Letting Go of Plans

Making a plan:
With the battery issue solved, we were thrilled to be able to pull anchor and move to a new anchorage. We’ve been using our holding pattern (dealing with batteries) to map out our trip to Marathon with quick, bite-sized day sails. We planned to spread the journey out over five days to make it easy. Also, because the whole “working from a boat while moving” thing is hard for someone who gets seasick.

Stuart -> West Palm Beach (31 NM)
West Palm Beach -> Fort Lauderdale (45 NM)
Fort Lauderdale -> Biscayne Bay (46 NM)
Biscayne Bay -> Tavernier (49 NM)
Tavernier -> Marathon (44 NM)

I know, I know, any experienced sailors reading this would probably do this run in one shot but we’re still getting acclimated. Plus, it’s about the journey not the destination, right?

Throwing the plan out the window:
We started studying the weather with the hope of getting to Marathon some time the week of 4th of July but mother nature had other plans. The winds have been light and the prevailing SSE wind direction would make a sail south challenging, at best. Five days of motoring to get to Marathon just doesn’t sound very fun.

Over coffee one morning, studying the weather we saw a few windows of S 10-15 knots. Again, not ideal for our trip, or at least the first three legs of it.

I jokingly said to Tom, “That’s not helpful for us but it’d be a great wind direction for a beam over to the Bahamas.”

We paused for a minute. Why not go to the Bahamas? We were trying to go somewhere with clearer water that we actually want to get in. The Bahamas is even better than the Keys on that front. Yes, there are a lot more logistics and paperwork to figure out but we could get there in one day instead of five. We started to study the route to West End, brush up on the Click2Clear process and the health certificate/visa requirements for the dogs.

From routes, to anchorages, to fun things to see along the way, we spent days planning how we’d get to the Keys, only to completely change plans, or so we think, for now. As two type-A personalities, one of the hardest adjustments to boat life has been not being able to plan like we normally would. It also doesn’t help that we can go anywhere (weather permitting). Maybe we have a bit of decision paralysis too. We’re doing our best to embrace it and just take things day by day.

We found some beautiful clear water to anchor and spend 4th of July weekend. We’ve been busy taking care of some boat chores and people watching the crowds heading to the nearby sandbars. Those who live in Florida can understand how crazy the sandbars on a holiday weekend can be. It was wildly entertaining.

From giving the bottom of the boat a good scrub to commissioning our water maker to the consistently revolving list of things that need fixing, it’s been a productive time to say the least. Even from the water, we had ourselves a BBQ and watched various nearby firework shows, much to the puppies’ dismay.

Hope you all had a lovely 4th. We will keep you posted on where we actually end up.

P.S. You know how we said how our off-grid power system is basically magic? Well, that was before we met our water maker. Turning salty, ocean water into fresh, drinkable water through reverse osmosis? Now that’s life-altering magic!