Reflections

Reflections   …   Monday 3rd December 2012

This afternoon we arrived at the Loggerhead Marina, Vero Beach where we will be docked for the next 3 to 4 weeks. We think of our shakedown cruise up to Maine as the first phase of the "Big Year" and reaching Vero Beach constitutes the end of our trip down the east coast and completes the second phase of the "Big Year". We left East Greenwich, RI on Friday 28th September and have covered about 1500 statute miles in just over 9 weeks - including the week we were pinned down at River Dunes by Hurricane Sandy. One immediate thought - this is not a quick way to travel - we probably could have been here sooner if we'd come on our bicycles! But there again, speed was never the objective. In terms of stats, we have now logged 89 days with > 4 hours of sailing / motoring and a further 52 days aboard where we didn't go very far, since we launched Cotinga. I'm happy to see there are more days when we travelled as these figures will become important when we try and get our 100 ton license. Back in September Gloria's brother Paul asked us how we rated our cruise up to Maine on a scale of 1 to 10. I replied 7 and Gloria 5 - I think she really didn't like the excitement of the lobster pots! I asked Gloria that same question today about our trip down the coast and she replied 7 possibly 8 out of 10. There have been some ups and downs so I was quite surprised and impressed with this scoring. She did go on to say that she believes she is very influenced by the weather and today has been an absolutely stunning day. This brings me on to the question of weather and timing. It's a real balancing act because in some ways you would like to start the journey south earlier in the year to avoid the cold weather, but you can't leave too early because of hurricanes. We did encounter some really cold days and also dodged a hurricane - so our timing was probably about right! As planned, we did part of the journey off the coast and part in the inland waterways. We did more motoring than I expected, but a fair bit of that was motor sailing, in particular using the genoa in conjunction with the engine seems to be an effective way to cover ground in the confined areas of the ICW. It has been an interesting challenge and mostly fun to build knowledge and experience about the boat and sailing in general. As one of our friends Lynn pointed out, it's difficult to leave your former job where you were relatively expert and become a beginner again and accept that you are going to make mistakes. Before we set off people told us that we would meet and make friends with other cruisers, but somehow I just couldn't imagine this. It turned out to be true and one of the real pleasures of the past few weeks has been making new friends and continuing to bump into people along the way. For example, yesterday we had just completed a brief VHF call with another boat that was about to pass us when the radio jumped to life again with a call from Dave and Alex on 'Banyan'. We met initially at River Dunes and then again in Southport, NC. Yesterday, they heard our radio call and realized they were just a couple of miles ahead of us. With luck we will catch up with them tomorrow. As the months have passed it has started to dawn on me that I won't be going back to AstraZeneca and I feel more sad about that now than I did 6 months ago. It was a central part of our lives for so long (24 years) and I really miss the people. A number of people have said to us that it is a great thing to be doing this while we are still young. Yes Tasha - we are still young - it's all relative!  We were chatting to one of the guys who works at the marina. He told us he spent 10 years living aboard a boat with his wife before moving back to land. Sadly she died some 5 years ago, but he is still thankful that they did what they did when they could. You just never know. And on the question of relationships - perhaps the major success of the past 4 months is that Gloria and I are still talking to each other … or at least those strange grunts that pass for conversation!

We will tell you more about our current location tomorrow, but before I finish I did want to comment on our docking experience - as this is an area that hasn't always gone well! We first pulled in to the fuel dock to top up with diesel and use the pump-out. This went just fine and also gave us the opportunity to take a quick walk to view our slip assignment and plan the docking. Then we motored around to the space, took into account the light breeze and limited turning space, came to halt using reverse, pivoted in forward, reversed a little, then more forward pivoting until we were lined up and backed in cleanly to our appointed slip. It's only fair to say that these were ideal conditions but nonetheless it went great. We are learning!

Mike

27 41 28.6 N, 80 23 41.7 W