Greetings from New Hampshire! Yes, you read that right; we’re still in NH.
We were supposed to have rejoined Indigo Lady in the Bahamas at the beginning of this month, but yet again, we find ourselves delayed. Dave is in need of another surgery, poor guy. It’s not an emergency, but it is important. This morning he was finally able to schedule a surgery date for early March. It’s a day surgery, but he has to follow-up in person three weeks later. If all goes according to plan, we should be able to go to the Bahamas in April. Until then, he’s been instructed not to travel out of country, just in case. That means no Bahamas until he’s done and given the all-clear. So we wait.
I find it difficult to blog about travel and living on a boat when I’m stuck on land. At home in the fall of 2020, your may recall, I bombarded you with videos of our diving in the Florida Keys from August of that year. This past fall, however, I just wasn’t in the mood. I figured I’d take a four-month hiatus and restart in early January, back in the Bahamas. Well, it’s now late January and I’m not in the Bahamas, but I finally felt inspired to sort through the photos and videos from our short 2021 cruising season and that inspired me to restart my blog.
First up, a slide show of the artist trail we found on Manjack Cay, Abacos. I wrote about Manjack cay and the art trail and posted a handful of pictures from the trail this past July, but that was only a tiny fraction of the pictures I’d taken. I’ve whittled it down to 95 pictures and let the Photos app on my Mac create the slideshow. Don’t worry; it’s not 95 separate slides. I chose the origami theme, so you get several at once, and it’s set to music.
Enjoy the show, and until next time, stay safe and take care of each other!
No, we haven’t ditched Indigo Lady. She’s still in the Bahamas waiting for us to return in January. We still plan to cruise on her through the Caribbean for several years to come. We’re just going to shorten our Caribbean cruising season and spend a couple of months each year cruising New England waters. There’s a story here, of course. There’s always a story. So I’ll tell you the story first, then get back to introducing you to Dumbledore.
Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know I do not enjoy being in the hurricane belt during hurricane season, at least from July onward. I’ve given it the old college try. We cruised the Florida Keys from late July through early September 2020. Isaias missed us by about 30 nm the first week of August before we even left the marina and later the same month we ran up to North Miami waiting for Tropical Storm Laura to decide her path. This past summer we were in the Bahamas through mid-August. We were lucky to only have to concern ourselves with Fred. We buttoned up Lady and flew back to the States the day before Fred threatened. Fortunately, he ended up not being much of a threat to Bahamas and tracked further south instead. We were lucky on all counts, but how long can that luck last?
From July onward I perseverate on the weather. When are tropical WAVES coming off South Africa? Will they become storms? Will they come our way? My stress level creeps up as summer progresses. Yes, we have the knowledge and gear we need to secure Lady and ourselves should a tropical storm/hurricane hit. I just don’t ever want to have to use that knowledge or gear. I don’t need or want that kind of stress. I’d rather just not be there. Thus our purchase of Dumbledore.
When Dave and I first started dating, I knew he had a plan to sell his house and live on a boat in the Caribbean. Before we were even engaged, I assured him there was no way I was living on a boat all year. I wanted to be home from September through New Year’s Day because I’m a homebody and I want that time to spend with family and friends. The first concession to his dream was that we would only cruise from early January through August. Then I started learning about cruising and the reality of hurricane season. On our drive home from Florida this past August, I knew I couldn’t do another July and August in the hurricane belt, but I also didn’t want to ask Dave to shave another two months a year off his dream. So I hatched a plan. Hoping our investments were still doing well, just after we got home this year I brought up the idea of buying a smaller boat, more like a pop-up camper with slide-outs, for cruising New England waters. Dave liked the idea so much he started looking for boats right away. Now we own Dumbledore. Dave still gets 8 months of cruising each year, two of them will be in home waters, and I don’t have to spend July & August stressed in the hurricane belt. Win-win!
Dumbledore is a 1979 36-foot Marine Trader. He has a comfortable, rectangular salon/galley with an indoor forward helm station next to a sliding door to the starboard gunwhale, an L-shaped seating area with under-seat storage around a table with two drop leaves, a fridge/freezer, and a four-burner propane stove with oven. There is decent counter space for food prep and a coffee pot, and lots of cabinet storage for a boat this size. The prior owners installed a second freezer in a storage locker in the aft companionway. This was an important addition because the other tiny one doesn’t keep ice cream frozen. Mmmm…ice cream. They also installed three shelves above the freezer. Hello pantry!
The aft cabin is the main sleeping cabin with a full sized bed against the starboard wall, a small hanging locker, an L-shaped built in desk with drawers and cabinets galore (for a boat, anyway), and a head with tub- shower. Okay, the tub is a bit silly as one would have to sit with their knees up to their nose to use it, but the important thing is that the shower is confined to the tub area and has a real shower head, unlike on Lady where the whole head is also the shower. There is also a forward v-berth with the equivalent of two twin beds, its own head, drawers and hanging locker. We can have guests and they will be comfortable!
Then there’s the fly bridge with second helm station. This will be our outdoor living space. Dumbledore came with a bimini frame, but no bimini. We are considering installing a hard roof and some solar panels next season and that will give us the shade we will want up there. There are two comfortable navigator and copilot seats plus two comfortable bench seats with under seat storage, and a few folding chairs. There’s also a small propane grill up there.
Dumbledore came with lots of goodies: an 8-foot inflatable dinghy with 5hp Honda motor and a really nice dinghy davit system, a recently installed water maker, two water tanks totaling about 100 gallons, AC/heat, holding tanks that can be pumped out or overboard, a VHF radio, depth finder (although that stopped working the other day), a Ford Lehman 120hp Diesel engine, two fuel tanks for 150 gallons of fuel, 21 lead acid batteries (group 27 size), a diesel powered generator to charge the batteries and run the house load, bow and stern thrusters, a bow speed bulb, and autopilot (which needs a new part). Plus the prior owners left fenders, boat hooks, lines, etc. Bonanza! We will be adding a chart plotter and radar, plus a hard roof and solar panels, as I mentioned before.
He’s old and needs a little bit of work, but we knew we could use him right from the get go regardless. We also knew the work that needs doing is not going to be costly and Dave can do it himself. We’ve already spent one night aboard out at Gosport Harbor and will squeak in another night or two before we have him hauled in late October. Dumbledore is big enough, comfortable enough and has enough goodies onboard for us to live comfortably on him for a month or two at at time while we cruise anywhere from Maine to Rhode Island, perhaps even as far as Long Island.
The pictures below are from the day we took possession of Dumbledore and moved him to our floating dock. Next season I’ll post pictures once we have him all tidied up and decorated.
We’re safely back home. Let me back up and get you from our final days in the Bahamas to now.
I left off with the day before we were to return to Bullocks Harbor at Great Harbor Cay, and I promised to tell you about the repair Dave was working on. I’ll start with the repair.
Our holding tank wouldn’t pump overboard. Worse yet, after some testing and troubleshooting Dave suspected the tank had become pressurized due to a blockage, most likely the intake to the macerator pump that pumps the tank overboard. A full, pressurized holding tank is bad because whatever needs doing to fix it requires opening the system, resulting in sewage leaking into the boat. Doesn’t that sound fun? Inevitably, when Dave initially opened things up, there was a little spray, but very minimal (I’ve read other cruisers’ horror stories). After that he was able to control the leakage so that it leaked into the bilge (that’s below the floors) which drains overboard. The blockage was where he expected, thankfully, and he eventually cleared it using a hose and pressurized saltwater (which forced more sewage into the bilge). Then he had to replace the pathetic macerator pump that had been problematic for a while anyway. I don’t know how he did it. It was a stinky job and I had to stay in the breeze in the cockpit the entire time to avoid getting sick. Dave’s a trooper! All told he spent a little over 3 hours on the repair and cleanup, that includes cleanup of himself. I followed his cleanup by mopping the floors and walls in that area with bleach water. Glad that’s over!
The following day was Sunday and we returned to Bullocks Harbor. Monday we met the Immigration officer at the marina and extended our visas. We dropped by Brown’s Garden later in the afternoon for snacks and drinks and a final conversation with the owner, Ronny, before we left. That was our last bit of fun for the trip. The rest was all work.
We were monitoring tropical storm Fred and decided that if he were to hit the Berries, it would likely be the coming weekend, so we changed our flights from Saturday to Friday hoping to stay ahead of Fred. (Fred ended up staying far enough south to have no significant impact on the Berries.) Then we changed our inn reservation to match and started preparing the boat and ourselves for our departure. We got a good amount of work done Tuesday while still at anchor in Bullocks Harbor where we had a delightful breeze coming through the hatches. Wednesday morning we brought Indigo Lady into the marina to get her tied up properly for the remainder of hurricane season and to complete the rest of our closeup tasks. We also got our Covid tests, which are required for re-entry to the US by airplane. Conveniently, the woman who conducts these tests is at the marine M-F starting at 10am. Much of Wednesday and Thursday are sweaty blurs- 8 hours each day dripping sweat the whole time. There was a breeze, but we had to go out to the cockpit to avail ourselves of it because it was from the wrong direction to blow into the boat. Thank goodness we’d booked the inn, which was mere steps from the marina, because it had blessed air conditioning plus a small fridge and microwave. We had prepared dinners in advance and were able to reheat and enjoy them in the comfort of our room at the inn. And we could take real showers! By 5pm Thursday, Lady was buttoned up and we waved goodbye to her.
Friday morning a taxi took us to the tiny airport and our 8am flight arrived about 8:30 and departed for Nassau by 8:45. Fortunately, the Nassau airport wasn’t very busy and, despite what looked like long lines, we made it through flight check-in, security, and US Customs pre-clearance in time to sit for about 45 minutes before boarding our Bahamas Air flight to Fort Lauderdale. We were back on US soil by 12:30, in our rental car by 1:30 and at my cousin’s house in West Palm Beach to retrieve our car by 3:30 after a quick lunch at Five Guys (oddly, I was craving a burger and fries, go figure). We chatted for about half an hour with my cousins then headed to our hotel where we took much needed naps. Dave stayed in for the night while I went to meet my cousins Susie and Sarah for dinner at an outdoor restaurant nearby. It was a brief get together, but most welcomed. Saturday morning we started our 2-day drive back to NH, stopping for the night in Rocky Mount, NC. We finally arrived home at 10:30pm a week ago Sunday night. Phew!
We’ve spent the past week getting our land lives restarted and recuperating from the hot, sweaty, busy final days in The Bahamas followed by the long drive home. We did see my family soon after our return. Since we’d been on two airplanes, I ate at a restaurant (even though it was outside, it was in FL), and there was very little masking at any of the rest areas or takeout restaurants at which we stopped, we decided to take Covid home tests before seeing my family, just to be extra safe. Negative- yay! Most of the grudge work of returning to land life is done and now I’m itching to settle back into my land routine and to reconnect with friends and family on a more regular basis.
I’ll probably post once every 2-3 weeks while we’re at home. I believe I promised some diving video slideshows, and I will get to those. I have a couple of other posts planned, such as one displaying the art of the art trail we walked at Manjack Cay (I took a lot of pictures), and I want to create a map of our travels this short cruising season. If there’s anything you’d like me to post about, let me know in the comments section or email me and I’ll try to accommodate your request.
Until next time, stay safe and take care of each other!
We have some answers, a new target departure timeframe, lots of hope, but no real certainty yet. I’ll start with Dave’s hand.
We finally have confirmation that the inflammation in Dave’s hand and wrist was, in fact, caused by Mycobacterium marinum, as we suspected. If you missed my last post, we suspected this pathogen because of his friend Ian’s experience almost two years ago. The results came on Wednesday, about 24 hours before his Thursday appointment with an infectious disease specialist. They had read his file and themselves suspected M. marinum, but the timely DNA test results made their job easier. They’ve seen it before and they know how to treat it. Dave will start a 3-month course of two antibiotics known to be effective for this bacterium. He will take them for a month then return to the infectious disease doctor to check that (a) they clinically appear to be working (ie-there’s no swelling; there will not be a tissue biopsy), and (b) that his liver and kidneys are handling the antibiotics well. If all’s well, then he will continue the antibiotics for another two months. We know, long-course strong antibiotics aren’t ideal, but neither is a persistent, slow growing bacterium that can spread through the lymph system if not treated properly and completely eradicated. So there you have it.
The M. marinum follow up is only one of the issues keeping us in NH until very late April. Dave also needed a root canal in one of his top, back molars, under an existing crown. His first appointment was yesterday, a couple hours after the infectious disease appointment. What he didn’t realize when he went in was that this is a multi-step process spread out over a few weeks. <Sigh> He goes back to the dental surgeon in two weeks for the final part of the root canal, then he has to go back to his regular dentist a couple of days later to have the crown resealed. Dave is still trying to negotiate the exact dates so we’re not stuck here until early May, but both the dental surgeon and his dentist have April vacations in the latter half of the month, so it’s challenging. Our fingers are crossed that the second part of the root canal can happen a little earlier so his dentist can reseal the crown before he goes on vacation. Our fingers are crossed.
On a more positive delay note, we got our first COVID vaccine dose Wednesday morning! We knew we that meant staying in NH for up to 4 weeks depending on when the second does would be. The flavor of the day was Pfizer, and they automatically scheduled our second dose for April 21st. Besides, that’s that same week as Dave’s infectious disease follow-up, so we were going to still be around anyway. We’re just glad we’ll be vaccinated before we return to the boat.
So where is that cruising light at the end of the delay tunnel?
Once we have our second vaccine dose and Dave’s medical issues are settled we will return to Indigo Lady in Florida. We will have the OceanVolt representative meet us at the marina to review our solar-electric system, we’ll stop by our east coast Florida family for a visit, and then we’ll cast off the dock lines. We hope to meet up with some Florida friends who will be cruising the Keys. We also need to test Lady’s systems on an overnight run, and we can do that in the Keys as well. Then we will likely head to the Bahamas. Alas, it will be the start of hurricane season, or close to it, by the time we arrive. Then I’ll start tracking the weather obsessively and stress about every lo pressure system that comes off South Africa. If I don’t fry myself with stress, or wear down Dave with my incessant worrying about tropical storms, we may cruise the Bahamas into August. At least I won’t be worrying as much about getting COVID, and will be comfortable flying back from the Bahamas when the time comes. Lady will be riding out the rest of hurricane season there in one of their hurricane holes, thus the need to fly back to the US.
That’s where we stand for now. Several things have to come together before we can head back to Florida or consider traveling beyond. We continue to keep our fingers crossed.
Guess where I am. If you guessed New Hampshire, you win.
Dave’s hand continues to improve, but the incision is not completely healed yet. He had the stitches removed Monday, but at the center of the incision line, as you can see in the post picture above, there’s a small hole where his skin is taking it’s time closing up. The doctor wasn’t concerned about it; Dave just has to keep it covered. As the swelling continues to go down he gains more mobility. The doctor told him it could take another month or more to get back to full mobility. He should use but not overuse his hand to help him recover. Just yesterday he got a call from the orthopedic center that one pathology report finally came back with a positive test for an unspecified acid-fast bacillus. We’ve suspected Dave could have been infected with Mycobaterium marinum, which is an acid-fast bacillus, back in late August when he scraped his knuckles on some barnacles. We are still waiting on the results of a DNA test to confirm or refute that. In the meantime, Dave has been referred to an infectious disease specialist for additional treatment to ensure the bacteria get eradicated.
While I’m on the topic of disease… The window for our age group (50-64) to register for the COVID vaccine in NH opens this coming Monday. We will stick around to take care of that. Once we get an appointment date and the hole in Dave’s hand is fully healed, we will make a decision about where and when to do some cruising this season. Until then, we continue to be in a holding pattern.
Dave’s chomping at the bit to get onto the boat to truly start our cruising life. Poor guy. He’s distracting himself with some woodworking projects and brewing.
I’m filling time with small sewing projects and finally *focusing* on some online weather webinars to better understand how the weather impacts me on my boat. I had been dabbling in this, but the spatial visualization necessary is not one of my strengths and it makes my head want to explode. So mostly I’ve been avoiding it. That’s probably fodder for a future post.
I’m not a “plans up in the air” kind of person, so I’m flailing a little in this holding pattern. This is different than the uncertainty of plans while living aboard. I’m not a fan of that uncertainty either, but I’ve gotten used to that. Living aboard is our retirement plan, and that plan involves spending at least part of most days exploring our surroundings both on land and under the water. If conditions aren’t conducive to that or to moving on to our next destination, well, onboard there’s *always* something that needs doing, so we fill those days with those chores.
Right now, here in NH, I feel like I’m just waiting to not be here. If there weren’t a pandemic I’d be filling the time socializing with family and friends and doing volunteer work for AARP, and I’d be very thankful for that. Since that’s mostly not an option right now, I’m trying to fill my time with things that feel productive, like the weather lessons and keeping up with AARP goings-on by attending virtual meetings and trainings. I’m looking forward to the warm spate of weather next week because it means I will try to hook up with some friends for outdoor activities. Waiting, waiting, waiting…I don’t like this endless waiting. Okay, I’ll stop whining now and go find something productive to do.
Dave’s surgery went well. The doctor removed inflamed tissue but told him the tendons were unaffected. Dave thinks the incision was longer than the doctor had originally expected, but he won’t know for sure until he’s allowed to unwrap the dressing on Sunday. His fingers and hand swelled up quite a bit but the swelling appears to be going down a little, as you can see in the pictures.
He slept a lot when I got him home after the surgery on Wednesday. Yesterday he watched a lot of movies. Dave doesn’t like taking prescription pain meds, but he did so willingly the past two days because he needed them, in addition to the higher than usual doses of Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen he was directed to take. He thinks he’s over the pain hurdle today, though. He woke up only once last night at 3am and took just Acetaminophen which did the trick. Today he’s been doing well on just the Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen (though still high doses). The hardest part for him now is going to be not using his hand until his follow up appointment on the 15th.
I’ve been tending to some boat sewing projects and shopping (online). To keep Dave distracted a bit, I’m reading him Harry Potter. He likes the movies but has never read the books. We’ll also pass some of his recovery time doing some trip planning. We still hope to make it to the Bahamas this season, but we can’t firm up any plans until after Dave’s follow-up appointment.
Once we return to the boat, we still need to have our solar-electric system reviewed by Derek, the only U.S. Ocean Volt rep. Our quick return to NH to quarantine prior to Dave’s surgery (see my last post if you don’t know what I’m talking about) meant we couldn’t hook up with him earlier as we had hoped. Then we need to give our systems an overnight test run, preferably off the Florida coast rather than in the very shallow and busy ICW. Then we’ll need a COVID test and a good weather window before we can jump across the Stream to Bahamas. We’ll see how and when this all comes together.
We left for Florida on February 15th and we got back to New Hampshire this past Tuesday night, the 24th. That’s four days of driving for 6 days of boat work. Exhausting. We had planned to drive home this weekend (after more boat work), but that plan went out the door after Dave’s call to the surgery center Monday morning.
If you recall from my last post, Dave is having hand surgery soon. When he scheduled the appointment, he asked about what he needed to know or do ahead of time. All he was told was to not eat after midnight the night before surgery. He called from the boat Monday morning to confirm any pre-surgery actions. The woman said he’d be called 3-4 days before surgery to schedule a COVID test. When he asked if that was something he could have done in Florida she said, “You’re in Florida? You weren’t supposed to travel [outside New England] for two weeks prior to surgery.” Really?! That would have been good to know when Dave asked the first time! We wouldn’t have been happy about it, but we definitely wouldn’t have gone to Florida! 🤦🏽♀️
Dave asked to speak to someone further up the food chain who could make decisions about waiving this two-week rule. He was put in touch with a manager who listened to him describe our approach to COVID safety and our activities in Florida. We weren’t there for vacation. We were living on and making repairs to our boat, away from other humans. We’d brought all our food from home. Our limited human interactions were always brief and masked. We also pointed to the State of NH guidelines for travel that indicate a person can cease quarantine sooner than 14 days after returning from travel if one gets a COVID test on day 6 or 7 that returns a negative result. The manager agreed with us, put together a plan that included our leaving Florida the next morning and Dave getting a COVID test this coming Sunday. So Monday evening we started closing up the boat and packing up the car. Early Tuesday morning we had a quick breakfast, finished closing up the boat, hopped in the car and started the long drive home.
So we’re home again and laying low. As long as Dave’s COVID test comes back negative, which we’re confident it will, his surgery will proceed as scheduled this coming week. In the meantime, he’s trying to keep busy so as not to obsess about his impending surgery, but not so busy that he makes his hand sore. It’s a delicate balance.
I brought home some boat-related tasks that I will tend to. Once those are done I’ll do some sewing, some reading, and tick off the days until we can return to Indigo Lady and the warmth. I’ll update about Dave’s surgery late next week.
Well, I’m not writing this from Florida as I’d hoped.
The most important reason for our delay is the photo in this post. Those are Dave’s hands. Notice the large bump on the right hand? He’d been having some swelling on the back side of that hand since October. It was intermittent at first, not nearly as large, and more spread out across the back of his hand; sometimes one section would swell and not another. By December it was more focused near the wrist and more persistent. Since late January it’s been as you see it and it feels less like fluid. Since October he’s seen two primary care physicians, two osteopath assistants and one osteopath; he’s been prescribed exercises and a formed splint; he’s had an x-ray, an ultra-sound guided cortisone injection (effects lasted all of two days) and an MRI. This past Wednesday he finally landed with a hand specialist who told him he needs surgery to remove the inflamed tissue gathering there, to check that the underlying tendons are okay and to repair them if necessary. It will be a short in/out procedure with a two week recovery period. His surgery is schedule for the first week of March.
In the meantime, we’re heading down to the boat in Florida for two weeks to install all the upgrades to our solar-electric system, fix our freezer and make a repair to dingy. The freezer failed the day before we left in September, at the end of our diving trek to the Keys. At least it had good timing. Dingy has rub marks from how we have her mounted under our solar roof and Dave will be adding some rubber in those areas so she doesn’t rub herself into a leak. We’re also hoping that the Ocean Volt representative (only one in the US) will be able to come aboard one day to do a complete system review with Dave.
Our failed (three times now) battery control box (and parts for the port one still onboard) have made it to the USA and are en route to the marina to meet us. We have all the other parts we need here and will bring them down with us along with the non-perishable provisions for 8 weeks (we’d already bought them before Dave knew he needed surgery), and fresh groceries for the two weeks we’ll be there. We want to avoid any long forays out into public since COVID is spiking again down there and they have a couple of those new strains. We’re driving down, so we have plenty of room for all our stuff.
To sum up: We’re driving down to Florida for about two weeks of repairs. We’re returning for Dave’s surgery and will be home until he is healed. After that, we will return to Lady and cruise, possibly through August. Dave is fine with cruising during hurricane season, I’m less willing to do so after July once it tends to ramp up, so that will be a negotiation, but we have to have a functioning boat and hands first. Baby steps.
We’re still waiting for the battery company to finish testing the upgrade to our battery control box before sending it to us along with the relevant parts for the one still on Lady. At this late date we will have them shipped to the marina in Florida and drive down to arrive a couple of days ahead of them. We have enough to do on the boat to keep ourselves busy until they arrive.
*THIS JUST IN: The battery company emailed us the morning after I typed this post telling us that they are adding additional over-current protection on the input side of the battery control box, which seems like the right direction to address the problems we’ve been experiencing. They need to test this solution first and will do so next Monday or Tuesday. Yes, it’s another week’s delay, but Dave feels more confident that this modification will provide more protection to our propulsion systems.
It turns out that the tardiness of our battery boxes was a good thing. I threw out my back last Friday, the worst I’ve done in 5 years. I couldn’t stand upright or walk without severe pain in my low back and right hip, and sitting was just as uncomfortable. I called the doctor who prescribed me a muscle relaxer, a pain killer, strict rest for 48 hours, and physical therapy to start this past Monday unless I either got worse or no better. That afternoon Dave made me a cane, picked up my prescriptions and bought me one of those poles with pincers on the end to pick stuff up without bending over. He’s so good to me. By Monday morning I was fit to walk into PT slowly and without the cane. I only took the pain med the first two days, but have continued the muscle relaxer but with fewer daily doses. I have actually been listening to my body and not overdoing it and I am progressing nicely. The pain is gone, replaced by some tightness in and around my right hip. It still threatens to reverse its progress if I try to do too much, so when it starts to ache I lie down like a good girl. I have PT daily through Tuesday, minus the weekend, and should be good for the 2-day drive to Florida when the time comes.
Fortunately this happened just after we learned our battery control boxes would be delayed, so I have time to heal and don’t have to feel guilty about being the cause of delaying our trip. I’m also fortunate that I had already completed all the big boat prep stuff and have been able to pick away at the small remaining tasks between bouts of lying on the sofa. AND… the controller for our hot tub arrived Saturday! We have been sans hot tub since October- ack! The controller was on a looooong back order due to COVID. It picked the perfect time to show up because heat feels really good on my sore hip. Ah, relief!
You may be wondering what our plans are. First, we fix the boat, and by “we” I mean Dave. The repairs needed are well beyond my skill set, which is essentially nil when it comes to boat repairs. I will have plenty to do as well. Sewing is in my skill set, and I have hatch, porthole and slider screens to make to keep out the bugs when we’re in marinas or anchored close to shore. I will also be in charge of unpacking and stowing the 8-weeks worth of non-perishable provisions that we are bringing from home and will complete the provisioning of fresh and frozen items in Florida. While we still have a rental car, we will also visit with our east coast Florida family in West Palm Beach. Fortunately, being southern-ish Florida, we can safely enjoy each other’s company outside and distanced.
Once the boat is functional again we plan to start for the east entrance of the Okeechobee and spend several days exploring it as we cross to the west coast. If things work out, we may be able to visit our west coast Florida family. Then we’ll head down to the Keys, make our way to Key West and explore as much as we can as we head east back toward Elliott Key. We will stick mostly to diving and nature walks to avoid the coronavirus. We hope at least a few masked, socially distanced human interactions will be possible. I love Dave and all, but I don’t think either one of us wants to be the only person the other interacts with for 6-7 months.
Will we head to the Bahamas? That depends on the pandemic. We can’t predict what the rules will be months from now for entering the Bahamas or returning to the U.S. from abroad. If travel rules allow, and if we think we can get there and back again (return by airplane; the boat would stay in Bahamas) without being exposed to the coronavirus we will make the trip. Otherwise we’ll likely spend more time in the Keys, maybe even head out to the Dry Tortugas. We plan to stay onboard Indigo Lady, whether in Florida, the Bahamas, or both, until August if at all possible. If it’s safe and warm, I’m in!
Hopefully the next time I post it will be from Florida. Until then, stay safe and take care of each other.
I don’t have quite enough dives to post weekly through the end of 2020, so I’m skipping the dive video this week and focusing instead on giving thanks. Since this blog is about living aboard, that’s where I focus my thanks.
I am incredibly lucky and grateful to have a husband like Dave who not only dreams big but makes those dreams reality. He supportively brings me out of my comfort zone, even when I drive him crazy with my worrying about things I can’t control (which is pretty much everything about cruising!). He keeps our ship afloat and running, often by squeezing into very tight places when it is either very cold, very wet, or very hot. Thank you, my love, for being my co-adventurer and partner in life!
Although our dream of living aboard is still evolving, our journey started for real as soon as we bought Indigo Lady back in the summer of 2014. Since then, many people have been involved in helping us bring our dream to fruition. Others have simply enjoyed time on board with us, which is also part of our dream- sharing the experience with family and friends.
My parents have been there with us since the beginning. They met us in the Virgin Islands in 2014 to help us provision Indigo Lady and then sail her 2300 miles to home. They’ve been a part of each stage of our adventure since- the cold and the warm, the wet and the dry, the frustrating and the fun, the local and the international. Dad has been Dave’s right hand man through everything, including the conversion to solar electric and many repair jobs that keep Lady and her systems running. I can’t thank them enough. We love you, Mom & Dad, to the Caribbean and back!
Dave’s brother Mark and my cousins Richard and Sharon, expert sailors all, were also part of the first crew. Thank you for helping us get her home! Mark helped a ton with the overall conversion design and with many of our systems and gadgets on board, including some installations. Thank you for sharing your experience and expertise!
Cumberland Ironworks in Pownal, ME built our roof framework, envisioning something we didn’t know was possible. Thanks! The folks at Greene Marine in Yarmouth, ME provided a place (extremely reasonably priced) for Dave to convert Lady to solar electric and helped build the fiberglass roof for the solar panels. Not only that, they became friends. We are grateful to them for both!
My cousins Richard and Bob and my Dad joined me and Dave in North Carolina in November of 2019 to deliver Lady to Florida. It was the trip from hell that involved unpredicted high winds and seas and being stranded 80 nautical miles offshore and rescued by the Coast Guard. We only made it as far as Georgia, but they were stalwart and they all keep coming back for more. Thank you for being so adventurous!
My sister, Sarah, has been uber-supportive of our dream, even though it stresses her out to no end when we’re off on the open seas or just away from home for long periods of time. Thanks, sissy, I love you!
To our family & friends who have enjoyed leisurely days aboard with us, both at home and far away- thank you! To all the cruisers we’ve met along the way, both in person and virtually, who have offered advice and support about all aspects of cruising and living aboard- thank you! To those of you following this blog- thank you! To all of you who are part of this dream in the making, in whatever way, THANK YOU!
Happy Thanksgiving to all! Be safe, and take care of each other.
Life on Lady 