It has now been one month since we ended our 1.5 year sailing journey in Jacksonville, Florida and became temporary land lubbers....As you can see from the latest pics in our photo gallery, over the past four weeks, we did a few repairs, went up the mast, threw a "welcome back" happy hour and then hauled Lucky Escape out of the water at our favourite Sadler Point Marina for her centerboard repair + a servicing of our engine (new heat exchanger needed).

The mystery of what happened to our centerboard has been solved by Kenny, the marina fiberglass expert who is making us a new centerboard (and used to make centerboards for Wellington Boats, Inc.). Although the centerboard was strengthened by a large steel column (which also fell off when our centerboard was torn off by waves about 300-400 miles out to sea on our way to PR), the steel column did not go through the entire top portion (attachment point) of the centerboard. So....the fiberglass - even though it was very thick - just snapped from age and the continual pounding of the waves. Kenny will fix this in the new and improved "Lucky Escape" centerboard such that it is completely reinfornced with steel. He is currently working on the mould right now - a Wellington original !

To provide an update, John and I sadly left our boat in Florida (secured in the marina yard) approximately one week ago and drove North with our U-Haul. It took us 3 days to get to Massachusetts, between the traffic and general road fatigue. I then really appreciated that even though our boat took us places at 7 knots per hour, at least we were always moving, never crowded in bumper to bumper traffic with everyone yelling and honking at each other.

Now, we are currently contemplating "life after sailing". As boat owners
know, the beloved boat can be a relatively large financial drain - particularly if you take on the arduous job of a project boat (which we sort of did). Although we absolutely loved sailing life, and are now kind of wishing that we kept on going to the Pacific, we felt it was time to be responsible for a while and go back to work. However, the issue now, for anyone out there job hunting, is that this weak recovery is not kind to anyone trying to change careers - given that employers have their "choice" of employees in the current high state of unemployment, field experience is key.

We are looking at 3 potential choices: a) full-time employment on the water - although John needs to land his Captain's License first. As a prior finance geek, I am also not quite sure how I yet would fit into a marine role. b) Work part-time and then return as full-time sailors this winter....c) Both get white collar jobs somewhere and then bring the boat to our new abode on land - and thus become "weekend sailors".

We will continue to post progress on our repairs and how things are shaping up for us (as well as enviously reading sailing blogs of those still out there) - at this point, anything could happen for us and "Lucky Escape"! Stay tuned.....