april 1 2007 : cap-haitien, haiti
By the morning of day three in Haiti we were feeling much more at ease with the country. The people would crack a smile after we spoke to them, and it became clear that their brash ways were not really meant to be as angrily abrasive as they at first came across.

With that in mind we got in a taxi for the quick trip back to the tap-tap station. Before we got in the car I showed the driver the 100 goo I would pay him for the ride and he motioned for us to get inside. Upon arrival smack dab in the middle of the bustling bus parking lot, we got out and handed him the money. “Non,” he yelled. “Oui oui,” I yelled back. No, yes, no, yes. We went on like this for a couple of minutes while a large crowd gathered around us. Each new person would come up, listen to the driver’s story and then show me with their fingers that yes indeed I should pay him two hundred.

Soon I had the money back in my hand and was waving it in front of his face, indicating how I had showed him the money before we left. He would yell back at me for two hundred. Ali was disappearing further and further back in the crowd, but a quick glance her way and the smile on her face told me that she was fine. In fact she was enjoying the scene as much as everybody else. She told me afterwards that a few different people had indicated to her through hand gestures and smiles that it was okay.

Finally, after a good five minutes of arguing the driver snatched the hundred goo out of my hand, climbed in his car, and raced off. Swearing the entire time. This brought about a good deal of laughter and we were quickly shown to a bus, where we were given the same rate as the locals, one hundred goo. We’d earned ourselves a little respect.

This tap-tap was an old school bus, not the speeding death truck we had ridden on the way to O’Cap. Each seat, designed for two children, was filled with three grown adults. It was crowded but it had working windows, which made all the difference. As the bus filled up our third seat became the last one open. People would climb on the bus, have a look around, see our seat, and climb back off. Nobody wanted anything to do with sitting next to the white people. Eventually a young guy came on and, despite the taunts of the others around us, sat down beside me, bringing with it a good deal of laughter. You could see it was all in good fun though and before long we were underway.

The ride was torture. We couldn’t imagine how an old school bus could take that sort of abuse. Two hours in we got our answer. The bus came to a sudden stop in the middle of the road and people began climbing out. We stayed put for a few minutes, but listening to the driver grind the gears while trying to get the transmission to engage finally drove us outside as well.

Before long the motorcycles started appearing. We weren’t quite ready to give up yet, but after a half hour of working on the bus, the driver announced that it wasn’t going anywhere. Ali and I jumped on a motoconcho and sped off. We couldn’t believe our eyes when two minutes later we were racing through the now dusty border town.

The border itself was a ghost town compared to Friday. The UN convoys, with their white SUVs and tanks, were still there in force, as they had been all over the country. But the people were gone. We cleared out of Haiti, paying another U.S. denominated exit fee in the process, and made our way across the bridge. Here soldiers were stringing razor wire all along the walls. After seeing what it was like here on Friday one would have to imagine that a lot of people are going to be receiving some nasty injuries from that wire.

Back on the DR side we went to immigration to clear in, paying yet another $10 USD each. We had traveled by public transportation and stayed in a rundown Haitian hotel for two nights, yet thanks to border fees this had become our most expensive two day trip ever.

By now we were out of U.S. cash. I told the officer I had none and would have to pay him in pesos. He was having none of it. I could not enter their country using their currency. After some pointless arguing we eventually were left with no option but to exchange pesos for U.S. dollars at a ridiculous rate with a black market money changer who sat directly in front of the immigration window. With that done we were once again welcome to spend pesos freely.

Walking down the street of this dilapidated Dominican Republic border town Ali made the comment, “God is it nice to be back in civilization.” I think the average person might have felt that civilization was a strong word for where we were, but she was right. We bought a couple of Cokes and a bag of Doritos to prove it.

Somehow we managed to negotiate the four buses and taxis it took to get back to Luperón, including another bus breakdown, and we made it to the boat just minutes before darkness settled in. We had left the hotel at eight o’clock and it had been a long day, but an awesome weekend getaway.

april 2 2007 : luperón, dominican republic
Back on the boat today we could hardly move. Our legs were so sore from the mountain climb the other day that we’ve been popping aspirin like it is candy to try and relieve the pain. We did manage to get a few things done though. We got our last batch of diesel, fixed a couple more dinghy leaks, bought candy bars, a couple loaves of bread, and had a few beers along main street. With that accomplished we should be ready to take off from here soon.

april 4 2007 : en route to bahamas
We had heard of Luperón referred to as Chicken Harbor #2, number one being George Town, Bahamas. The implication being that this is the kind of harbor that weak-kneed cruisers sail into and never leave because they are scared to venture any further.

Yesterday, while we were sitting at the bar we finally understood the full extent of that. The bar we were at had their VHF radio on scan, meaning it picked up all the cruiser chitchat in the harbor. During our short afternoon there we must have heard the name Chris Parker, a guy who makes a living predicting weather for Caribbean sailors, a dozen times.

“Windancer, Windancer, this is Windsong.”
“Go ahead Windsong.”
“Chris Parker says we have a good weather window to sail for the Bahamas.”
“Roger that Windsong. I was speaking with Windcatcher earlier and he reported that Chris Parker says we should have good weather for the next few days.”
“Copy that Windancer. So are you and Henrietta going to go for it?”
“Well I’m not sure yet, we’re talking to Windreamer about it, but he’s thinking maybe we should wait one more day. Parker says we should have winds under ten knots then.”
“Roger that. I also heard Windwalker calling on the VHF earlier asking if there were any local boats that could lead them out of the harbor. Have they had any luck with that?”
“That’s a negative, so far no luck, so we may have to stay a few more days while we have an exit channel marked.”

The conversations went on in this vein for hours. It was great entertainment while sitting at the bar getting pissed. Funny thing about all of this Chris Parker talk was that I had known for five days that we’d be leaving on the 4th. I really can’t understand all the discussion about weather in the Caribbean. The weather here has been the most consistent of anywhere we’ve been.  It blows from the northeast every single day.

The only question is how hard. Will it be ten, fifteen, or twenty knots? It takes me literally ten seconds to open up the weather file that I get through email, look at the little wind arrows, and determine if we are going out sailing or not. I receive a five day forecast which is nearly always spot on. We honestly use nothing else.

So with our departure date blessed by the weather guru, I went in at eight o’clock this morning to go through the ridiculous paperwork shuffle again. The immigration officer whom I’d spoken to the day before, and who’d said he’d be there at eight o’clock didn’t show up until nine. With him concluded I paid my harbor dues with the Port Authority, and then moved on to the Navy where I paid another twenty dollar fee. That last fee finally put us over the top, and DR officially became the most expensive country ever in terms of official fees. Granted the $50 in exit fees at the border the other day really is what put it over the top, but nonetheless it was a whopper of a fee gathering country.

At ten o’clock we finally inched our way out of the harbor, following our old track out, and avoiding all of the mud bars scattered throughout the place. Outside we found absolutely perfect conditions, almost no swell with a twelve knot breeze from behind. We had a great day, even managing to catch a nice current running our direction.

We had a strange occurrence when a group of tuna joined us and swam ten feet in front of the boat as if they were dolphins. They stayed there for half an hour before veering off. Right now it is the middle of the night and we’ve got a nearly full moon lighting up the ocean, making it the perfect night as well.

april 6 2007 : en route
The weather stayed nice our second day out as well. Leaving us with nothing to do with ourselves but lie in the sun and count the hours until we could go to bed again.

About an hour before dark we turned on the port engine. I never got in the habit of checking the exhaust after starting an engine, but Ali always does, and she commented right away that the engine was smoking. I had a look at it, but blew it off thinking that the DR fuel we got must have had a little water in it. A few minutes passed before it dawned on me that I hadn’t put any DR fuel in that tank. I went back out for another look and realized there wasn’t a whole lot of water flow coming out.

We shut the engine down and noticed right away that the engine had been running hot. I got to work and removed the old impeller. It had one flipper left out of six, with three of the broken pieces still jammed in the pump. I slipped a new one in, fired up the engine, and presto; no smoke, lots of water, cool engine.

Ten miles later, at eleven o’clock, we became official circumnavigators, by sailing across our outbound path between the Bahamas and Panama. I suppose there should have been some sort of celebration, but I was sleeping and Ali was in the middle of a good book. We’re really sentimental like that.

Ten miles later I was sitting outside messing with the GPS. I wanted to check what the moon would be doing for next week’s passage to Florida. We always enjoy night passages more with a big moon. The GPS has a feature that gives the moon position, stage, and rise and set times.

Anyway, I reached over, pushed the button, and the screen went blank. I wiggled the cord a bit but couldn’t get it to come back on. I grabbed the flashlight for a closer look and found one of the four pins that make the electrical connection had fallen right off. Ali remarked later that it reminded her of those people that turn 100 years old and then die during their birthday party. I guess this GPS had had enough. It reached its milestone and then crapped out. Fortunately we had with us a young whippersnapper of a GPS just waiting to take its coveted space at the cockpit control panel.

april 7 2007 : jagged islands, bahamas
Last night we encountered one of the worst storms we’ve ever had at sea. Thankfully it only lasted about twenty minutes. The moon hadn’t come out yet and the sky was black, however we could still see the milky gray storm cloud across the horizon.

Ali woke me up before we reached this one, knowing that it was going to be a doozy. We only had the jib out as we approached it, but even that turned out to be too much when we got hit. The wind screamed from under ten knots to close to forty in a matter of seconds. We turned straight into it, barely managing to get the jib furled as the rain pelted us. I even glanced behind us to see if there was a chance of getting back out, but by then it had completely engulfed us. It felt as if the boat was actually inside the cloud itself.

For twenty minutes, the rain came down in sheets and the wind continued to howl. I could see a star in the sky ahead of us and knew that we must be coming out of it. Within seconds the rain and wind stopped. The storm had been so localized that waves hadn’t even formed and the sea was still flat. The rest of the night the sky repeatedly alternated between perfectly clear and full of storm clouds.

Just before sunrise we went from six thousand feet deep seas to just forty almost instantly. We were officially back in the Bahamas. A few hours later we were anchored in six feet of crystal clear emerald green water with not another boat in sight.

april 9 2007 : en route home
It was a big day of scraping in the Bahamas yesterday. After just two weeks in Luperón the boat had grown so much crap on the bottom that we were actually a bit surprised that we were able to move at all. It took me three sessions with the scraper to get it all off. Jobs like that are made much easier in the beautiful waters of the Bahamas though. One thing I’ve often missed has been anchoring in the ridiculously shallow waters that are everywhere here. I could just about scrape the boat while standing up.

We have definitely come to the end of this sailing adventure though. One look in the cupboards and you can tell for sure. Here is a complete rundown of the food on the boat right now. Four packs of Ramen from Florida, one can of tuna from the Galapagos, one can of soup from New Zealand, one can of mince stuff and a can of curry from Australia, a can of meatballs from Turkey, a few noodles, and a bag of Doritos. That’s every last morsel of food.  We bypassed all the good food in Puerto Rico in our dogged determination to eat everything on the boat and it looks like we might just do it.

Sitting around after our can of soup tonight I made the comment, “When are we ever going to cook again?” Actually using the word we is overstating my involvement in the process by a long shot. We both thought that over for a minute and came to the conclusion that once we reach Florida it is entirely possible we will never cook another meal in our lives. At least at the moment that is the goal.

That morning we had been woken up at five a.m. by the sound of a helicopter hovering very near the boat. We both just laid in bed as if we didn’t hear a thing, too tired to go up and have a look. The chopper must have hovered there for a good five minutes, no doubt trying to call us on the VHF or else wondering why nobody was coming out on deck. But we didn’t move. A couple of hours later we woke up and I asked Ali, “Did you hear that helicopter?” “Yeah it was annoying.” “But you didn’t get up?” “You didn’t get up.” Good point. “I wonder what they wanted?”

This morning nobody rudely interrupted our sleep and after waking up refreshed we took off for home on our last passage. We had a great day of sailing, with nice 12 knot winds and following seas, made even better by the fact that we are on the Great Bahama Bank and the water never went over 25 feet deep. In fact for the next 250 miles the water will never be deeper than that. It really doesn’t make a whole lot of difference other than it makes things a little more interesting when you can look down and see the bottom.

april 11 2007 : en route
It’s been an interesting passage. Things started off nice enough with two good days of gentle following wind and seas, but the second night out things began to go wrong. I was sitting at the nav station just after dark, playing cards on my watch when I started to get bit on my toes. The night before we had had a few mosquitos lingering around from when we had been at anchor so I just made a couple of swats at my toes. Then the third bite really hurt and I flicked a light on to try and find this mosquito. That’s when I saw a bug about two inches long start to run away. I slammed my fist down on him and picked him up. It was a scorpion. I’m not sure if that’s even possible, but from what I’ve seen on the National Geographic Channel I’d say that is definitely what it was. It wasn’t quite as large as those big desert scorpions you’re probably picturing, but as I held the stunned bug he was still trying to wrap his tail around for another sting. And his tail was forked with two pinchers on the end that continued to try to inject me with a lethal dose of poison. At least that’s what I’d imagine he was doing.

The next morning I was goofing around trying to get a cool picture of the boat under sail. The color of the water in the Bahamas is incredible and I’m sure we looked pretty awesome sailing across it, but since I didn’t have a helicopter handy I instead just reached way out over the edge of the boat. I got a pretty cool picture but also got caught by a splashing wave. Within four minutes the camera had stopped working. We dried it out the best we could and it is able to take pictures at the moment, but most of its other functions are dead. That makes four digital cameras on this trip. Broken down as a monthly cost that makes our camera expense come out to about $35 per month. Let’s see you try to anticipate that one in your budget planning.

Next up was the watermaker. We had recently commented on how well it had been working for us in the Caribbean so it wasn’t much of a surprise when the feed pump motor once again up and died on us for no particular reason. I’ve sent out a bunch of letters to Spectra asking for them to replace this one themselves, but I’d say that there is a pretty good chance we’ll be picking up that $500 tab ourselves. Again. Monthly watermaker feed pump motor budget, $25.

Then continuing on the bad mojo that scorpion brought us, the weather took an ugly turn last night. Immediately after dark the sky lit up with lightning. It was wicked stuff. Occasionally the lightning would strike vertically to the water, but more often it was connecting horizontally and stretched for miles and miles across the horizon in a split second. It all seemed to emanate from one central core, like one of those mad scientist balls that makes your hair stand straight up. Of course that core was directly in our path.

We turned about forty degrees off course figuring we’d skirt by it within a half an hour or so. The wind was 20 knots coming from our right and the lightning storm was to our left. It seemed logical that we’d pass by it as it blew away from us. It didn’t of course. Instead it seemed to parallel our track, gradually growing closer, and keeping us from sleep for hours on end. Around three a.m. it started breaking down, and the six hour fireworks grand finale was finally over.

I woke up a few hours later expecting more downwind sailing fun for our last full day of sailing. Instead I came up and found Ali just shaking her head at me. She wasn’t happy. I went outside to have a look and saw why. The wind was up around twenty knots and on the nose. Then I looked up at the sky around us which was nothing but a solid wall of blackness. The storms weren’t over yet. We soon had 35 knots of wind howling through the rigging and kicking up really awful, short, choppy seas. With just a bit of jib out we kept sailing, although way off course.

Around noon it was still pouring rain and we couldn’t see more than a hundred yards into the distance, but the wind had really started to die down. Problem with that was that with the light winds and the left over rough seas we weren’t able to make any progress towards home. Seeing as we were still, after 250 miles, sailing in water 15 feet deep we did the sensible thing and dropped the anchor. The wind steadily dropped to zero, the seas flattened out, and within two hours we fired up the engine and got back underway.

With 100 miles to go, we’ve finally got our steady following seas back, ten knots of wind, and three hours left of our shallow water before hitting the deep waters of the Gulf Stream for our sleigh ride up the coast of Florida to Fort Lauderdale.

A couple of hours later the wind has picked up again and we are flying along at 6-7 knots. We were just visited by some very playful dolphins. We don’t usually see them when conditions are rougher like this, more often they seem to show up when we are motoring in calm seas. When there are seas running though they just seem to love it. They all race from one wave to the next, surfing inside of it and then spinning and jumping out the back side. It was awesome to get one last exciting visit from these guys. I’d say this is the thing that we will miss the most about life on a boat.

april 13 2007 : fort lauderdale, florida, usa
It’s hard to believe but we’ve had two of the worst storms of our entire trip in just this last week. Yesterday’s takes the cake though, and is officially number one. This morning was so calm that I slept in an hour later, which is unusual because our bodies have become like three hour alarm clocks over the years on watch. When I came up I found that Ali had the whole house wide open with everything hanging out in the sun drying. It was an absolutely beautiful morning. I know a torn flag is disgraceful, but this one has gone halfway around with us and it’d be a shame to give up on it now.

Two hours later we were ten miles off the coast of Miami when a black line appeared across the horizon. The lightning began as it slowly grew closer. We dropped the mainsail as a precaution and were sailing with the jib in very light winds, yet still flying along thanks to the Gulf Stream current.

As it started to rain I donned the raincoat and stood up at the captain’s chair to keep an eye on the storm. Just then a bolt of lightning hit so close to us that the explosion almost seemed to precede the flash, and I jumped down into the cockpit. As I did there was suddenly a lot of noise up front as the wind had clocked around and the jib started flapping. Ali and I quickly got that sail furled and fired up both engines. Within a minute the full force of the storm was upon us. The wind jumped to fifty knots, something we’d only seen one other time, back in the Red Sea. The power was absolutely amazing. It felt as if we were caught inside a tornado. Not a hurricane, because let’s face it, it wasn’t that bad.

I kept the boat pointed straight into the wind while standing outside trying to keep watch. It was raining so hard that I had to turn my head every few seconds to spit out water and take a breath. Ali was standing in the doorway and was as scared as I’ve ever seen her. “Are we okay?” she kept asking me over and over again with a trembling voice. “We’re fine, I promise,” I kept reassuring her while not really sure myself.

Ali grabbed the handheld VHF and immediately heard Maydays going out over the airwaves. The storm had apparently caught everybody off guard. We continued to hold our position, figuring this couldn’t last too long. All we had to do was keep ourselves pointed into it and we’d come out the backside soon enough. Meanwhile things were getting frantic on the radio. A boat had been flipped over about twenty miles south of us and the Coast Guard was scrambling to coordinate a helicopter and ship to perform a grid search for a PIW, person in the water.

After what felt like days the wind started to drop and we began to make our way towards the coast, ready to bail out to Miami if conditions didn’t improve. By the time we were within view of the coast the sky was brightening and the wind had almost completely disappeared. We turned north again for Fort Lauderdale and two hours later were basking in the sunshine as we motored along the coast.

We pulled into Fort Lauderdale around five o’clock and were almost immediately pulled over by some sort of water sheriff. He pulled alongside and asked, just like a cruiser, if this was our boat. We said yes and he then asked if we had an Illinois driver’s license, rambling on about how Illinois required registration of its boats and yet he didn’t see any registration stickers on us.

I didn’t know what he was driving at but found it hard to believe that he had the authority to enforce Illinois State law down here. Ali came outside with our driver’s licenses, at which point he almost seemed disappointed. He explained to us that there are a lot of tax cheats in Florida and then zoomed off. Apparently he had thought he was about to nab himself a real white collar criminal.

We arrived at the marina at 5:20, but being a city marina the employees had disappeared promptly at five. We grabbed a mooring nearby, put the dinghy in the water and headed for shore to celebrate. First we had to make a call to customs. They seemed genuinely shocked that our last port was the Dominican Republic. “You sailed all the way from there?” I know, I thought, that is so far to sail a boat. He asked for our address and phone number but seemed confused by those answers as well. “So you just live on your boat?”

I don’t know if this guy was new to the job or what. He made us feel as if we were the first couple to ever sail into Fort Lauderdale. Eventually he issued us a 24 hour shore pass, but I think he may have red flagged us as well. Something seemed fishy about these sailors.

Nothing appeared to have changed around the marina since the last time we’d been there over three years earlier. We walked to the very same restaurant that we had gone to the day we bought the boat. It seemed like a fitting end to the trip. We ordered steaks, some really good beer, and talked about just how normal everything, including ourselves, suddenly felt.

april 14 2007 : fort lauderdale
Ali is in her element. By that I mean she is on a cleaning frenzy. Actually it appears the boat is in shambles right now, but within 48 hours of arriving here the boat will be nearly completely emptied out. Early yesterday morning we caught the bus out to the airport and picked up a rental car. We went straight to the customs and immigration office where we cleared back in to the United States in about two minutes, no questions asked. From there it was a grand tour of Fort Lauderdale, stopping at all of our old haunts for miscellaneous boat project crap. This included stops at West Marine, Target, Home Depot, various electronics stores, and of course Taco Bell to refuel our bodies. We also found a cheap storage space nearby so that we can unload the boat, which should make the boat projects much easier to accomplish.

april 15 2007 : fort lauderdale
Project Boat Emptying continues with a vengeance. At this point nearly every nook and cranny on the boat has been emptied, a dozen bags of garbage have been carted off, and four trips have been made to the storage locker. It’s all great fun.

We recently found out that the day before the start of the Great Race we are going to get to race around Lowe’s Motor Speedway. They’re throwing some pretty mean restrictions on us to keep things from getting out of hand, but it should be pretty fun nonetheless. I also am going to get to take a few laps as a passenger in an actual NASCAR racecar. I don’t know if I mentioned or not that Ali will be our driver in the race and I’ll be the navigator.

Yes, I’m okay with that, and am actually looking forward to watching Ali take charge behind the wheel, though I have to admit we were both a little concerned when she climbed into the driver’s seat in the rental car the other day. My drivers license is expired so she needed to at least drive us out of the rental agency before we could make the switch. Anyway, she gets in the car, looks around at the various instruments, and says, “I don’t remember how to drive.” We thought long and hard about it and finally came to the conclusion that she hasn’t driven a car since the day we bought the Volvo in New Zealand in November of 2004! She drove the rental car about 100 yards before pulling over and sliding back into the passenger seat. I think we may have to get her a few more hours behind the wheel again before we show up for race day.

april 17 2007 : fort lauderdale
Ali has truly been on a mission the last couple of days. There is not a locker, closet, or room that hasn’t been cleaned from top to bottom and declared off limits to my grubby, oily hands. We are now essentially living in the saloon and out of the car. While Ali continued to make the boat appear brand new today I got down and dirty in the starboard engine compartment. The driveplate needed to be replaced which requires removing the engine, sliding it backwards six inches, replacing the part and then sliding it back on while trying to line up the driveshaft. Amazingly it all went perfectly, though it makes a tremendous mess which I spent hours cleaning up. After two days of engine compartment duties you can now eat off of the floors in either one.

We’ve also been trying to think like a surveyor, which meant it was finally time to strap down those batteries. I always figured that if the boat flipped over we’d have much more to worry about than whether or not the starter batteries had moved or not, especially considering we would no longer be able to start the engines either way.

Aside from boat work we haven’t been up to too much around here. Though last night some old friends of ours took us out to dinner. They figured that we should probably eat something besides Taco Bell, which we have been living off of since our arrival, and took us out for pizza instead. Very nice. It’s strange to get together with people who when we left had no children, and upon our return have two little girls running around. It sometimes feels like nothing at all has changed since we left, but seeing the kids reminds us that time hasn’t completely stood still while we we’ve been away.

april 18 2007 : fort lauderdale
It really is boring to talk about but we have done absolutely nothing but work on the boat since we arrived. It’s amazing the number of small projects that have piled up and that we’ve been perfectly content not to deal with for months or even years. Little things like attaching a new switch to the light in the watermaker closet, fixing the fan in the forward port cabin that we never used, installing a new power outlet for the one that shorted out in 2003, etc. etc..

Then there have been the bigger projects. After calling Nance and Underwood, our riggers, they arrived promptly this morning ready to get that battcar track fixed. I knew it would be a big project for Ali and I but was surprised that it even took two of them nearly the entire day to replace a section of track. They had been surprised that the track had broken, apparently never having seen that happen before, so they were somewhat relieved to discover that the likely cause was as simple as two screw heads corroding and breaking off.

Meanwhile I fixed the watermaker pump. Our friend Kent had taken about ten seconds to discover that the pump was fine but that there was a short in the wiring somewhere. A little digging found the corroded wire. After a quick trip to Radio Shack for a replacement cooling fan, and a few new wiring connections she was good as new. While I spent my day in the wiring, Ali was systematically cleaning rooms. The boat is beginning to resemble a crime scene actually. She would spend two hours emptying everything we own, cleaning the room from top to bottom, then close the door behind her and put a piece of tape across the door which meant, Don’t even think about going in here with your dirtiness.

april 21 2007 : fort lauderdale
I think one of the hardest adjustments we’ve had to make since our return is learning how to drive fast again. By fast I only mean over 35 mph. I am such a slow, old grandma driver now. I’m the person that everyone is honking at as they swerve around us on the highway. When I was in college I had my license revoked after receiving my twelfth speeding ticket. Now I must be Americas most relaxed driver. I couldn’t care less about what time I get somewhere, I just want to take it all in as I drive along. And Ali is no different, if I hit 45 mph she’ll tell me to slow down, “What’s your hurry?”

Our old friend Kent is the greatest trouble shooter of non-functioning boat systems that we’ve ever known. For nearly two years now we’ve had an issue with the starboard engine charging system. Essentially everything would work, but the battery alarm would scream at us the whole time unless we revved the engine up over around 2200 RPM. I tried everything I could think of but was out of ideas back in Egypt. We had friends and Volvo mechanics look at it, with no results. Kent came in, started testing wires, switching things around, replacing fasteners, and casting spells. After an hour he had just about given up and was going to claim that the problem must be the alternator itself when he said, “Let me try one last thing.” Just then another friend showed up and diverted my attention. A minute later Kent called up to me and said to fire it up. I started the engine and was met by nothing but a properly functioning and quiet tachometer. Ali and I both nearly cried in gratitude.

The last few days we’ve managed to finish up most of our boat work and are starting to calm down a bit and have a little fun. The other day our potential buyer came and had a look at Bum and seemed pleased with what he saw. We’ve set up the survey, so hopefully in the next week or so all of this boat stuff will be behind us. Being a long time Bumfuzzle follower he even felt compelled to take us to lunch. Now how many boat sellers get taken out to lunch by boat buyers? It was a fun afternoon.

Then a couple of nights back we drove down to Miami to meet up with a couple of guys who we’ve been exchanging emails with since we were back in the Bahamas a long, long time ago. They had possibly the coolest penthouse condo we’ve ever seen. The condo was great but then they took us out on the roof of the building. There in the heart of downtown was what looked from the outside like an old maintenance shack. We walked over to it and opened the door to reveal “the drinking room.” Inside the room was lined with antique furniture, hundreds of bottles of wine, 300 different bottles of beer, and a fully stocked liquor cabinet. Needless to say a great time was had that night.

Meanwhile back at the boat we’ve met a steady stream of other friends who previously we’d only known through email. It’s been fun reminiscing about the trip with others who seem to know as much about where we’ve been and what we’ve seen as we do. It’s all been sort of surreal actually. I can’t mention everybody on here, so I hope it suffices to say that we’ve really enjoyed meeting all of you and thank you for all of the free meals around town. Because of all of you, Ali and I are well on track towards our goal of never cooking again.

april 24 2007 : fort lauderdale
The other night I was up late working on the computer when I heard the bedroom door being slammed into, followed by Ali racing up the stairs and flinging open the sliding doors to the cockpit. “What the, what, where are, what, where are we, what was that?” She wasn’t fully awake and had been dreaming that our anchor was dragging, despite the fact that we were in a marina slip and there was absolutely no wind. Since we’ve been living on a boat Ali has not had a full nights sleep. She’s always on edge just a little bit and wakes up throughout the night to go outside and check on everything. On the other hand I sleep like a baby through anything and everything, which drives her nuts.

“Hello, BoatUS.”
“Hi, I’m calling to check on the status of my application for insurance.”
“Okay, let me check.” Tap, tap, tap. “I’m sorry your application has been denied due to a lack of boating experience.”
“Seriously? We just sailed around the world.”
“Yes, but it says here that your prior boating experience was limited to a 16 foot fishing boat.”
“Yeah, prior to living on this boat full time for nearly four years and sailing it around the world.”
“Hmmm. So where is this boat coming from?”
“Our last port you mean? The Dominican Republic.”
“That’s outside of the U.S. right? Okay, since this boat has been out of the country I would need a current survey.”
“But we just want liability insurance, what does it matter what the boat is worth if we don’t want you to pay for it? Besides, the only reason I need insurance is in order to be able to get the boat hauled out for a survey.”
“Yes, that is a bit of a problem. I’m sorry I really must have a current survey in order to insure your boat. And even then, with your lack of boating experience I really don’t think we could issue you coverage. Unless, perhaps…have you taken any boater safety courses?”
“Thanks for your help.” Click.

This is why Ali and I never even considered getting insurance for our boat. Who can stand to deal with this? Yet here we are in Florida, unable to have the boat hauled out for a survey unless we have insurance. Good times.

Last night we were having a few drinks on a neighbors boat when their boat broker showed up. They are in the process of buying a catamaran so this guy was from the Catamaran Company. He walked up and before introductions said, “Bumfuzzle, you guys are famous!” He told us, with a chuckle, that there isn’t a person in the catamaran industry who hasn’t heard about our story with Charter Cats. He even went back out to his car for his camera and we all posed on the back of Bum for a picture, “The guys at the office are going to love this.”

april 27 2007 : fort lauderdale
The search for boat insurance was proving fruitless as I called number after number requesting a simple binder or even a year long liability only policy. The boat yards here in Florida demand insurance in order to even enter their yards. Really I can’t blame the insurance companies for not wanting anything to do with us, I mean who wants to insure a boat in Broward County one month before the start of hurricane season?

We told our friend Kent about the problems we were having and he told us to sit tight while he talked to a few people. Ten minutes later he called and told us he had gotten the marina to agree to allow us to simply sign a waiver. No more insurance needed. Bumfuzzle gets to finish her trip insurance free. It sure is nice to have a few connections who can handle all of this boat crap for us.

As of today the boat work seems to be over with. We spent quite a few hours the last couple of days cleaning up the outside of the boat. Mainly buffing the topsides. Since the painting in New Zealand she hasn’t gotten a good cleaning and it had gotten quite a buildup of oxidation. Meaning simply that the boat looked dull. A bottle of 3M compound and a heavy duty buffer took care of that though. Now, after eating lunch you can check your teeth in her shiny gleam.

In addition to all of the boat work we’ve been busy with friends and family. Down at the dock we’ve been surprised almost daily as random strangers have stopped by to say hello after noticing Bumfuzzle tied up. Ali’s parents also arrived in town a couple of days back. When we came to Florida in 2003 we drove down in one of their trucks and then they flew down and drove the truck home when we were done with it. This time they have done the reverse for us and drove the truck down so we can load up our remaining belongings and drive them home ourselves when we’re ready to get out of Florida for good.

So in between boat work we’ve managed to spend a little time relaxing on the beach drinking beer and trying to wash dried gelcoat and epoxy off of our hands and feet while swimming. In fact, despite being 100 yards from the beach for two weeks, yesterday was the first time we touched the sand. My mom also arrived yesterday to help us celebrate this weekend. At this point I don’t think either Ali or I has had time to reflect on exactly what we’ve just completed. We’ve been going non-stop since our arrival to get the boat ready for sale and haven’t talked about the trip at all. It’ll be nice to put Florida behind us so we can relax for a few days.

april 30 2007 : fort lauderdale
Over the weekend we threw ourselves a homecoming party. We bought a bunch of beer, ordered a few pizzas and met a whole bunch of new friends. Some we’ve been talking to by email for years now and others who had never written but still felt like they knew us and stopped by to help us celebrate. Before the party Ali and I were pretty proud of ourselves for managing to completely empty the boat. There wasn’t a morsel of food or a thing to drink. Then everybody started arriving carrying cases of beer, bottles of rum, and boxes of pizza. All of this added to what we had already bought and we suddenly had enough for a week long party and a fully stocked liquor cabinet. This of course all led to a severe lack of picture taking by us. We had a great time and really appreciate all of you taking the time to stop by and crack the champagne with us.

We spent a couple of more days hanging out with our families on the beach and squeezing in more boat work in the early mornings. Even at the dock when you think you’ve finished the boat list a few more things manage to sneak their way in. Little wiring issues, like a light that works one day and then not the next. Or a prop zinc needs replacing, despite the fact that we are in some of the foulest water ever and the last thing I want to do is go diving underneath the boat.

And we’ve been meeting up with still more new friends from the website. In the last two days we’ve met two budding circumnavigators, one was a great girl who at one time spent time living in a teepee in New York, and a couple from Colorado with about as much experience on the water as we once had but who do seem to have plenty of ambition. We are constantly amazed by the broad spectrum of people and lifestyles that we’ve been exposed to because of this trip and the website. It just reiterates to us that you truly can do whatever you want to do with your life.

The survey is tomorrow. We’re feeling pretty good about everything right now. We know that the boat is in awesome shape with only a couple of minor glitches that can be easily worked out by the new owner. In fact Bum hasn’t been in anywhere near this great a condition since at least New Zealand. She really does feel good right now. And since emptying her out the waterline had risen at least four inches. I’m actually a little excited to take her out for the sea trial and see how well she sails now that she is so thin again. Since we are selling the boat on our own I will be doing the captaining duties during the sea trial and Ali will be staying behind at the marina. Since we bought her it will be the first time that Bum has gone out without both of us on her.

Looking ahead to the next adventure my Uncle Ray has been busy getting the Porsche prepped and ready for us to start zigzagging across the country in. We also ordered our Timewise 825 speedometer, which is accurate to 1/100th mph and is considered a must have for all rally racers. Ali and I aren’t taking the race overly seriously, but with a top rookie prize of $50,000 and an overall prize of $200,000 we figure we should probably give it every effort possible. This speedo was ridiculously expensive but when I emailed the company with our credit card information they sent me an email back saying that they would send us the speedometer with an invoice and asked us if we would just pay by check when we received it. We thought that was rather quaint in this day and age. I remember when I was just a little kid and I would save my money for new parts for my bike that I would get to order by C.O.D., but I figured those days were long gone. It’s kind of fun dealing with a company who still realizes that most people are good.