Sailing with Andy & Karen aboard S.V. Gratitude
One set of trade-offs we are constantly having to weigh is the desire to explore our destinations deeply vs. the risk of being in the Caribbean hurricane zone during the summer months. We worked out a deal with Gratitude’s insurer in which they pay for any hurricane damage as long as we keep the boat…
As a refresher, the big picture of what we are doing is sailing from Florida to the Caribbean. There is more than one way to do this, but the one we’ve chosen is known as “The Thorny Path to Windward”. It’s essentially 1,200+ miles of beating directly into the wind, which is not fun to…
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…
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…
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,…
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,…