Transitioning back to boat life has been pretty easy. The kids are happy—Lowe has said for years that he wanted to live on a boat, as he doesn’t really remember the last boat, other than through pictures. It rains like crazy in Florida this time of year, but the boat is totally dry inside, so Ali is happy. It seems almost absurd to have a dry boat. And my to-do list is entirely manageable, so I’m happy as well.
We’ve got music, beer, and tacos. Life is good.
If we gave each kid their own dinghy, and ten gallons of gas per day, we’d never see them.
We were up on deck watching as this beauty came into the marina channel. It promptly got caught by the current, thrown sideways, and grounded in the mud when the captain couldn’t get it under control and drifted out of the channel. Not exactly the way you want to show up to the marina. No wonder he side-tied to the dock and left an hour later. It was funny to see the local teak guy standing outside their door five minutes after they pulled in. I was commenting to the kids how beautiful it was, but the only thing they could talk about was the ladders going up to the mast spreaders. Coolest thing ever.
Nothing like having an anchor delivered in a box right to your door. We went with a Mantus anchor. Sixty-five pounds should keep us sleeping soundly at night. Can’t tell you how happy I am that anchoring technology has finally moved on from the Bruce and CQRs that you could never entirely trust.
The new kitchen in action. The only thing we’ve done is put a new faucet in and cleaned off all the old pictures from the walls. Everything connected to the walls in this boat is done so with some kind of crazy industrial strength double-sided tape. And for an eight ounce picture frame the previous owners decided that all four edges should be covered in it. It eventually comes off clean, but nobody on this boat has any fingernails left.
Two-hundred feet of old chain. Some bits are in good shape, other bits are looking pretty rusty. We’re replacing it all. The windlass is a big beautiful beast that works great. I’ll pull it apart and lube it up eventually, but for now we’re happy to see it working so well.
We drove down the coast a bit to Flagler beach. Along the way we passed about a thousand houses with blue tarp roofs. Florida’s official roofing material from the looks of things. Man, we barely even got hit by Irma—hard to imagine what it would have looked like around here if it had come right up the east coast.
22 Comments on “Sliding Back Into Boat Life”
The next chapter is shaping up to be fantastic!
Hi..
We have had a GB42 for 10 years after 40 years of sailing and love it. We bought the Mantus 65 four years ago and love it. It held in a 65 knot squall at Block Island and in tornado warning squalls in Lake Okachobee. We have all chain. We have pulled the boat for the winter in Connecticut but plan to do the ICW next fall. The IAGBO is the go to source for all things GB. Good luck.
More pictures of the Black Knight (enough room for a family reunion 🙂 http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?75598-Black-Knight
Awesome Yacht! (Boat)
For your anchor chain consider Maggi Chain (Italian made). The US distributor/warehouse is in Dania Beach (a short road trip for you guys! or will ship). After 2 years, ours still looks new even with nearly daily use & was even less expensive than ACCO chain. Our last chain was so rusted after 3 years that we had to bash apart with a hammer!
Continued luck with the Boat Gods!
I grew up in the Puget Sound out of Anacortes. From my first memory of boating every summer, while my dad was finishing anchoring and watching for drift I would be launching our 10′ hardshell fiberglass dinghy mounting my 1940s era 1-1/2 hp Evinrude grabbing my BB gun and pfft..gone until dark, or just before. The life.
Nice choice on mantus. You will love it. I have anchored over 100 times in the 2 years of having mine and 100.00 % of time so far it’s drop, back down into an instant set, and forget about it. No drama.
Last time Pat bought 300 feet of stainless chain, Ouest was very happy with it after Pat spent a day cleaning it up after dropping it to the bottom of the SF Bay: https://www.bumfuzzle.com/Pictures_2011/2011_04/Daily%20Apr30%203b.jpg
Here is a picture of the chain two years later: https://bumfuzzle.com/BoatForSale/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Jan13-71.jpg
I laughed hard at that VW because the last VW I owned did catch fire. I was wondering why people kept honking at me…
And try the Mantus dinghy anchor. Amazing how strong the tiny thing sets. No affiliation.
Just curious, why did you pick the Mantus over the Rocna? I think I remember you posting a while back that the Rocna would be your next anchor. Also, love the fridge latch. Looks like something from an old ice box. Solid. No plastic crap on that boat. I’ve had both sailboats and trawlers and I can tell you that traveling by trawler is so much more enjoyable. Traveling by trawler is all about the travel, traveling by sailboat is mostly about the boat. As you know as well as anyone.
I’m jealous you have yuengling with your tacos!
A real fun place to go to eat is at Crabby Joe’s in New Smyrna/South Daytona beach. http://www.crabbyjoesdaytona.com/
You can drive your car on the beach (for miles and miles) from Ormond Beach at hwy 40, you’ll have to get off for a few blocks around Main street in Daytona Beach but you can get right back on at International Speedway blvd. It’s $5.00/day to get on the beach with your car.
The restaurant itself it quite unique and fun. It’s located in the middle of a fishing pier. You can see fisherman passing thru the restaurant pulling their gear. You can fish there too if you’d like. I think it’s $1.00 a day or so. On good days there are a lot of surfing going on there too.
If you don’t want to drive on the beach you can take A1A all the way down. There is parking available.
I hope you get to go. It’s fun.
Love the bug. To quote an old Click and Clack car talk show, “There are two types of VW Bugs: Those that have caught fire and those that will”. The fuel line running next to the distributor cap proved to be problematic for some.
We used to keep a fire extinguisher in ours. We also kept a bag of marshmallows in case the extinguisher wasn’t enough
Mark and Cindy
Go get’em tiger(s). looking forward to seeing those young’ns grow …. when they can dive down to 60′ and wave to divers (to their amazement ) it will simply make your day!
Blessings to you and yours,
scott
Boat looks great!
We also have an Ideal windlass. Great piece of kit. The company was acquired by Schaeffer Marine in New Bedford, MA, but the main guy from Ideal was still with them when I called him a year or so ago. I found him to always be very helpful on the phone if I had any questions.
My favorite boating quote, “Sometimes you’re the audience; and sometimes you’re the show.”
Quest, motoring up to the Gate station.
here in Melbourne beaches really got hit with seaweed – takes away from beauty of the beaches not sure what the plan is to deal with this problem – high tide may not solve this problem- life is still good of course! great pictures! Steve Shokopee Woodbury eau Claire and of course MONDOVI wisc!
So happy for y’all. It’s been a long time since I wrote… life happens. GB42 looks amazing. Went out in a trawler a few months ago, got sick ? from the exhaust fumes, but it is so comfortable. AC, so much room compared to the sailboat, but also more unstable than my Catalac Catamaran… funny after all the problems you had with your Wildcat, I still flirt with the idea of upgrading to one… Well, I sailed from St Thomas back to my home town of Gulf Shores, AL… an Atlantic Crossing, and then a Gulf Crossing, and now back home asking myself exactly what you and Ali asked yourself… what next…. I really appreciate your blog and comments, and would love to be a part of the financial group… I particularly clung to not fully being able to start a new journey until I fully let go of the old… thank you so much! I love your transparency and your willingness to share your life with us. I want to be able to do that…
You’ll like that anchor. We had a 33# Rocna and slept well at night with blows off Port Townsend! Once in the San Juans we were having tranny problems and Kevin dropped that anchor 3x and it stuck fast every single time! Had an anchor watch app we turned on in blows and never budged!