Awe and Fear are Not Opposites

Awe and Fear are Not Opposites

Thunderstorm over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Ormond Beach, Florida. Taken by Jason Weingart.

Thunderstorm over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Ormond Beach, Florida. Taken by Jason Weingart.*

I’ve been thinking about this post for a year now and I still am not sure I can properly convey my experience the night that we sailed back from the Bahamas. After pulling into Grand Cay and taking stock of the up-coming weather, Dan and I quickly realized that we needed to make a choice quickly. That night and the next day were expected to be calm sailing and low waves for the crossing back to Florida but after that we were seeing 2 solid weeks of high wind and waves. We made the decision to head out at once to get back to the States and pulled up anchor before we ever set foot on the island.

We set our course for the Fort Pierce inlet, had some dinner and settled-in for a long night of motoring. The water was glassy and there was not a hint of wind from any direction. Dan took the first watch while I put Carter to bed and tried to get a couple hours of sleep in spite of the rumbling engine. When I woke up and went out, I could tell right away that Dan was not happy. A huge line of thunderclouds had appeared on the swiftly-disappearing horizon.

Typically, Dan loves watching a storm (evidenced by our pictures and video from the inside of a tropical storm at anchor) but the idea of getting struck by lightning in the middle of nowhere on a windless night was really starting to worry him. However, as we were too far from land to outrun the storm or anchor, the only real option was to keep moving and hope that we weren’t struck. (If we had been, we did have back-ups by means of secondary GPS items and physical charts, but we still weren’t relishing the idea of replacing all of our charts or especially the possibility of the engine dying in a strike and stranding us until the wind picked back up.) Dan went down to try to sleep after I assured him that I would wake him if anything serious happened.

Being on a boat at night is very different than during the day. The only light was from the stars and our running lights. The water was still glassy and the wind hadn’t picked-up. It was as if nothing in the world existed in that moment other than our boat and the water. And then came the lightning.

It’s hard for me to put into words the majesty of those few hours I spent watching the storms. One moment, everything was blackness, the entire world consumed by the inky shroud of night and in a single instant the entire sky would be lit up to reveal a monstrous wall of towering clouds stretching the entire width of the horizon in front of us. The dance of lightning strikes jumping from one cloud to another and down to the water’s surface was breath-taking, awe-inspiring, and terrifying all at once. At that moment, more than any other in my life, I was overpowered with reverence for the forces on this planet and the One who created them.

We eventually made it through with no damage to ourselves or our boat by early the next morning and motored through the rest of a calm day to safely enter Fort Pierce inlet, our trip to the Bahamas officially complete. However, those few hours touched my soul in a way that I am pretty confident I will never forget.

 

*While I was too in awe (and afraid of ruining our camera in the pouring rain) to take any pictures, this picture is the closest image I could find to what it looked like that night.

A (Major) Change in Plans

A (Major) Change in Plans

At least we still get the benefit of beautiful sunsets.

At least we still get the benefit of beautiful sunsets.

So…for those of you out there who can do some simple math, it’s been 11 months since my last post. A lot can happen in 11 months and a lot HAS happened since our time in the Hub of Abaco. While I will be revisiting the end of our Bahamas adventure, I had to restart my posts somewhere so I’ll start with a little explanation of where we are today. Many apologies to those of you (there were quite a few!) who were following along with our trip and weren’t sure whether we met a watery end after not hearing from us for a while.

Let me start by saving that we loved our few months of cruising and have absolutely zero regrets about the whole process. The costs were all worth the journey and it was an amazing time together as a family. The water was beautiful, the people were incredible, and we learned a lot about ourselves and each other in a short period of time. The Bahamas will always hold a very special place in our hearts.

However, I’m sure you can hear the “BUT” in my words above. Those of you who have spoken to us recently know that we have settled back into land life and are selling Horizon. There are a lot of reasons why we believed this to be the best choice for us, but here are the big ones:

  1. Cruising is a lonely business. I’m not going to lie, I did not expect loneliness to be an issue for Dan and I. We generally are pretty independent people who aren’t big on crowds. Also, there were generally people around to have great conversation with, cruisers and locals alike. People always talked about how quickly you make amazing friends while cruising, which is SO true, but they somehow forget to mention how quickly you sail away from those friends as well. That constant cycle in just the year and half we lived on our boat moving between marinas and cruising was a lot tougher all three of us than we had ever considered.
  2. This one goes together with number 1, but has to be its own reason. Carter was lonely. Our social butterfly does great with adults, but he thrives with other kids to play with. If it was hard for us to say good-bye to new friends, for him it was like ripping his heart out. As a child of parents who moved every few years, I just couldn’t bear to watch him go through the good-bye process every couple of weeks. It was hard for us to weigh this against the benefit of cruising for him and us as a family, but this one was definitely a major factor.
  3. Carter and I both got seasick…a lot. Short trips were fine but throw in any kind of waves and more than a few hours and all bets were off. This made for a lot of discomfort for Carter and I and plenty of lonely hours at the wheel for Dan. The prospect of sailing farther than the Bahamas in this state just wasn’t super appealing for any of us.
  4. Finally, there wasn’t a particular call for Dan and I to keep going. That may sound like a lame reason to stop, but for us it just made sense. Cruising is not something that we felt like we could keep doing just for the sake of doing it. It is an amazing life-style, but it could be a nightmare if you went into it without enthusiasm.

Will we ever go cruising again? There’s a good chance we will. Or maybe next time we’ll try out an RV or go backpacking across Europe. Honestly, we don’t know. What we do know is that living on Horizon was one of the best things that we have ever decided to do and we wouldn’t change one thing about it.

Follow your Dreams. Follow the Horizon.

A Week in Bimini

A Week in Bimini

Unfortunately, most anchorages in Bimini are only protected from the west...not helpful for us!

Unfortunately, most anchorages in Bimini are only protected from the west…not helpful for us!

We’ve survived our first week as cruisers and so far, we love it! After crossing the Gulf Stream last Saturday, we’ve been (not so) patiently waiting for good weather to cross the Great Bahama Bank in Bimini and exploring the north and south islands to the fullest. While we tried one night at anchor on Monday, with wind from the east and swell from the south, it was just far too uncomfortable to tolerate more than one night. Luckily, Bimini is one of the few areas in the Bahamas where protected anchorages are in short supply so we aren’t anticipating too many nights in marinas past our first week and possibly one night in Nassau.

The nature trail was beautiful!

The nature trail was beautiful!

Does anyone know what lives here? We didn't stick around to find out!

Does anyone know what lives here? We didn’t stick around to find out!

The good aspect to staying at the Bimini Sands Marina on South Bimini was the opportunity for easy walking access to some of the natural areas on the island. On Sunday we decided to walk over to the Bimini Nature Trail on the south island. The scenery was beautiful, complete with ruins back-lit by the setting sun, poison bark trees and a crazy looking hive on the path. We decided to retrace the first half of the trail rather than pass by the hive as we weren’t sure what might be living inside, but Carter was convinced that he could scare off anything that might try to attack.

Do we look younger yet?

Do we look younger yet?

Another fun spot to visit on South Bimini was the Fountain of Youth. The legend goes that Ponce de Leon set out to discover the Fountain of Youth on his voyages, which he had heard would be found in Bimini. He never found it, but we did! A quaint little well in a wooded clearing made for a pleasant outing and a fun history lesson for Carter.

A trip to Bimini wouldn't be complete without a few loaves of Bimini bread!

A trip to Bimini wouldn’t be complete without a few loaves of Bimini bread!

All along Kings Highway were huge piles of discarded conch shells. One man's trash is another's treasure I suppose.

All along Kings Highway were huge piles of discarded conch shells. One man’s trash is another’s treasure I suppose.

Multiple trips were also made into Alice Town and Baileytown on North Bimini. These two small towns were a extreme shock after being in the hustle and bustle of South Florida for a year! It took me a few times of people beeping their horns on the road to realize that they weren’t saying “Get out of the way, $&%*@(*#$!” but rather just honking and waving at friends they saw walking down the street. We became well acquainted with Kings Highway, the one lane (two-way mind you) main road of town, as we searched day after day for a store that had a BTC SIM card in stock for our phone. Just another reminder that things are different in the Bahamas. Luckily, we finally have one working now which should help with our communications and being able to check the weather easier throughout our trip.

Next, we head out for Cat Cay before our trip across the bank. We’re hoping to be in Nassau by Sunday evening and then on to the Exumas assuming the weather cooperates a little better this time around!

Cruising Plans for 2015

Cruising Plans for 2015

We are now official, our boat cards are in!

We are now official, our boat cards are in!

The new year has arrived and we are ready for it! Two years ago when we were first making the decision to delay cruising to establish our rental income, Dan’s brother Kyle encouraged us (forcefully) to set an end-all date: the date at which we would quit our jobs and start cruising, no matter what else had happened. That date was January 1, 2015. Now that we have passed it, there is a constant reminder that the time has come.

We are hoping to be able to head out to the Bahamas sometime in the vicinity of March-April. Dan’s work pays their annual bonus around that time and while we are acutely aware of the fact that there will always be more money if we stay longer, it just makes sense to us to at least cash in on money we’ve already earned before leaving. That, coupled with the chance to have both of our parents come to visit in a relatively easy-to-get-to setting, is what we are basing our timing on at this point.

Once we head out, our tentative plan is to head for the northern Abaco islands as our landing point in the Bahamas and work our way through the chain. We’re hoping to get through the Exumas as well but with hurricane season on the horizon, we’ll have to play everything by ear and keep an eye on the weather for sure. The only solid deadline that we have is August 1. That is the day that Dan’s brother Alex is getting married and all three of us are in the wedding!

With that in mind, we’re hoping to have the boat stored somewhere on the hard for a month or two while we go home. After that our plans are completely fluid. We are essentially waiting to make any other definitive plans until after our time in the Bahamas. Hopefully a lot of our big questions will be answered at that time and allow us to do more in-depth planning. Here are a few of those biggies:

  • “How long do we see ourselves cruising?”
  • “Is our planned budget working for us?”
  • “Are we interested in a large-scale crossing?”
  • “Do we have the right boat for our future goals?”
  • “What changes need to be made to accommodate our cruising style?”

The answers to these questions will have a huge impact on our decisions going forward and our lives in general. Dan and I fully anticipate loving the cruising life-style, but we can’t say that positively because we haven’t tried it of course. We hope that you’ll continue on this journey with us.

 

Have suggestions for beautiful anchorages in the Bahamas that we just shouldn’t miss or a great suggestion for a haul-out facility on the east coast? Leave us a comment below!

Introducing Horizon: Our Irwin 37

Introducing Horizon: Our Irwin 37

Horizon under sailLet me start by saying that I never expected our 100th post to include the introduction of our boat. When we first started almost three years ago, we didn’t really know where to begin. We Learned to Sail the Hard Way and then decided it would be better to just take some lessons. Dan got certified as a Dive Master then Instructor, and we also learned that it’s better to just pretend to be a Rescue Victim. The Search was on for a boat this year but some days it felt like we might never get to this point, especially when we received the call from our broker that the Cabot 36 had sold. With a little luck and a lot of prayer, we’ve made it to the next stage of our journey.

We spent nearly 8 hours in the boatyard this last Saturday looking at boat after boat, but none of them felt like home. That is until we looked at the last one on our list: the Irwin 37 center cockpit. To be completely honest, we had all but written off this boat during our search. Generally, they are known for being a mid-range quality production boat from the 70s and 80s and frankly didn’t have the best online reputation. When our broker mentioned that he had one he would like us to look at, Dan and I basically just did a bit of an eye-roll and shrug “might as well look at it”. Little did we know.

Let me stop here to say that we had a fantastic experience with the broker we used but by request have not listed his name, since he would like to go cruising eventually as well and would prefer not to be known as the “broker guy”. He was extremely professional, very easy to get a hold of, and has a true passion to help people get into boats that they are going to love. His listings are some of the most thorough that we have seen throughout the country. If you are looking for a boat or thinking of selling yours in South Florida,  just shoot us an email through the Contact Us page and we would be happy to recommend him.

As the broker described Tortuga (current name until we can close the deal), the one word he kept using was anomaly. This boat may be nearly 40 years old, but every major system on the boat had been completely redone in the last 3-4 years. New rigging, new masts (its ketch-rigged), new staysail (make that cutter-ketch), brand new full suite of sails, top-of-the-line electronics, new beefy windlass, dodger and bimini, and the list goes on. Over $100k of upgrades and renovations really sweetens the honeypot when our total budget for boat and outfit is only $50k.

What’s the ketch you ask? Okay that was bad. Well, the person who did all of these upgrades (the owner of a major sail maker company we found out later) decided after pouring in all of the money that he actually wanted a bigger boat. So he dumped it before the interior was completely spruced up. Some of the cabinets need to be rehung, the headliner needs old holes filled and painted, the wiring needs to be organized, and some of the plumbing needs help. Luckily, everything that needs to be done are fairly easy and cheap fixes but they currently make the interior somewhat less than desirable to most buyers, especially when compared to what you expect to find after seeing the immaculate exterior. Bad news for the seller, great news for us.

Some people might be wondering right now what happened to our Blue Water Boat criteria? Well, the fact of the matter is, we’ve come to realize like so many others that every boat is a compromise. After seeing what types of boats were available in our price-range we quickly came to the conclusion that the heavily built offshore cruisers just were not going to work for our family. With our short to mid-range plans being to cruise the Bahamas and Caribbean, we believe the Irwin will be a safe and functional home for the three of us. If in the future we decide to head offshore, we will meet that challenge head-on as we always do.

We hope you will continue to Follow the Horizon with us as we continue into the next exciting stage of our journey.