Hurry, fill that boat!

Well, we’ve hit the ground running here in Indiantown. After a dinner in St. Augustine on Sunday night, we stayed just off of the highway for the night, which allowed us to arrive here at the morning yesterday morning. Since then, it’s been a flurry of activity, on and off the boat.

Our sailing plan for the winter is to get to the Abacos in the Bahamas, and getting there is hugely dependent on whether or not there is a weather window for us to cross over. With a north-flowing Gulf Stream in-between our current position and our destination, we’re waiting for stretches of weather that don’t have any northerly components of wind, which can fiercely kick up the seas. Naturally, a great weather window for crossing is… right now. Lucky for us, it stretches into the weekend, but we’re two days from the departure spot of Palm Beach/Lake Worth, so our aim is to leave Indiantown tomorrow (Wednesday) to be set to kick off from Lake Worth on Friday.

THAT means a lot of work for today. Provisioning the boat, rigging the sails, returning our U-Haul, trouble shooting our GPS, which seems to be wanting to rest more than it wants to work, and stowing stowing stowing. I started the day by hoisting Andy aloft to be able to spray the wasp nest that had tucked itself into our radar dome. He’s now spraying the dead wasps off of the deck while the girls and I are soaking up a bit of Wifi.

Having a known, sensible home for everything this year compared to last has made it immeasurably easier to unload the car into the boat, and the clean up was a breeze since our mildew-repelling tricks and systems seemed to have worked.

Keeping cool, in every sense of the word.

Also easy is the fact that our Ruach II friends are here in the marina as well this year, so all four kids occupied themselves around the yard with rollerblades, scooters, bikes, turtle feeding and art stands (Violet and Maeve made a LOT of artwork that they hawked for 25cents a piece- they even did some work on commission!). We got a lot accomplished yesterday, but there is plenty more to do today, so off we go!

Feeding Smyrtle Spike Myrtle (the turtle).

1 thought on “Hurry, fill that boat!”

Looking good, Chickadee crew! Wishing you no northerly winds for your crossing on Friday. Love the turtle’s name, girls. Sending love and hugs to you all, Mimi. ❤️💕💗

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About Salvio.

S-usan A-ndy L-ily (SAL) became SALVio when our Violet was born, both acronyms given to us by dear friends and fellow sailors. While I don't mind explaining its origin here, the assumed repetition of that story to explain our boat name is the reason we sail aboard Chickadee, and not Salvio. However, Salvio sails nonetheless. Having worked and lived aboard sailboats in the early years of our relationship, we knew that it was only a matter of time before we got back to floating. Our ten year plan really was just that, we're proud to say, and here we are, ten years after the itch began again, stealing away for as many winter months as our lives will allow.

About Chickadee.

Chickadee is a 1990 Catalina 34. It took longer than it should have for SALVio (SA, really), to get over ourselves and our Southwest Harbor, Maine, Hinckley/Morris ways of thought to find the right boat for the family, but in the end we did. Production 'plastic' and we couldn't be happier for our current needs- we have two staterooms, and can fit all four of us around the table without anyone having to sit on the other side of the salon to eat: our two major goals. Extra bonuses include a good size cockpit, a solar panel and a walk-out transom for ease of swimming and getting on and off the dinghy.