coordination between the helmsman (who is usually the man/captain) and the happy hooker (usually the spouse/admiral) so if you want to play 'happy hooker and the boat boy' later in your cabin you should not take on the persona of Captain Bligh during this process.  Watching other people attempt to pick up a mooring can be an entertaining way to spend your cocktail hours.  We got pretty good at mooring and there wasn't as much shouting as expected or predicted. We worked our way from anchorage to anchorage, hit the popular spots such as the Baths (where parts of the Johnny Depp movies really were filmed) and Willie T's (a floating Bacchanal) and docked a cat for the first time by ourselves; three times!  As I had mentioned it was offseason so many of the on shore diversions were closed but also gone were the crowds of bareboat sailors, credit card captains, and cruise ships that dominate the waters during the winter.   We sailed on to Cane Garden Bay just like in the Jimmy Buffett song and drank the Foxy's Firewater Rum that Kenny Chesney sings about and drank a lot of Carib Beer and good cheap rum.  Once Daughters' # 1&2 got over their displeasure of being denied their cell phones they began to enjoy themselves.  Still seeking their independence from mom & dad I decided to let them take the dink ashore to Pussers at Marina Cay once we had snagged a mooring and the deck was swabbed (yes I am that captain).   Jo had gone below for a nap and I had cut the auxiliary engines.  Daughter 1 & 2 got gussied-up and with spending cash in hand (shopping after all) they were ready to go.  As I have explained in past blogs, the dinghy is akin to the family car and like the family car; it is hard to get it from point A to B without the engine, outboard in this case.  Yes you could row it and with an inflatable dinghy you would be just as successful as pushing your car down the street.  The big difference here however, is the dinghy will go on its own willy-nilly at the whims and forces of current and wind.   For this reason, it is best to start the boats family car while the painter (the line you use to tie and tow the dinghy) is still attached to the mother ship.  Well you know what happened next, right, they couldn’t get the outboard started but had already untied the painter and off they drifted.  Now this was the first of many bad decisions that were to be made that day.  As I watched them drift away and shouting instructions, I had two, well maybe three options.  One really good and prudent something a good captain would do, the other ok but not as fast, and the third one.  Option one would be, start the engines, cast off the mooring bridle and go retrieve the daughters and as sound as this might have been it didn't come to me at all.  Option two would involve getting on the radio and calling for assistance, ok help.  Now I did consider this but decided on option three; captain hero dad!   Now in preparation for my cruising life I had gotten a gym membership and actually went 3-4 days a week for the past two years and I was in pretty good shape for a ageing fat man, so of course it was time to channel my inner Johnny Weissmuller and dive into the ocean, swim to the daughters and save the day, except, well I had seriously misjudged their distance and drifting speed and my physical abilities.  As daughter #2 put it "daddy you just kept disappearing behind the waves" while in reality I was in the trough between waves but it was humbling.  Luckily, for all involved, there were several boats coming in and one plucked me out of the ocean and went to retrieve the arrant dinghy.  Unfortunately,   mom did not sleep through the commotion and was waiting for us when we were dropped off by the other boat.  I do believe this is where daughter #2 developed the philosophy that if you were going to be in trouble, get yourself in said trouble when another around you was in more trouble; in this case, that would be me.  Shore leave was canceled for all, needless to say.

From there we headed to Virgin Gorda first to the Baths then into Spanish Town to replace the bucket the daughters lost over board, which, as we all know it is bad luck to kick the bucket.  From there off to Saba Rock in Gorda Sound.  This proved to be one of the nicer places to stay complete with up to 60 gallons of free water with your mooring.  We also had a free drink coupon from the bar, they had hammocks for their guests under swaying palms, and did I mention the free drink coupon.  The next morning rose on my birthday and to celebrate we left the protection of the Drake Channel and skirted Sir Richard Branson's Private Island (Necker Island) out into the Atlantic for a run down the outside complete with a following sea and seasick daughter #2 who after a Dramamine slept the day away.  We surfed down the waves and I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday.  That night we ended up in the Bight at Norman Island for an evening at the infamous Willy T's and even thought I came home with a T-Shirt, I did not get it for free by jumping naked off the upper deck.  The next morning, was time to fuel the boat up clean her up and return her to her caregivers.  The BVIs held many other wonderful experiences ranging from dodging jellyfish while snorkeling to the self-service bar and wonderful people at Sidney's Peace & Love in Little Harbor Jost Van Dyke.  A cab ride to the airport, a night spent in Puerto Rico followed by a long flight home and we felt one-step closer to our dream. 

Next time, back to the BVI's, introducing friends to cruising, 2 weeks just the two of us, and for our last sailing trip to date.     

 

 Photos From Getting Ready Part 9

Sailing in Tampa:

Captain Tracey

 

Bob... I Think

Jo along for the ride

 

Sailing in the BVIs:

 

Sunset at the Bight, Norman Island

Two little monkeys  sharing a hammock






PDA at Manchioneel Bay, Cooper Island Beach Club 





That's just living life on Saba Rock

Sidney's Peace & Love



Mom & the white bellied child at the Baths

At The Baths Daughter #2

At the Baths Daughter #1










Ours is the sub-compact dinghy

 

Nap Time at Cane Garden Bay



Mom's turn in the hammock
I sense a theme  





Get Your Guns Up in the BVIs

Sailing into the deep blue

Sister Selfie

 







Mooring receipt for the day of my birth





Caribbean AC



 

What is the drinking age in the BVIs

 





One Too Many Pain Killer?

 







How did they get my copy of Drinking Man's Guide to the BVIs?





Sailing on the outside with a following sea on my 53'd birthday



Last Night; But First....Willy T's

 



I Hear It Gets Better, That's What They Say As Soon As You've Sailed On To Cane Garden Bay

 

 

 

 

UPDATE and a Treatise (stolen from George Carlin) on Stuff!

Well it has been a while since I added anything to the blog so as I sit here listing to the new Jimmy Buffett CD I thought I would do an up-date.  The sailing path will be picked up soon but for now an update on getting to the dream. 

Well it is official and I have retired and have the ID to prove it.  The end of my career came and went without a rip in the cosmos.   Good friends put together a retirement reception and many of my former students were able to come back and visit.  The rum, tequila, wine, and stories flowed.  There’s a lot I could say about it all, but all I really think I’ll say, is thank you all. 

Unfortunately the dream of sailing off has not reached the maturity I had hoped by this time.  The biggest stumbling block is the sale of our house at a fair price.  The house is almost circled in Saint Joseph statues and Buddha is facing east but has yet to happen.   The frustration from the entire event, or better said, lack of event is starting to show.  As we begin to make plans for another winter on the hard I am reminded of something I always preached to my design students, that you must control everything you can control and learn to leave the rest; harder to do in reality.  However, one thing we can control is the liquidation of our accumulated possessions up to this point in our lives.  The late George Carlin had a routine about “Stuff,” and it was as accurate as anything ever written.  If you are too young or your parents didn’t let you listen to Mr. Carlin for fear you might hear one of the7-Words, go to the Google and look it up.  One line strikes a particular cord in our current situation:

A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.  

OK maybe more than one as I go back and listen to Carlin on the Google.  Another one that strikes true is:

If you didn’t have so much stuff you wouldn’t need a house.  You could just go out and walk around all the time;

or, in our case, sail around.  By the way, while on the Google, I did refresh my 7-words; really, you don’t know what I’m talking about?   The point of this is we got a lot of STUFF!  When I was in college and first working on building my career all my worldly possessions along with two mentally deranged cats would fit in my Pinto station wagon.  OK yes I had a Pinto and NO I am not proud of it.  When I got married my meager stuff blended with Jo’s better stuff.  Which reminds me of another of Carlin’s lines: 

have you ever noticed how their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff?;

for the record, most of my stuff was shit and Jo had a sailboat.  As we grew as a family we continued to accumulate more stuff.  When we got married people gave us stuff, some very nice stuff and a donut maker.  When we had E that came with a whole different type of stuff and when we adopted the girls, our house exploded with pink stuff.  Up to our move to our current home, we had been able to manage our stuff (somewhat) by moving every 2-3 years.  Being a young faculty, I could barely afford to maintain the stuff we had and lived in small enough places that adding stuff would be out of the question; although somehow we did manage to contribute to the stuff.   When we bought the house we have been in for the past 23+ years we sat in the still empty living room and wondered how we would fill all this space, we didn’t have enough stuff.  Now I am sure whatever form your God takes he/she listens to you and might even answers your prayers or concerns and not to be critical but, I wish he/she would focus on the lotto wining prayers rather then the ones involving interior decoration.  Of course in reality, if you win the lotto the temptation would be there to accumulate more expensive stuff. 

Well let’s just say we have accumulated a bunch of stuff and unlike moving to another house where we would have a place to put the stuff and a boats seaworthiness, especially a catamaran, is seriously impacted by too much stuff.  That along with the reality that we now have 3,800 square feet plus an attic, garage, and 10’x10’ storage locker to put our stuff; on many of the catamarans we are looking at we will be fitting into 300 or so square feet, a net loss (or gain depending on your point of view) of 3,500 or so square feet of room for stuff.   So this has resulted in the reduction of stuff sale, or as I have dubbed it, the great, Sell Off to Sail Off Sale.  

Update to the Update:

OK, there has been some time between when I started this update and right now.  During that time the mega sale happened and I ended up in the hospital with what they first thought was a heart attack and ended up be a gangrenous gallbladder and pancreatitis that very nearly ended a lot of dreams.  The sale went on during this time and even though it did not meet my expectations in terms of income-from-stuff, it did ok.  The down side is there is still a lot of “stuff” around here and my postoperative condition has left me less than able to deal with it quickly.  I won’t bore you with the details of my six days in hospital but I am glad to be out and home.  I do however have a new respect for the pancreas and the pain it can cause especially in concert with a dead gallbladder.  As for the rest of the “stuff”, well we are debating the virtues of a garage sale vs. just taking it to Goodwill.  There was a lot of art left so I might try my hand at eBay and Craigslist for the furniture.  Whatever tack we take, it is time to redirect our focus on selling the house (carpet guy comes Tuesday) and we keep moving forward.

I promise, I will get back to sailing on my next post.