(Andy’s note: Most of this entry may be of interest only to boat nerds and people troubleshooting engines.) Early Saturday morning, we struck out from Bimini to explore Gun Cay and North Cat Cay. All of that was lovely until our starboard engine (a Yanmar 57) signaled an overheat alarm about 10 minutes into our…
Family Time
My dad, and our son, Kyle, joined us for eight days aboard Gratitude. We had to remain at the marina for the first few days while modifications and repairs were being made, but we were able to get in several solid days of sailing too. It gave them a taste for boat life. We made…
Everything takes longer than it does.
Hi everyone. We write you today from a dock in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. We had hoped to be back in the Bahamas by now, but God just chuckled at our plans. Here’s an update on the last couple of weeks. Our sail back home to the US was uneventful, blessedly so. We did catch another…
Overnight to Bimini
We had the notion to make the 95-mile trip from Chub Cay to Bimini on Wednesday, but we knew we would need every minute of daylight and then some. We tried to tried to weigh (raise) anchor well before sunrise so that we could arrive at our destination and make a docking or anchoring decision…
Nassau to Spanish Wells
Well last week we finally left Nassau. It’s been an eventful two weeks so I thought we might fill you in. Nassau was not our favorite locale. It is a great place to grocery shop and eat out; but it is also crowded, touristy, and very expensive. One thing that frustrated us a little there…
Dinghy Drama (A Joint Post)
Andy: Karen and I have both been surprised as to the way we have had to problem solve together. For example, the other evening after shore excursion and a nice dinner out, we lowered the dinghy into the water and inadvertently spooled the line all of the way off of the winch. No big deal,…
Sails Up!
We had our first successful sail on Saturday (we sailed on Friday, but I would not describe that as a particularly stellar success – more on that another time). Saturday, we climbed back on the horse (or the Leopard in this case), motored out to sea, and unfurled the jib. The jib is a smaller,…
Building Our Skills
Where to begin? It was only 10 days ago that we left our home in Atlanta and arrived to Ft. Lauderdale to move onto our boat. Honestly, it feels like 2 months. So much has happened, and we have been in constant motion, with very little time to reflect on our experiences. For this reason…
Elvis Has Left The Marina!
This week has been one big lesson in revising our plans. We flew to Ft. Lauderdale on Monday morning and hit the ground running – moving boxes and bins from our storage locker onto the boat, making runs to Target and Home Goods and Publix to start provisioning, and coordinating boat work with various contractors….
Almost Time
(By Andy) The past several weeks have resembled a swirling slurry of activity: researching, procurement, preparation, packing, communicating, meeting, and trying to coordinate tasks that were usually intricately intertwined. Timing. Negotiating. Purchasing. Asking. Monitoring. Learning. Explaining. Managing. Occasionally arguing. We made the decision to take a sailing sabbatical some time in September 2018, and from…