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A Christmas Meal with Grilled Fish at Sea

Posted on by by Posted in Caribbean Islands, Florida, Sailings

Before my trip, a friend gave me a book ‘Sailing a Serious Ocean’ (Author: John Kretschmer). By reading it and other books, I learned it takes a lot to sail cross an ocean. I am relatively new here but in my mind, I was ready for sailing blue water. Last summer, we spent five months for boat maintenance and enhancement projects. By putting lots of effort into the boat, John trusts his boat even more. I trusted his sailing and survival skills. I decided to be fearless. We set sail with light wind heading East. At the beginning it was as if the boat was gliding with two wings.

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Christmas Dinner at Sea?

Posted on by by Posted in Florida, Sailings

Invitations are open to whales, sea turtles, dolphins, and Mother Nature…

We are almost ready to leave the USA. We plan to sail directly east to Longitude 65 from Stuart. (Some call this route ‘I-65’). Then, going south to Saint Martin. That way, we don’t have to struggle with the wind direction in the Bahamas. This will take about two weeks. We will go everywhere ‘With a Strong Will to Live’. Wish us fair wind and calm sea! Merry Christmas!
The main reason we stopped by Stuart was to meet a professional (from Mack Sails) to go over new installations on the boat.

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‘Viva’ Holiday Spirits in Saint Augustine

Posted on by by Posted in Florida, Sailings

The wind led us celebrate Thanksgiving in Saint Augustine, VERY OLD city. Wandering the city with the crowd, it is as if I came to Europe. I am thankful for this journey. Unexpectedly and painfully, we are staying St Augustine an additional two weeks to replace an anchor windlass system. When we were ready to leave, we struggled with releasing/lifting the anchor chain. Then, the old windlass system broke a gear off inside. Without a windlass, we cannot anchor the boat. While waiting for a new one (92 pounds), we found a local wood worker (for a new teak wood base) and local stainless machinist (for frame cover).

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A Near Miss During the Night

Posted on by by Posted in Florida, Sailings

We woke up to this shrimp boat which washed up on the beach during the night in Amelia Island, Florida. The boat was CHAINED to a fellow shrimp boat, and according to the owner, someone cut the chains—someone must really not like that guy. The prevailing winds and tide washed the boat across the channel and onto the beach while we were sleeping. The shrimp boat passed aft of us and in front of another anchored sailboat, thankfully missing us both.

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Night Sailing and 675 Pounds of Paper a Year

Posted on by by Posted in Florida, Sailings

During a pitch dark sky, a crescent moon arose around 4 A.M. while sailing from Charleston to Fernandina Beach. John did most of the night watch on his BIRTHDAY. (We celebrated it with pineapple cake later.) When I was on duty, I set my timer every eight minutes and went out to check if there are any other ships nearby and things are okay. In eight minutes the boat travels about 1 mile. The sky was dark and the ocean was darker but I enjoyed watching many stars. John enjoyed the speed of sailing and sound of water splashing by the boat.

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Timing was good! Met friends in Charleston.

Posted on by by Posted in Carolinas

Sailing involves waiting, especially for good wind. The wind was awesome sailing down to Charleston but cold weather tortured us. Even worse, the sky was gray all day with no sunshine to warm us up. If you factored in the wind chill, it was 20 something Fahrenheit at sea the whole time we were sailing for 50 nautical miles from dawn to dusk. Having this experience, we decided to skip our next stop, Beaufort, South Carolina and go to Florida sooner.

Charleston brought me some more history lessons. The old city is well preserved with few gift shops,

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Total Body Workout in Georgetown, the Third Oldest City in South Carolina

Posted on by by Posted in Carolinas

Lots of walking to RadioShack, an Urgent Care Center, MacDonald’s (for free Wi-Fi) and other stores (for boat repair items). Luckily, we found a universal charger for a laptop which was broken a couple of days ago. We have four laptops and an iPad but all need different chargers. We also walked to an urgent care center and John paid $130 (without insurance) prior to seeing a doctor. Since the doctor didn’t do anything to solve his problem, he asked for money back from the doctor but the doctor walked away (another long story). He is extremely unhappy with the health care system in the U.S.

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‘Yes’ to Adventure and to Life, behind of a Flock of the Boats

Posted on by by Posted in Carolinas, Sailings

Finally, our sailing has begun on Monday, November 3, 2014. The first route is from Morehead City, North Carolina to Saint Martin. We plan to stop at many different locations on the East Coast of the U.S. We are about two weeks behind (weather wise) of the original schedule, due to the delay of the work on the boat. (We spent last 4+ months on boat work.) In general, most of the boats from North leave in October to head South, mainly to Florida, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean to avoid sailing in cold weather. Because we are behind of a flock,

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Minimalist with Comfort on ‘S/Y Bad Bunny’

Posted on by by Posted in Sailings

I am officially retired (early) since June 2014 from a job as a Computer Programmer, to pursue my real dream ‘Living close to nature and loving all I can.’

The Sailing Yacht ‘Bad Bunny’, a Valiant 47 built in 1992! It has been my new home since June 21, 2014 after driving 14 hours from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Morehead City, North Carolina where ‘Bad Bunny’ was. I brought my cat ‘Sesame’ with me joining the other two cats ‘Enemy’ and ‘Swat’. There are three cats and two people (John and myself) on board.

Because of a limited space,

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Perez Art Museum Miami

Posted on by by Posted in Florida

Perez Art Museum Miami (Driving Time from Fort Lauderdale: 40 Minutes): New addition in South Florida. PAMM was first opened in December 2013. The building was designed by architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron who attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. They were inspired by Stiltsville, a small community of houses on posts in Biscayne Bay. This building is eco-friendly and collects and recycles rainwater for the gigantic hanging gardens. The concrete floors, which are strong but lightweight, are filled with big plastic balls (acting like bubbles) that are not solid but hollow.

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