Salvio Sails!

Yesterday’s wild and wooly rain storm gave way to sunny skies and chilly temperatures (62 with 20kts of wind), and we were poolside as soon as the girls could get their suits on this morning. Andy and I were literally poolside, wrapped in extra towels to keep our legs warm and hunkered against the wind gusts, while the girls swam and played like it was nothing, thanks to the heated pool and the numbing skin effect of being 5 and 8 years old.

For a big treat afterward we went to the stable where Vanessa boards her horse, Torry. Lily had a lesson on Barney, who we were told was 29 years old. When I asked the owner if it was just something he told people every year on his birthday, she looked at me like the 24 year old that she was. I could swear Barney winked at me though, that old jokester.

While they did their thing, Vanessa saddled up Torry so that Violet and I could take a few turns around the ring for Violet’s debut riding experience. She loved it, as I knew she would. That now makes two kids interested in a sport too expensive and too conflicting with their parents’ expensive interest. It’s a good thing grown ups rule, isn’t it?!

My favorite part of the barn were the two misfits, so to speak, that just lurked and followed us around like dogs: Goat the goat, and Nene the pony. (Ironically the one barn dog was really skittish.) Goat tried his best to eat Violet’s jacket, which she barely noticed, since she was so busy watching the horses in their stalls, and Nene just looked confused and a little dirty, but shuffled around among us like a man without a plan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we join the ranks of most of America, eating snacks for dinner in front of the TV while waiting for the $5 million commercial slots. Go, er… Broncos?

This morning we cleaned our little Chickadee and bade her farewell until Monday as we shoved off for a cross-state ride. Three hours of flat flat flat cattle farms and orange groves, with a  hefty portion of lakeside RV parks later, and we arrived in the tidy city of Naples. The contrast of what we’ve now seen of the Gulf Coast to Lake Okeechobee’s perimeter of decaying lake view villages and towns is large, to say the least.

We put our toes in the sand at the town pier, and then found Vanessa’s condo, and more importantly for the girls, her pool house. The rain that started shortly after they jumped in didn’t deter them; giddy girls once again. 

I’ll say one thing for our funny family; we’re adaptable. We’d listened to Lily’s brand new list of fears over the past couple of weeks, which unfolded into silliness when prodded for their birth stories (every motorcycle passing or plane flying overhead was an obscure reason for flinching, e.g.), and then I witnessed Violet’s shifted eating habits as Days 1 & 2 on board came to be, taking the whole package in as something to keep an eye on, but not to overwhelm myself with. Most of the day was natural behavior to be sure, but there would be flashings of the seismic shift we had just locked them into, clearly expressed in different ways, all new to us. Day whatever-this-is and poof, it’s like we’ve lived on this boat for three eternities. Appetites are normal, shirking of requested duties is on track (although some new boat tasks are still novel enough to seem exciting, which is assistance we are pleased with but aren’t taking for granted), and the girls have hit their stride in every which way possible. (Lily’s back to being her wild, semi-reckless self, and we haven’t heard about her ‘list’ since- my gauge of the girls really not having any idea of what we were about to do (despite my explanation) was true. Turns out the reality is far tamer than their imaginations of it!)

It’s amazing to think about the emotional twists and turns that Andy and I have taken together in the past three days trying to suss out our approach to the shaft issues, and I suppose it’s a testament to either our parental shielding capabilities, or our kids’ incredible force of adaptability and forward motion that has kept them from absorbing our angst. A STRONG lean toward the latter, if I had to take a stab. I’m proud of ourselves for keeping things in perspective when it’s come to priorities for our decisions: 1. make things as safe as possible on board (a straight shaft helps!), 2. keep the kids stimulated and having fun, and most importantly, our antsiness to get the heck out of this boat yard was pushed further on down the list. (This inland marina is great and all, but we’re ready for ocean breezes, lovely sails and anchorages with space to swing.) To speak to number 2 however, and to make the point that taking more time to ready the boat as best we can is a good decision, the girls are happier than ever playing with their piles of coconuts under the boat, exercising the plentiful boatyard (live aboard) dogs that are always out and about, taking daily adventures together in the area, seeing friends, making new friends, riding in the yard carts, and busying themselves on board. They are happy. And that makes everything easier, so we’re working on remembering that to chill ourselves the heck out.

That said, one big stress release is that today we officially ordered a new shaft to be fabricated. One decision that we were toying with was to put the two-piece (an interesting set up), slightly bent shaft back on and assume that it would carry on as it has for another thousand miles, but in the end Andy made the good choice to make it right before we begin this journey, and so here we sit until it’s ready. Hopefully Tuesday we’ll have it in place, with a launch Wednesday. The good news is that we aren’t missing any weather windows to cross to the Bahamas in that time frame, and the best  news is that we’ve made a decision that we feel is the right thing to do. Funny how long that took, and how tormenting it seemed!

We’ll take our ‘free’ time to get the name decals onto the boat, throw some more sticks for Millie (German Shephard mix across the way), and pump up our stores for the rest of the trip. We’re also planning on a two-day sojourn to visit sister Vanessa in Naples, where we’ll catch some beachfront sunsets. As an added bonus to being there this weekend, we will watch the Superbowl even without the beloved Patriots. (Sports-savvy writer/watcher that I am, I just wrote Red Sox before correcting, yikes. Go Papi!)

For today, we played here for the morning before going to the Florida Oceanographic Society where we walked the nature trail through the mangroves, watched nurse sharks being fed and pet some awesomely slimy stingrays.

A trip to the beach for chilly shell-hunting (apparently after a week we’ve turned into Floridians- 70 degrees with a stiff breeze equates to ‘frickin’ freezing’), and then home for our usual Friday night picnic dinner and movie night. We watched Flipper, which was completely adorable if you forgave the acting, the plot, and Elijah Wood.

Complete and utter exhaustion bowled over any attempts of typing last night, so I’ll use this snow day morning (just got a text from the district!) to write instead. No snow here, but we had rain and wind last night; our first chance to be woken by rain on the face through the hatch, and the slap of halyards on the mast. If only it were accompanied by the rocking of the boat, it’d have been enjoyable!

Yesterday was yet another whirlwind. I’ve driven to Stuart and back so many times in the past five days that I feel like I should slap a bus route number on the car. Which would be a total joke, considering that we cram the car to capacity with every trip- no room for extra passengers! It’s a good thing that 90% of the drive is so gorgeous (the other 10% is in the city itself, so picture one block of chain stores of every type after another). We run along the canal that will eventually take us to the ocean, and the countryside is serene and lovely; a bamboo nursery, acreage of fruit trees, cattle farms, horse farms, and plenty of birds swooping back and forth to keep us occupied.

Trip #1 to Stuart yesterday was to visit Vanessa again and to have a final dip in the pool. Still cold, but fun nonetheless.

Meanwhile, back at the boat, Andy was doing this:

The water line is now cleaned and waxed; gaaugeous.

A propulsion note: our shaft has now been removed and we’re awaiting diagnosis. It wasn’t completely true, but once we know how far ‘out of whack’ it is we’ll determine if it’s something we can live with or not. Also, our new shaft seal arrived, so that’ll be installed once we have the shaft back in place. Our guess/hope is that all of this will happen today, and that we’ll launch on Monday. Here’s to driving to Stuart a few more times this weekend!

For the afternoon we had the chance to meet up with friends from the island, which was such a treat for all of us. Violet’s dear Montessori friend and his older sister, who Lily knew from Pemetic, and their mother met us at a great park in Jensen Beach, complete with fountains to play in and a great beach. While we were perfecting our drip castles, a Portuguese Man O’War washed up, and while we blessedly didn’t get stung, we got a great close up on the strange medusa.

They gave us a lot of great ideas of activities in the area, so we have a lot on the docket if we are in fact here through the weekend. We’ll keep you posted. And happy snow day, MDI friends!

Another first for us- living aboard on the hard. Aside from the fact that our bow is slightly raised in the jack stands, and Andy’s acid reflux and head cold are going to have him in fits after a night of sleeping on his head, all seems to be reasonably comfortable. The haul itself was fun to watch, especially since we hadn’t actually laid our own eyes on the hull before. It was also nice to leave our tight berth, and enabled me to snap some full-boat photos.

While waiting for our haul-out time slot, we busied ourselves with various tasks. I had spent the early morning in my personal organizing heaven, labeling, repackaging (to get rid of moisture-wicking cardboard boxes) and recording food storage so that we know how much space we have left to cram supplies into. Then it was on to the fridge, where we chucked the factory shelving for more space-efficient bins. While I neglected to take pictures of my work, I did take this as a reminder of my intense joy of finding one of my favorite snacks on the local Publix shelf: pickled okra, Mom! 

Lily is hooked, and keeps asking for ‘Mexican pickles’. This is disturbing on levels of geographical error and my own Texan pride, but soothes me to know that she too assumes that any food that is delicious and addicting has a better chance of being Mexican in origin than anything else. Like mother like daughter.

We spent quite a bit of the day under the oak trees on the marina patio, crafting up a storm. Violet glitter-glued everything that was not previously bedazzled, and what she didn’t actively paint was glittered by default as we inevitably dragged our arms, books, phones, hair, life jackets and note pads through the dozens of wet globs. If Andy had any hope of having a ‘manly nook’ aboard this boat that ship has sailed. And it was covered in purple glitter. 

Another project was an intricate house plan made for Stormy (‘pet’ Chickadee of Violet’s). Paths, room labels (written on the yellow leaves), a table for 8 in the kitchen, and of course, a nest all included:

The girls also took to collecting coconuts that they plan on cracking tomorrow, and I’m chuckling just thinking about the mechanic showing up tomorrow morning at 7:30am and tripping over the pile of them that they left conveniently right under the prop.

Andy’s sister Vanessa came to visit us from her home in Naples, and after we hauled we went into Stuart to swim at her hotel pool. The water felt like we were polar dipping at Sand Beach, but the girls persevered for a bit before going numb. They turned into exhausted mute zombies at dinner, presumably due to their blood starting to thaw again. The new challenge tonight was getting two sleeping girls up the swim ladder from the ground, but alas, we succeeded, and we’re all zombified at this point. Until tomorrow!

V flopped on the settee while I was making dinner tonight and said “Whew, I am one tired cheetah tonight, Mommy!”. A-GREED. It was a busy one.

They started with school work, which admittedly started with great intent on their part (still unprompted by me- I’ve begged for two more days of slogging through things before I can bear down on routine), and petered out after about 20 minutes. They swiftly shifted to crafts, which made my heart sing as they decorated tags and labels for their new clothing bins & baskets.

 

While they worked I hoisted Andy aloft so that he could inspect the rig. He bought new line that he had replaced one of our halyards with, on sale and subsequently bright bright orange (or much more likely vice versa). When we were lying in our bunk this morning Andy looked out of the hatch and said “Hey, there’s an extension cord running from our mast head!”. A joker, that one.  Anyhoo, the good news is that that ‘extension cord’ hoisted him safely aloft, and the bad news is that long gone are the days of having hydraulic winches. Next time I’ve suggested sending Lily, and meanwhile, I’ll be lucky if I can bring my coffee mug to my mouth tomorrow. Out. Of. Shape.

While Andy cleaned the dinghy, cleaned the companionway (he scrubbed the teak and it looks wicked shaaaap), aired out cushions and spliced more line, I took the girls on yet another big box store adventure. Between supercenters and wholesale warehouses, Sam Walton’s heirs sure benefited from our visits today. Two-way street, baby. Check out my new $3 sunhat that Violet is modeling with professional peevishness:

THEN came the fun. We went to Bathtub Reef Beach on Hutchinson Island, which was great surf for playing in, but safely tucked within the reef itself. They had to be pried out of the waves at the end of the day, and we’ll definitely be heading back before the week is out.

The bird life there was incredible to watch- the sanderlings were hilariously chasing the edge of the waves to nudge nudge nudge their beaks into the froth, presumably digging for crustaceans. While sitting on a towel, they approached like a friendly puppy would, skibbling over my flip flops and curiously circling. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Another treat is to see that the ospreys have arrived in the south land! There were four of them over us this afternoon, swooping low and slow, hoping for fish sightings on the curling waves. They were close enough to be able to see their eyes darting wildly over the surf and their feathers ruffling in the wind-another first for me. Birding! Who knew?

I’ll leave you with a shot of our head, ’cause, who doesn’t want to see where we… brush our teeth?

I spent today measuring for stowing, shopping for stowing accoutrements and then actually stowing the bits and pieces of our life aboard. I’m making good progress, and as evidence that I’ve at least cleared the port settee off enough to be able to hide what was covering the table for a picture, here you go:

With a $6.99 strand of battery-powered LED wire lights, we also solved the problem of wretchedly blue, icy, yet still dim light in the salon. We’ve moved from the feel of a third world operating suite to a dorm room, but it’s an improvement we’re thrilled with.

So. That was the fun stuff.

While I was skipping in the aisles of Bed Bath & Beyond, Andy was finding a leak in our dripless shaft seal. After having it tightened and looking further, it was ascertained that there is a shaft alignment issue as well, and that we need to haul the boat and have it repaired. Cha-ching! Bonus news: soonest hauling slot is Wednesday, to launch again on Friday if all goes well, so we’re already blowing our first [self-made] deadline. After realizing that it was a blessing that we found it now and not mid-Gulf Stream crossing (Look kids! Here’s how our life raft works!), and after cursing the surveyor who should have caught the problem, we gave eachother a little Violet-patented shrug and one of her “Eh, who caythes?”. Watcha gonna do.

Back to the flip side of our day, the girls were quite amused and amusing busying themselves with anything and everything at hand. They cracked coconuts, met neighboring dogs (my personal favorite was a 100+ lb Collie named Andy), helped with laundry, watched fish from the bow (Violet named them all), worked on their schooling in fits and starts, and got haircuts!

They are happy to be free but antsy for more structure (Lily woke up at 6 this morning and stated that she would like school to start promptly at 8); I’ll be happy to get into a routine that doesn’t involve unpacking. I’m shooting for tomorrow! (Always an optimist.)

We made it! And then we filled it.

Andy had such a great vision of bringing things aboard a little at a time, carefully unpacking and stowing, and then going back to the car for more. Silly Andy. All at once, he needed to change into shorts, Violet needed scissors and paper to make snowflakes for decoration, Lily needed her flip flops and I needed the linens to make the bunks. Blammo! The car barfed all of its contents into the salon. We’ve been trying to climb out from under it for the 18 hours that we’ve been here.

We did cozy into our berths in the end, and I began my favorite part of any nesting project: organizing. Progress to follow.

Upon arrival in Savannah yesterday we spilled out of the car with our newly-realized Clampett flair, dropping shoes, clothes, stuffed animals and books onto the pavement as we escaped our car cave. It felt SO, so good to stretch our legs after 24 hours on the road. 

The live oaks have shrouds of low-hanging Spanish moss dripping from their branches, creating giant canopies over the streets and parks. It’s such a magical setting, and in previous visits I enjoyed the odd sense of proportion I felt to my surroundings. To the girls of course, they felt like their treasured fairies, flitting here and there. And plenty of flitting we did.

A few minutes into our stroll on River Street and Andy was already working the crowds:

We watched the ships and tugs come and go, listened to live music in Central Market, and tucked into some good TexMex before heading back to the road, one step closer to Chickadee!

For a ‘fun’ new twist on southbound progress, we decided to drive through the night last night and alternated the driving. (Sweet of me to say so- I’ve logged a whopping 3 1/2 hrs to Andy’s 18. Zzzzz…) That said, we’re now in southern North Catolina with our sights set on Savannah for an afternoon stroll around the historic district.

In the mean time, the girls are ‘mailing’ us cards through the head rests to pass the time. I’m taking a cheetah carriage ride through Savannah!   And then there’s the blessed sunshine…