St Augustine, May 7, 2021

The time has come to end this leg of our journey.   Hurricane season is quickly approaching and we have to get back to Ohio for adulting.   Afterall we have two careers to navigate, two graduations, perhaps a new apartment and another move to endure.  

First thing first we have to prepare the boat for hurricane season.  We opted to have her hauled out and strapped down to the ground.   Seems like the logical choice since we will be over one thousand miles away and can not check on her for the next six months.    How does one prepare for a boat for a hurricane?   Honestly we really do not know, seems smart to remove everything that can get blown off.  We randomly removed items from the deck in an effort to keep them safe in the event of a hurricane.   

The biggest issue we have been told was to combat mold and insects.   A quick trip to the store allowed us to purchase as much vinegar, damprid and roach traps that we could carry.  This prepared us for the next two days of 100 degree tourture.    Apparently, mold is worse then a hurricane, it leaves you with a black gross mess while a hurricane just removes the boat from existence and you get a nice insurance check in the end.  The next two days we just spent cleaning and then covering every surface of the boat with vinegar.  If you want to experience this level of torture take a huge cardboard box, place it in the middle of the yard in direct sun  on a 100 degree day.  Next crawl inside said box with a spray bottle full of vinegar and a rag and randomly spray the sides until you can no longer see, smell or taste anything other then vinegar.   Do this process over and over from sunrise to sunset for two days.    

We orginally planned to stay on the boat on the hard each night after working all day.   That idea sounded less appealing after the first day so we opted to get a hotel instead.  It was after all located right beside our favorite taco place.  As luck would have it our hotel only provided a hot water shower.   After taking cold showers most of the last two months a hot water only shower was not so appealing after spending the day in 100 degree heat killing ourself.  Yeah – true story.  So, after two scalding showers, we were off to grab our tacos only to realize it was closed.  Our lives really are insane.  Anyway, most couples spent a week doing what we crammed into 2 days.  It has taken us a couple days to recover.  We are hoping this is enough to keep the mold at bay through the season and if not we can always hope for a hurricane.  

Back to the haul out pit from Hell

Hope it is here when we come back.

All secured until November!

May 3, 2021, St. Augustine Municipal Marina Moorning

We have had a great time so far on this trip and I have learned to tie us off to a cleat, catch a mooring ball, and I am now the Vanna White of anchoring.  However, I have failed since I have yet to drive the boat.  The currents and tides have been insane in Georgia & northern Florida so Ron has literrally taken the helm for all of this.  We have traversed the intercoastal north to Jekyll Island, stayed and hiked Cumberland Island, stayed in Fernandina Beach, then worked our way back to haul out the boat.  

I am grateful we have done well since when we saw a boat came in last night they were completely de-masted.  From what I now know, when you get demasted, you must cut the mast off and let it go into the water, remove the sail first and try to save that, and apparently, we own the tool to do that in case it happens to us.  I cannot imagine but I know Ron was very afraid of this as we traversed the intercoastal bridges since we were VERY close on a few.  In fact, one we scrapped our antennae!  It is a $30K-$50K repair and they had a 42 foot Lagoon.  I felt so bad for them…until…they took the only place we could have taken our boat this evening to get our haul out done tomorrow.  Ugh.  Of course.

Ron is very stressed about the haul out and frankly, I don’t blame him.  Guess we will just see how it goes.

Demasting sucks I bet.

We ran out of beer and made a sign