The first day of the rest of our lives.
13 November 2006 | Catamaran Island Resort and Marina
Captain Paul
We are starting our BLOG today. To bring everyone up to speed, here's a brief list of what's happened since we moved on board AngelHeart in June 2002.
We moved AngelHeart to Deltaville, VA to learn how to live on board and how to sail this size boat. MM had no experience sailing and my experience was limited to Hobie Cats of 14' or less. The principals are the same, but the execution is different. For instance, you don't "fly a hull" on a 33' cat like you can on a Hobie. Well, maybe you can, but we try not to!
We left Deltaville to head for FL when the weather started to turn colder. We left too late and froze our buns off through NC, SC, GA and north FL. It even snowed on us in Vero Beach! But it was warmer than anywhere north of there. We sailed to the Bahamas twice and then back to FL. We ran across central FL through the Okeechobee waterway to Ft. Myers Beach. We rode out Francis, Ivan and Jeanne there and in December, sailed with Namaste and Vela Narcosis to Isla Mujeres, arriving on the 9th of December '04. In Feb. '05 we sailed with Miss Jody and Vela Narcosis to Ambergris Cay in Belize and spent 4 months there among the pristine waters and beautiful cays. in April, we sailed with Wayward Wind to Guatemala to establish a marina slip for the upcoming hurricane season. We then went back to Hunting Cay for a short visit with our Grandson, Cobi and then returned to Guatemala for the summer. Cobi spent a short while with us in Deltaville, and since then has spent about 6 weeks with us during the summers of '04, '05 and '06 in the Bahamas, Belize, Guatemala and the Bay Islands of Honduras. This past February '06, we motored to Utila in the Bay Islands of Honduras and spent almost 5 months there and in Roatan. In July '06, we returned to Rio Dulce to wait out the hurricane season (which thankfully hasn't been as bad as predicted).
So that's where we've been and where we are now. On Wednesday, AngelHeart will be hauled out of the river to have her bottom painted and some mechanical work done to the engine and drive system. When she's splashed again, well, we don't know exactly, but the plan (as much as one can plan in this life) is to sail back to the Bay Islands of Honduras and then in March, to Panama to see what's down there.
We will be adding pictures of where we've been and where we are as time goes on.
We hope that our adventures will be an inspiration to each of you who see this to turn your focus to the future and an active retirement. Your dream may not be a salboat in the Caribbean, but whatever it is, go for it, or as Larry the Cable Guy says "Git 'er done!"
As this is our first venture into a BLOG, we don't know what we are doing or how it will turn out, but then that's how we got into sailing, and that's turned out OK, so we have hope that this adventure will also.
Take care and watch this space for updates.
Captain Paul & Admiral Mary Margaret