Summer in Michigan 2014

03. Aug. 2014
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Life on Land
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Author: Pete

Location: Charlevoix, MI

A guy can become pretty darn antsy waiting to get a significant sailing trip under way. Hurricane season in the Caribbean has been mild tempered this year, apparently. However, we’re still sticking to our plan and waiting to go down to Florida to start up the boat search until mid-September just to be safe. Until then we’ve been entertaining ourselves in the Midwest seeing family and friends.

Eventually had some time at home with family and friends. Met up with our friends Gordie and Em, and their two ridiculously adorable munchkins. Made a bonfire in the back yard and enjoyed the summer night just like when we were that age.

Then I was another year older, if none the wiser. Charlevoix holds a weeklong celebration of my birthday each year, regardless of if I’m actually home or not, called the Venetian Festival. I don’t know why it isn’t called the Pete Festival… it’s always my birthday week. We celebrated by having a barbecue with friends, going downtown to see some music, and having birthday celebrations.

Unbeknownst to me, it was decided that for surviving three decades I should be thrown out of a perfectly good airplane. What a birthday present! I couldn’t decide if I was flattered or freaked out. An old friend from high school, Ryan, was my tandem instructor. We strapped in and took off facing backwards in the tiny Cessna.

Prompted, I think, by the possibility of the jump not going well, Miranda decided that we should make our marriage legal. Since a marriage license cost $20 in Michigan and $100 in Wisconsin, we went by our checkbooks.

Our American Sailing Association certifications came in from our course in June! We’re documented sailors!

Kept our sea legs up to snuff with some windsurfing, waterskiing, and kayaking. I have a million wetsuits, but I’m gravitating to the 1980’s vintage shortie with ridiculous colors and almost no stretch. Life on the water in the summer is one of Charlevoix’s many beauties.

Spent some time with Hal and Taylor, who were up scoping wedding venues. Went out a few times to the Tap Room for beers and over to Hal’s for some killer salmon.

The summer flew by with assorted fun bits that deserve a good review. Here’s a few more…

Finally, the day before Miranda and I were to head to Wisconsin our shipment came in from Chile. It should’ve arrived much sooner, but there was a dockworker strike in Chile. When longshoremen finally went back to work they picked pretty much the last day possible for us. Worked out great. It was sort of like Christmas opening the nineteen bags and boxes that filled the crate. All of the superfluous crap that we accumulated over four years in Chile had been sold or given away and all that was left was the good stuff. Favorite gear, artwork, clothes, that we had forgotten about in the exciting rush of summer.

And then we were off! Loaded up the 1994 Plymouth Voyager and headed north around the lake. Seemed like an odd direction when our destination was Florida!

Boat Hunting in Florida: Day 3

25. Jun. 2014
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Planning the Trip, The Boat
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1 Comment

Author: Miranda

Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
[26°8′N 80°9′W]

After a quick hotel breakfast (man, having real coffee everywhere is fabulous! I love you Chile, but I will never, ever miss Nescafe), we headed out to meet up with Steve again from the Catamaran company. Steve had three boats to show us, and he never disappoints in finding us a group of boats in which one as different from the next as possible in the world of catamarans. It’s so nice to compare many different styles of boats.

We started at a 4o foot Norseman. Oh baby, this boat was ginormous! I started daydreaming about all the storage and all the things we could fit in this cavernous honker, and I had to mentally slap myself in the face. No! Living simple and light… that’s the plan! So, while being a very cool boat, this lady was just too large for us.

Our second boat was the dark horse of the group. We had no expectations or previous experience with Fortunas, and this little Island Spirit had a long list of positives. We especially loved the spacious and open cockpit, as well as a comparatively wide beam for it’s length. Being 35′ long and 22′ wide, this chunker is almost a square. While maybe not “the boat,” this was our favorite of the day. The only point that made us skittish about the boat was the unconventional aspect of having hybrid engines instead of diesels. This boat is basically a Prius made for water. Not sure how we’d fix these in remote places, but we would like to research this a little further before we check this as a positive or negative.

Steve’s last boat was a Jeantot Marine Privilege 39. She was a little older than we were looking for, when it was customary to have galley down. We really are looking for a galley up model, though I did like the foredeck layout of the boat. Felt like a solid craft though.

Bloody hot. Got in the car after our time with Steve to 101°F and almost sizzled on the leather seats of the car. For all the griping we hear about the heat and humidity though, it doesn’t hold a candle to the Cartagena oppression. We felt like spring chickens even in the sun here comparatively!

Our last adventure of the day was a quick drive up to Fort Pierce to see an Fountaine Pajot Athena 38. She was on the hard, with an interesting superstructure davit built off the back of the boat. Though the salon is a bit more snug than others, I really like the layout of the boat. Good size, fairly well equipped, but a touch older than we’d like.

Drove back to Fort Lauderdale. Feels like we’ve been living in the car. But it has A/C in south Florida summer, so that’s just fine! Stopped at Whole Foods. Holy crap! Where has that been all my life! It’s like we’ve been living on a different continent for seven years. Seven years…. shit.

The search continues tomorrow.

Boat Hunting in Florida: Day 2

24. Jun. 2014
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Planning the Trip, The Boat
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Author: Miranda

Location: Jacksonville, Florida
[26°8′N 80°9′W]

Slept like the dead. What a glorious feeling to be able to sleep horizontally after spending a night scrunched up in a pseudo-inclined airline seat. Went to bed early so we could wake up early and get on the road. We decided to do a long push to Jacksonville to see a 35’ Wildcat Mark II, and then make several stops along the way back to Fort Lauderdale, looking at other boats we’d been eyeing.

The five hour drive got significantly better when we realized the rental came with XM radio, and that meant several stations devoted to the formidable jams of the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. Heaven! I won’t tell you how many ridiculous Bon Jovi songs that we belted out at the top of our lungs… but it was many folks. Many. A lot. A lot for love, you might say. Oh, how Pete loves that lyric. Oh and this sweet treat really got us grooving..

We met Al on the docks, and he took us in the dinghy out to Quest, which was on a mooring in the river.

Al and Caryl were gracious hosts and very knowledge about their boat, which they helped design when it was built new, and then sailed it across the Atlantic from South Africa.

We could have spent hours chatting with them about their travels, their sailing knowledge, and their cruising stories, but, alas, eventually it was time to head out, as we had more boats to see that afternoon.

On our way back to south Florida, we stopped in Merritt Island to meet with Valerie and see her 35-foot Jeaneau Lagoon catamaran. Valerie is one of those people you meet and immediately say to yourself, “wow, I want to be friends with this person!” Even as a young sailor, she has many years of experience boating in the Caribbean, and her boat looked much newer than the 18 years that it had. Three tiny, adorable dogs also greeted us as we stepped aboard. Somehow a 35’ foot cat with a 16’ beam seemed to fit three adults, three dogs, and enough equipment to live aboard just fine.

Valerie regaled us with sailing stories, as well as stories of her fiancé Chris’s time spent living in Colombia. Wish we could have met him as well, but we are crossing our fingers that fate will pull us up next to them on a barstool in Caribbean someday, where we can share sundowner and talk about living in a country we now love so much.

Got stuck in a thunderstorm on the way back, which meant that we missed seeing boats on the hard in Titusville and also in Fort Pierce.

Just got too late in the day, and the marinas were closed when we passed through. Unfortunate, but these menacing, afternoon thunderstorms that come out of nowhere are just so darn cool… when you have an enclosed car to hide in, of course. As we were oh-ing and ah-ing one storm, I thought out loud to Pete, “boy- these are definitely not going to be as fun and exciting when we are out on the boat.”