We were lucky enough to have two different groups of friends visit us in St Pete in January! Jaime, Lisa, and Jack Davila were in the Tampa area for Jack’s hockey tournament, and they joined us for a sail on Tampa Bay. Jack was excellent at the helm! A real natural. Thanks for fitting in a visit on your short trip!
We’ve never been boat owners while attending a boat show before! So we were thrilled to be able to attend the St Pete boat show right in our own town. This show combined sail boats and motor boats, so there was something for everyone. And plenty of opportunities to spend money! We sat in on several seminars and picked up tips on cruising in The Bahamas and Cuba, and learned that we need to order The Explorer Chartbooks by Monty and Sara Lewis to really be confident cruising in the Bahamas and to finding our way around on shore.
Speaking of spending money, we bought our dinghy, Bug, at the boat show. We got a pretty good deal on a 2017 model Achilles HB-240AL. In plain English, that’s a 2.4 meter inflatable dinghy with an rigid aluminum floor. It’s a compromise between big enough to get us from boat to shore, and small enough to fit on the foredeck (with the staysail rigging in place) and light enough for two normal-sized people to load and unload. It’s going to be a slow ride though with our measly 5hp outboard!
The other big attraction of the boat show is the annual cruiser party hosted by Cruising Outpost magazine. Bob and Jody Bitchin (don’t you wish your name was “Bitchin”) bring in live music, kegs of beer, and lots and lots of pizzas and keep the party going after the boat show gates close on Saturday night. Our heads spinning, our wallets lighter, and our spirits encouraged by contact with the cruising community, we returned to the yard and to boat projects.
It’s been two months since we left Boulder, CO and we’ve definitely had time to miss our friends and family as we attempt to get adjusted to our new lives. In mid-November, we had our strongest supporters show up for a visit – Micki and Nathan!
These guys have believed in us since we first started talking about this crazy sailing dream. And they’ve encouraged us to go for it! Even throwing us a huge boat warming party before we left Colorado.
So maybe we were a little optimistic when we invited them to join us to celebrate putting our boat back in the water and holding a grand renaming ceremony. Huh. Three weeks in St Pete and we still have no fuel tank, no toilet, no dinghy, no…. well everything you need to have a working boat! Good think Micki and Nathan are such good sports! The spent the weekend helping us with boat projects, and may have forced us to get out and experience St Pete a bit – a very welcome break from the boat yard!
Nathan was a trooper, and finished up all of the bilge painting, somehow contorting himself into tiny spaces to make it all work.
And we checked off a big project on our list …. testing the anchor windlass, confirming that all of the anchor chain is in good condition, and marking every 25 feet of chain with a different color, to make it easy to tell how much chain we lay down in an anchorage. Micki helped me let out all 250 feet of chain, markings every segment with colorful plastic zip ties. Zzzzzzz….ippppp that noise always makes us smile!
We had a couple of portlights with torn screens – not acceptable for anchoring in the everglades and other areas where there will be lots of mosquitos! Micki took over the task of measuring, cutting, and shaping the screen frame. Then we cut screen fabric donated by a boatyard neighbor to make perfectly sized screens!
After such significant accomplishments, we deserved a little down time to explore Central Ave in St Pete, including the Emerald Bar and had wonderful charcuterie in the courtyard of our Airbnb.
On the way back to the Tampa airport, we stopped at The Getaway near the Gandy Bridge, and pretended that we were already in the Caribbean with our toes in the sand.
Thank you so much for coming to visit and for helping to make our dreams real!
There are faster ways to drive from Colorado to Florida. There are more direct ways to drive from Colorado to Florida. But for pure “friends per square mile” value, you gotta drive to Florida by way of New York, Vermont, Virginia, and South Carolina. And you gotta drive some of it in a gigantic moving van, towing a car. We literally chose our hotels by looking at Google Earth pictures of hotel parking lots, to make sure we’d have enough room to turn around.
We spent a fantastic month visiting family and friends all along the east coast on our last bit of vacation before settling down and focusing on boat projects. Thank you to every one of you who welcomed us, fed us, showed us around your home towns, and generally caught up on each other’s lives after months, years, or even decades apart.
Mike’s high school friends Tricia, Michelle, and Bill from Holland, NY (population 3,401)
Excellent ciders and gourmet burgers in Rochester, NY with Jenn’s brother Jeff
Fantastic fall weekend in Underhill, VT apple picking and beer tasting with the Thompson’s and with many of Mike’s AXP fraternity brothers.
Trying out the surprisingly wonderful restaurants in Oswego, NY with Jenn’s parents.
Proving that old friends are best friends by spending several days in northern Virginia visiting the Werbels, Wolfs, and Tebbes.
Starting to really get the itch to be on the water with a very relaxing visit with Matt and Sarah Kline in Annapolis.
And making friends with the pet chickens staying with Rachel and Paul in North Carolina.
Visiting Jenn’s Aunt Mary Ann and Mike’s very first Lockheed Martin boss, Jerry Calvert in Greenville, SC.
Our final big stop before Florida was to visit Jock Covey, the previous owner of our sailboat! We had the privilege to meet his new love Sophie, meet fellow sailors and explorers in the St Mary’s, GA boat yard, and to really get excited about our next steps.
At long last, we made it to our first temporary lodging in St Petersburg, FL where we could finally explode the poor, exhausted Volkswagen, and realized we still have way more possessions than can fit on a boat! Hooray for a successful road trip!
What Floats Our Boat 