Sea Scouts Summer Trip: Day 3

This day began early. Edon, Theo, and I woke up at 4am to begin our watch. Despite some light cloud cover, there were still many stars visible. I could even see the Milky Way. Within the first few minutes of gazing upward, a bright shooting star shot past. I may have seen two dimmer ones as well, but I can’t be sure. The 4 am watch isn’t bad because you get uninterrupted (theoretically) sleep leading up to it and then you get to see the night sky followed by a sunrise during the shift.
After changing out of my pajamas, I continued watching the stars and then worked on yesterday’s blog.
The plan for the day is to leave at 7am and head straight to Marathon Key. Ideally, we will arrive at a marina there around 4pm. There will be real showers and toilets and everyone is looking forward to a watch-free night of sleep, since the boat will be in a slip at the marina.
We actually arrived much earlier than anticipated and spent time refueling the boat and emptying the waste holding tanks before moving into our slip. Edon did an amazing job pulling the boat up to the fueling station and then into our slip. After that, Edon refilled the water tanks while everyone else went swimming at the marina pool.
After showers most of us walked down the busy highway toward a restaurant Nick wanted to eat at that has sushi. The wait was long for a table, 45 minutes to an hour. While waiting we walked a bit further down the highway checking things out. While exploring we came across couple of hotels, several trailer parks, restaurants, and chickens. We headed back to the restaurant only to find the wait time had been way underestimated.
Around 8:20pm I had to head back to the marina to start laundry. Everyone was still waiting to be seated when I left. Apparently the host forgot about them and it wasn't until 8:35pm that they settled on taking a table in muggy humid outdoors so they could finally eat.
This was mostly a travel day, and tomorrow we start heading back. Charlotte has plans for stops every couple of hours to go snorkeling. I am definitely looking forward to that, despite my leaky mask.

Sea Scouts Summer Trip: Day 2

I woke up throughout the night, but did get sleep between 1:45am when I went to bed and 6:55am when I got a text from my husband that woke me up for good. Our dear, sweet bunny apparently got eaten last night. I got up,and crying, went to tell Edon and Ezi. They took it very well. I am so glad we weren’t home and am so sorry John had to deal with that sad and terrible thing.
Now that it was light we could see that the protected area we had anchored at was near a lighthouse. Supposedly it was just outside No Name Harbor. We had made it pretty much to our desired destination after all.
The path to our next stop, Christ of the Abyss, was to the south. Since our course took us directly into the wind, we couldn’t put up the sail. Throughout the day we were amazed by the stunning and various blues of the clear water. None of our cameras could pick up what our eyes could see, which is too bad. The colors ranged from a deep purple to an electric turquoise and everything in between.
Our progress was slower than anticipated because we were traveling south against the Gulf Stream. Due to shallow and protected waters of the National Park to the west, we had no choice but to travel against the current of the Gulf Stream. Around 2pm we arrived at the snorkel site and found an empty mooring ball to attach to the boat. Christ of the Abyss is a statue, about 14 feet tall, that is in a coral reef. After donning our snorkel masks, fins, snorkels, and snorkel vests we each found a buddy and headed toward the statue.
The reef was covered in different types of coral, including large purple fans that swayed in the currents. Colorful fish of all sizes swam singly and in groups. I had purchased a new snorkel mask prior to the trip, but hadn’t had time to test it out prior to departure. Unfortunately, it leaked and I kept having to stop and empty it as we worked our way toward the statue. My dive partner, Sam, dove down toward the statue. Her ears hurt her when she surfaced and we had to make our way back to the boat. I did get to dive down toward the statue before heading back, though. Back on the boat the kids jumped off the side into the water and I tried various combinations of snorkels and straps with my mask to see if I could find a functional pairing. But, no. The mask just leaked.
Sue and Jeanne cooked dinner, hamburgers and fries, as we motored onto our next anchorage site, Rodriguez Key. It was a mostly uneventful trip, except that the kids one time missed the cut over to the channel and had to make a small course correction to avoid several shallow reefs in the area. Once successfully anchored at Rodriguez Key, the kids played in the water until dinner time. It was Nick's birthday and we brought out a chocolate cake to celebrate. After this, I did the dishes, with some assistance from Edon. Several of the kids stayed up to play cards, but at 9pm I headed to bed. My next watch shift would begin at 4am and I was anxious to get to bed so I could get some sleep.

Sea Scouts Summer Trip: Day 1

Despite waking up before 5 am, it took the boys and I until 7:30am to leave the house for our summer sailing trip. Two boys from Sea Scouts carpooled with us to Fort Lauderdale. Ezi, Nick, and Theo sat in the backseat and watched 21 Jump Street followed by 22 Jump Street.
We didn’t arrive at the yacht charter in Fort Lauderdale until noon, an hour late. Everyone else going on the trip was already at the boat by the time we belatedly showed up. Since the boys and I had already purchased some of the food for the trip, everyone helped unload the provisions from our car to the boat. Then, most of us headed to Publix to get the remaining provisions and lunch.
Olivia, Charlotte, Ezi, and I were in charge of securing the remaining food while everyone else got the 60 gallons of drinking water we anticipated needing for the next 5 and a half days.
It was a bit stressful and a bit entertaining filling 3 grocery carts to the brim with food.
After the shopping trip, a predeparture walk through of the boat was required. Edon, Doug, and Charlotte spent a very long time getting all of the information needed to help us sail this particular vessel safely for the next few days.
While they were occupied, Sue, Jean, and I worked on trying to figure out how to store $800+ worth of food into 2 mini fridges, a mini freezer, and random cupboards aboard the catamaran. By purchasing ice and storing the fruits and veggies in two coolers we had brought along we managed to fit everything somewhere.
Doug, Charlotte, and Edon finished the required info session with the charter company reps and we left the slip at 4:50pm. This time being much later than ideal.
Sailing out of the intercoastal and into the Atlantic was uneventful, luckily. We were delayed a further 30 minutes during this portion of trip because a bridge we needed to pass under only opened at specified times, and we had to circle around waiting for it to open.
Unfortunately, the wind was out of the wrong direction to make using the sail as an effective means of travel, so we had to use the motor as we cruised south past Hollywood and Miami.
Some minor storms with some exciting lightning were occurring around us, but did not affect us. It was beautiful to sail past the lights of Miami Beach at sunset and everyone was content.
According to the watch/chores list Sam, Olivia, and Charlotte had to cook dinner. Several people had wanted chicken and broccoli and we agreed this would be a fairly easy meal to make. The girls accidentally purchased too much chicken at the store and since we could only use two burners at a time to cook the chicken, it ended up not being an easy meal at all. It was nearly 11pm by the time all the chicken was cooked and the dishes washed. The broccoli was grilled, although that too was a challenge as the grill ran on a small propane canister and didn’t get very warm very quickly. The boys and I subbed vegan hot dogs on the grill for the chicken. Dinner was delicious, so that helped make up for the long hours put in cooking.
We didn’t make it to No Name Harbor, our intended destination, because we came upon a calm place with several other boats anchored in it and decided to drop anchor there. This was around 10pm.
After dinner and dishes we had a meeting about the importance of anchor watch and found out which crew members would be on anchor watch throughout the night. During the meeting there was suspicion that we were perhaps already dragging anchor. As the meeting adjourned, Theo and I, now officially on watch decided that indeed we were dragging anchor. So before anyone could actually make it to bed we had to pull the anchor up and reset it. Theo and I also got everyone to help us relocate the water that had been put in one of the heads into the crew cabin at the front of the boat.
A few people chose to stay up, but most drifted off to sleep in various locations around the ship. Some in berths, and a few thinking the berths too hot, on the trampoline at the bow of the boat or somewhere else on the deck. Theo, Edon, and I exhaustedly concluded our watch at 1:30am without any further complications.

Day 26-28: Driving, Denham Springs, LA, Driving, and Home!

The last days of this trip were spent driving from Texas to Florida, with a nice and restful break for a day with friends in Louisiana. Our friends own a yoga studio in Denham Springs and the morning after we arrived Edon and I went with our friend, Carl, to his morning yoga class at the studio. The class was just perfect after spending so many days in the car and hiking!
It was pouring rain during the class and several of the roads of the town were flooded by the time we left. The rain let up shortly afterwards and by the afternoon things had turned muggy and hot. We were surely back in the South. The boys and I enjoyed having the time to catch up with our friends and playing with their super cute son. We all had wonderful day.
We drove from Denham Springs back to our house the next day. It was a mostly uneventful drive, although we did hit a tremendous downpour that lasted way longer than I would have like. A short stop was made at my sister's house in Gainesville for dinner. It was about 10pm when we arrived home. John was standing outside to meet us and had a second dinner waiting for the boys.

According to the odometer we had driven over 8,050 miles on this trip!!