Out On Our Own

1.29.10

Today we decided to brave the waters of the Atlantic all on our own; well almost. My friend Chelsea (the brave soul that she is) decided to put her life in our hands and come along for the ride! So, armed with Dramamine and crossed fingers, we headed out for the day.
After a great day of sailing on smooth waters, we decided to head back in. After a near miss with an extremely large barge and with temperatures dropping steadily at the same rate as the wind, we decided to motor the remainder of the way down the ICW - but the boat had other plans. The day would have been deemed a success had the batteries not decided to die and the engine, in turn, would not turn on. It was quickly becoming dark and we were sailing blindly down the narrow intercoastal - no instruments, no lights, no motor, no experience. great
After some skillful sailing maneuvers (by yours truly) and lots of praying all the way down the ICW to the entrance of our marina, the motor miraculously turned over and we were able to dock without incident.
Hopefully Chelsea was impressed by our amazing sailing skills and will agree to come back out another day. :)

Maiden Voyage

1.27.10

We started this adventure last night, thinking that it would be an excellent idea to sleep on the boat for the first time on, coincidentally, the coldest night of the year thus far. Oops - bad planning on our part. It was FREEZING!! And we were afraid to keep the battery charger and heater on all night for safety's sake - come to find out, there is no danger in doing either. Thank God our 70lb lab was there to sleep under the covers and provide some extra heat!
Today was our first day out sailing our new boat! We had our sailing instructor come down and take us out on our own boat to make sure we were comfortable with all the nuances of the new boat. We motored out of the marina and up the ICW (Intercoastal Waterway, for you newbies like us!) towards the St. John's River. It was extremely cold and windy and within minutes we could not feel our fingers or noses.
The St. John's was very rough and the water traffic was heavy that day. Tony (out instructor) was very informative and helped us navigate through. Our first real roadblock came at the mouth of the river where a large barge was coming in and the 4foot chop of the ocean was tossing our little boat around like it was a fiberglass stick. For our first trek out into the ocean, it was quite treacherous!
The boat bobbed up and down continuously until Brad and I were both heaving over the back end! That embarrassing moment behind us, we took control again and maneuvered the boat out into the ocean and successfully back down the River.
No other eventful moments occurred while we were out, but stay tuned for more exciting stories!!