mullerb's musings

With covid putting a crimp on international travel for late 2021, we opted for Plan B: spend the winter living on a boat. So we squeezed a year’s worth of boat buying into a couple of months and sailed off from Annapolis, Maryland on November 29 on SV Carina, a 2005 Island Packet 370. ( #sailingsvcarina ) She’s a beast for 37’ with a cutter rig and and a full keel. The motion of the ocean is where she’s happy and safe. We spent December and January heading south on the Intercoastal Waterway with a few coastal passages, getting aligned with Carina and getting her into cruising mode. By mid-February we replaced most of the aging equipment in need, added some solar and got our new foresails. A hop across the Gulf Stream brought us to Bimini and the Bahamas. We’ll keep working at refining this cruising lifestyle while exploring these islands this spring. Then back to Florida to put her on the hard for the summer and hurricane season while we go back to the mountains for some solid earth ad

6 days on Argo II, a 1991 Island Packet 32 chartered from Southwest Florida Yachts in Cape Coral, Florida, December 26 - January 1 2015. With the usual suspects (Rachel, Kelly, Leah) plus Andrew, Kelly's boyfriend. Arrived the afternoon of Friday, Dec 26 after a red eye flight out of Denver in the midst of a snow storm.  Happy to have made it to the airport without a hitch having seen multiple cars in the ditch along the way. Andrew flew in from San Fran earlier that eve and met us at Gate B36 for that 1:20am departure to tropical warmth. Provisioning in a Florida Publix sure is easier than in the BVI. Though it does gum things up when your credit cards fail. Note to self: always inform your banks when you plan to travel. After stocking the boat, we had a great sea food feast at the local Pinchers Crab Shack. Great facilities and nice folks at SFYachts and at the Tarpon Marina.  Day 1: Tarpon Marina to Roosevelt Channel, ~4 hrs of motoring, anchored off Picnic Island f