Oh my…our crew is certainly enjoying our time in the Bahamas. It has been everything the doctor ordered for our crew of three, who were a little lost from living on land for almost eighteen months, tending to Wild Horses as just one big on-going fix-it project.

When we left Green Cove Springs, Florida, last December, we were very tired and weary from too much boat maintenance.

Not now.

The last few weeks have been filled with so many things that brings us joy. Well, maybe not everything was joyful. I mean, it is a boat so something always needs fixing 😉 and this go-around it was our marine toilet. No, we were not “filled with joy” while giving it some tender loving care ☹. Even in paradise, it isn’t all cold mojitos in the cockpit!
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Travel-wise, we have gone 165 nautical miles since we left the Mackie Shoal (on the Bahama Bank) in the middle of February. While we have been to the Bahamas twice before, and on a similar route, this mileage took us to several new anchorages that really wowed us. The first was Morgan’s Bluff on Andros Island. Although the anchorage is small and the location is remote, it was a safe place to rest our heads on our way to the island of New Providence. Even more important to our caravan of boat buddies (Tekana, Ancora and ourselves) was a lovely seaside beach bar offering Bahamian beer, yummy eats and the chance to chat about our travels. 

​The next morning, all three boats weighed anchor and headed off to a private dock on the south side of the island of New Providence. Stronger weather was coming in and this dock gave us a chance to be sheltered from the wind while also having access to amenities like fuel, groceries and hardware/marine stores. In addition to shopping, the pause from travelling meant we could get caught up on our chores. That laundry wasn’t magically doing itself like I had hoped! Oh, and our visit to New Providence coincided with Dean’s birthday (our boat buddy on Tekana) so we were thrilled to hop in a rental car and head to Nassau for some delicious sushi to celebrate the day. Sushi in paradise? Yes, please!

​Leaving New Providence, we were excited to finally arrive in the Exumas island chain. We landed at Highborne Cay, one of the northern islands in the Exumas. Although this is a great anchorage for eastern winds, another strong cold front was making its way to the Bahamas within a few days so we needed to get to a better anchorage for the weather. Highborne has beautiful beaches but it is just a slice of low land separating the Exuma Sound from the Atlantic Ocean. Beautiful, yes. A shelter in strong weather? Not so much. This is the challenge in the Exumas. Cold fronts swing through the area regularly and cause the wind to clock around from east to south, west and north. Protection from the strong winds associated with these fronts is important but, even more critical is getting protection from the sea fetch which can hobby horse a sailboat. Best case is that you are a little uncomfortable. Worst case is that your anchor gets dislodged. Yikes! Many of the other islands and cays in the Exumas offer great east protection but very few give you shelter for clocking winds. As a group of three boats, we decided to make our way to Warderick Wells, which is part of the Bahamas Land and Sea Park. This anchorage checked most of our “good shelter” requirements, missing only the western wind protection which was forecasted to last just a few hours.

​Oh my. Warderick Wells. Not only were we well protected through the cold front, we were also treated to the beauty and adventure of this island. It has several snorkeling sites, soft white sand beaches and many trails to hike. The most iconic trail is the one to Boo Boo Hill, at the very top of the island. For decades, cruisers have hiked to the top of Boo Boo Hill and left their boat name for all to see – be it on driftwood, a bottle or other paraphernalia. Even more incredible to see is the 360-degree view from the top of the island, spanning a vista that includes the Atlantic Ocean, the Exuma Sound and the beauty of the island itself.

​Later that week, once the cold front passed through, we decided to move further south to O’Brien’s Cay. This is a pretty little anchorage that also sits in the Land and Sea Park so sandy beaches and great hikes are prevalent. Our sights, however, were set on snorkeling in the Sea Aquarium. This is a coral-rich spot in the anchorage where the sea life is abundant. Thousands of types of fish swim around you, getting so close that it isn’t odd to feel a bump or push as they move about. We also spied sea turtles and Southern Rays during our two visits to the Sea Aquarium. We truly couldn’t get enough of it!

As enticing as it was to stay in the Land and Sea Park and discover more cays and islands, we needed to get south to the village of Staniel Cay. We arrived here on Friday and found a great anchorage spot in front of the famous Thunderball Grotto (from the James Bond movie “Thunderball”). Here we have easy access to town by dinghy so we can load up on fuel, some fresh vegetables from the local markets and also dump off some of our trash (which we are forbidden to do in the Land and Sea Park).

Finally. Joyously. Amazingly. We are here! In the Bahamas!

But let’s back up a step.

While still anchored at Coconut Grove last weekend, we started to see a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream opening up the following week. And it wasn’t just any weather window. It was the perfect weather we had been waiting for – a calm sea state with just enough south wind to allow us to sail. Yay! Finally!
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We finished off some last-minute provisioning in the Coconut Grove area on Saturday and then fit in a fun Superbowl party aboard Wild Horses on the Sunday. It was a great evening of snacks, football, chatter and laughter. It was fabulous to have our friends from Mokacat, Tekana and Ancora aboard to watch the big game with us!

The next morning was Monday and it was clear that our great weather window would be on Wednesday. Very exciting! We moved Wild Horses back to No Name Harbor to stage for our crossing. Our friends on Tekana also moved their boat back to No Name Harbor, but not before doing a little shakedown sail of their “new-to-them” roller furling jib. They had purchased it used for a song and completed the refit themselves, including resizing the rigging and sail. Their test sail on Monday went spectacularly well and they were pleased as punch. These two are incredible!

At No Name Harbor, we prepped the boats for our crossing and did even more last-minute provisioning (and a last beer at the Winn Dixie produce bar 😉). On Tuesday evening our friends on Ancora moved their boat to No Name Harbor and all the crew from the three boats gathered on Ancora to discuss our upcoming journey. The plan was for Wild Horses and Ancora to leave at first light (0630 hrs) on Wednesday morning and head to Bimini to clear into the Bahamas. The following morning, on Thursday, we would head to the Mackie Shoal to spend a night on the Bahama Bank. Tekana, a slower boat, would leave No Name Harbor on Wednesday afternoon and sail overnight directly to the Mackie Shoal, arriving on Thursday at noon. We had our plan! Now, let’s go!
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Our departure on Wednesday was easy…and crowded! No less than ten boats headed off to Bimini from No Name Harbor that morning. It was fun to be part of a huge pod!

​Our crossing was smooth with just a touch of wind and we were able to motor-sail the whole way. We were docked at Bimini Bluewater Marina and cleared into the Bahamas by 3pm. Easy! We even had time to replace our ratty old Gorilla-taped bow roller with a very sturdy one made of Delrin, purchased while we were still in Miami. It works amazingly well and looks far prettier than Gorilla tape!

The next morning, Wild Horses and Ancora left the docks at Bimini and headed for the Mackie Shoal, a shallow area in the middle of the Bahama Bank, about halfway between Bimini and Nassau. But the cool part is that it is just that – a shallow area. There is no land. There are no markers. There is no cell service. You are in the middle of nowhere. On the ocean. Perfect.
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Although our target was the Mackie Shoal, we actually decided to overshoot it by about 20 nautical miles in order to make our next day’s travel to Andros a little easier. How did we communicate the change to our buddy boats when there is no cell service? With Ancora, it was just like any other day. They were in VHF range plus they have Starlink so we could communicate via text too. Communication with Tekana was also easy, even though they do not have Starlink. Once we were out of cell phone and VHF range, we just seamlessly switched to our Garmin InReach which allows for satellite texting.  This device has been the go-to for our boat tracking too. I highly recommend it for boating or hiking!

​This morning, we woke to flat calm seas and no wind. A blissful morning on the ocean! We have a 30 nautical mile trip to Morgans Bluff, at the top of Andros Island. I think the whole crew of Wild Horses will be happy to be back on land again, especially the four-legged one 😉!

We have now been in the Miami area for three weeks waiting for our weather window to cross to the Bahamas. Although it has been a long wait (and is continuing!), it has not been boring.  We are here with our great friends on Tekana and every day is a wonderful menu of fun things to do. Oh and, yes, we throw in a few necessary chores every day too, like making water or doing laundry. Adding to our days is constant weather watching. Not only are we looking for our weather window to cross, but we have also had to dodge and endure a few systems coming across our region.

​Mostly, the days have been hot and sunny, making it easy to get things done. We have managed to get Ocean’s international papers and all our last-minute stocking up provisions for a few months in the Bahamas. We have done a few fix-it things on the boat but we have really used these days to relax and enjoy the Biscayne area. Immediately adjacent to our anchorage is the Cape Florida State Park which houses miles and miles of nature walking trails, a scenic waterfront seawall trail, the historic Cape Florida lighthouse and a few restaurants. This park is a real destination for tourists and locals alike so it is often busy with people walking, biking and running on the trails, and fishermen camped out along the sea wall. Weekends here are especially a flurry of activity with boaters packing into the inner lagoon area. The outdoor restaurant near the lagoon plays live music and ends up packed every night with people trying to catch the incredible sunset over Biscayne Bay.

​For us, we have enjoyed easy access to shore via dinghy so we get to take advantage of all the park offers, plus we have an easy 20 minute walk into town to the hardware store or for groceries. Oh, and even better, the grocery store here hosts an actual bar inside with a never-ending happy hour. Patrons grab an inexpensive beer or glass of wine and do their shopping. Weirdly enough, it seems the bar is usually full of men enjoying the beer while the grocery aisles are full of women actually doing the shopping. I guess they found a way to make everyone happy! Another lovely bonus is that dogs are allowed in the grocery store. It is a fun time going through the aisles with Ocean!

​The latest weather system that came through the region this past weekend threatened strong west winds and a very unsettled sea state to our anchorage in No Name Harbor (Key Biscayne) so we moved 5 nautical miles west to Coconut Grove, where we could anchor close to the western shore of the bay alongside Miami. Even better was that our friend Dale on Mokacat and his pup Josie were already anchored here. We haven’t seen these two for almost two years so it was a great reunion for us, and also for Ocean who just adores Josie.

This latest weather system, although strong, was short lived at just 12 hours. Our anchor held well at our Coconut Grove anchorage, as did the anchors and moorings of all the hundreds of boats here. And, being close to land, the sea state was a gentle roll. It was definitely more comfortable than if we had stayed in No Name Harbor. While we received sustained winds of 17 with gusts to 29 and waves/swell of 1 foot overnight, No Name Harbor was far more impacted with sustained winds of 20 with gusts to 32 and waves/swell of 3 feet. That higher sea state is the kicker. The extra 2 feet means lots of rolling, bucking and fishtailing in a sailboat. Very uncomfortable to say the least!
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Post-winds, this system dropped the temperatures around here to near freezing. It is currently a very cold 2 degrees here which is shockingly cold for the Miami area. No worries though – the temperature is forecasted to return to normal tomorrow. We also have a possible crossing window this week. In just a few days we will not only be warm, we may be in the Bahamas!! 

Weather windows are the funniest things. Sometimes they arrive at the perfect time like some sort of magic. Most times, though, they only seem to materialize at the wrong time, when you can’t take advantage of them. You just watch them go by like clouds in the sky, hoping your timing with the next window will be better.
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What are weather windows? Well, they are precious treasures of whatever weather you need to get somewhere specific. It may be 15 knots of wind from the east or west, when you are travelling north or south on a lake. Or no wind when you are traversing a difficult waterway like the Mona Passage (between Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico), or it may just be the right wind strength and direction and comfortable sea state (waves or ocean swell) that make whatever sailing travel on the ocean safe and cozy for you and your crew.

Weather windows certainly come and go. Sometimes, they arrive just when you need them to arrive, which was the case when we first went south to the Bahamas in 2022. Back then, we saw a perfect weather window opening for the first week of January 2023 when we were in Vero Beach and we were able to make it work for us. We arrived in Fort Lauderdale on December 31, took a great weather window to Miami (No Name Harbor) and had the necessary few days to get Ocean’s international travel documents stamped by the USDA and to do our final stock up of provisions before the perfect weather window to cross the Gulf Stream for the Bahamas also materialized. It was perfection.

This year? Not so much.

Of course, there have been perfect weather windows this year but they came around when we were otherwise occupied. There was gorgeous weather in early December…but we were back in Green Cove Springs, still readying the boat. Then another lovely weather window over the holidays…but we were still making our way down the ICW in southern Florida.

Yesterday, after many days of watching weather, we actually had one of those perfect weather windows fall in our laps, allowing us to make our move on the ocean from Fort Lauderdale to Miami. Yes! It was a short 30 nautical mile trip along the coast and it was delightful. Well, except for the mayhem of the ultra busy Port of Miami harbour on a beautiful sunny Sunday. We survived but…wow!!!

Here at Key Biscayne in Miami, we will stage for our crossing to the Bahamas. We have a few tasks to get done while we still have easy access to spare parts and easy shopping. We will rent a car in the next few days to get Ocean to the veterinarian for her international papers and also to get our final load of provisions. Oh, and some replacement parts. 
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An odd event on our trip down here was that our new anchor bow roller decided to disintegrate. It was brand new this fall but managed to break down after just a few weeks of travel. It was obviously a dud! Not having a bow roller means lots of heavy lifting of the anchor and chain. For me. Yikes! Thankfully, our boat buddy Jean came up with a great suggestion just in the nick of time. Before the bow roller fully broke off, we wrapped it in Gorilla tape to keep all its parts together and to keep it rolling. It worked! That tape is like flexible steel. Nothing is breaking it down! Oh, and we are also lucky that the closest West Marine to us here in Miami had one Wild Horses-sized bow roller left on the shelves. We pick it up tomorrow!

​The other thing we need while we are here is lots of rest. We are exhausted from day after day of travel through West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. We motored every day after leaving the Vero Beach area, going through about 27 bridges (most of which we had to call to have opened and time for our arrival) and completing 140 nautical miles of the ICW. We fought many 4 knot currents, boat traffic craziness, busy anchorages, lots of shallow bits, and even going aground passing by one particularly dicey ocean inlet (Don’t worry – Wild Horses is fine. It was just a sandbar and the rising tide allowed us to float free just 10 minutes later. Yes, we were shaken and stirred but, otherwise, no worse for the experience). 

​Oh, and that magical next window we need to allow us to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas? Well, it hasn’t made any appearances yet but that is okay with us. It will arrive when it arrives and, this time, we will be ready. Bahamas hang on! We are coming for you!

As we make our way down the ICW, our days are pretty easy. The weather has been wonderful with lots of sunny days, hardly a cloud in the sky most times. We have been moving Wild Horses almost every day but finally took a rest at Vero Beach to ring in the New Year with friends here.

Vero Beach is a wonderful spot for cruisers. It is right beside the ICW and it is only a short 20-minute walk to a cute waterfront with miles and miles of beaches and boutique shops. Perfect for cruisers, the city of Vero Beach runs a marina that offers fuel, water, showers, laundry and free bus rides for groceries and other supplies. For shopping, there is a lot that is just a dinghy ride across the ICW or you can take a free city bus that takes you even further and really find everything you need and more. 

The marina offers dock slips and mooring balls for a fee but it can be really tough to reserve a spot because of the enormous popularity of Vero and its marina. This year the numbers are down a bit so spots are free but we still chose to anchor out, which is just the way we prefer to do things.​

We have been at Vero Beach for almost a week and the rest has been wonderful. We have enjoyed many walks to the waterfront, and in the beautiful neighbourhoods in between, a great free outdoor concert and, of course, we have spent a lot of time at the enormous and highly popular Vero Beach Dog Park.
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The Dog Park has been a real highlight for Ocean. She has been able to run, play, socialize and otherwise get her doggie fill of all things “Dog”. Her excitement is palpable as we dinghy up to the dock right outside the park! 

​Making the days even better, is the natural cadence that we have with our boat buddies on Tekana. Even when we are just doing boat chores (laundry, filling diesel, getting groceries), we tend to prefer to do it as a foursome (sorry, it’s a five-some if you count Ocean!). There is always lots of laughs and great conversation to make carrying a 20lb backpack full of groceries seem a little lighter.

As great as Vero Beach is, we have made plans to continue our journey south. We will stay in the ICW until Fort Lauderdale and then we have a short 30 mile sail along the coast on the Atlantic Ocean that will take us into Miami. We spotted a nice weather window a few days out for our ocean leg of the trip. This would get us to Miami by the end of the week. After that, we are just waiting for the next weather window to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. We went to bed excited about our plans and ready to weigh anchor in the morning.

We woke up to dense fog. Ugh. This fog will clear in time for us to make our planned anchorage for the day but they are calling for more of this soupy fog every day this week. This will make it very challenging to have the long days we need to make our planned weather window.
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Yes, the weather is king! We will move onto Plan B, which is shorter days (after the fog has dissipated) making our way south and looking for another weather window. Miami and the Gulf Stream crossing will just have to wait. And that is okay too 😊.

Oh my gosh, another very busy month has flown by for us. We launched Wild Horses about a month ago and have spent the past four weeks tied to the dock at Reynolds Yacht Centre (just a few miles north of Green Cove Springs Marina), happily getting ready for travels further south.

In the past month we have:

• Provisioned the boat with all the food, drinks, house supplies, dog food and spare parts that we will need for the next three months. It is expensive in the Bahamas so this is a necessary step before we head there. Although not a difficult task, shopping this much is exhausting! We had many, many trips to every store imaginable and it often seemed like a never-ending exercise. As soon as we thought we were done, I would find another inch of space to fill, so off we would go to get a few more groceries, another box or two of beer or, most importantly, more treats for Ocean. But Wild Horses is now stuffed and ready to go.

​With our major work projects behind us, and the cooler Florida mornings starting to dig in, we threw off the dock lines and began our journey south down the Atlantic IntraCoastal Waterway (ICW). Today we are waking up in St. Augustine, Florida. This is a beautiful and historic town along the ICW that boasts the most stunning Christmas celebrations. It is a busy little town, with lots of Christmas spirit and decorations, so the perfect location for us to spend the holidays. We will be here until Boxing Day and then continue our trip south along the ICW.

Oh, and the best part of this holiday week? Doing boat projects will be on the bottom of our priority list. Our Christmas plans are to relax, connect with family far away in Canada and have some fun hanging out with our boat buddies, Jean and Dean on Tekana. Merry Christmas!!

After almost a month of preparations, research, running around sourcing parts, installing, uninstalling, scrubbing, shining, waxing and painting, Wild Horses is ready to launch. And, I dare say, she is looking pretty amazing! We took a few weeks longer than planned but here we are. Happy and ready for launch.

So, what have we accomplished in the last month? Like most boat commissioning endeavours, it has been two steps forward and one step back. The important thing is that we have been able to cross critical projects off our “to do” list.

• Our new hot water heater has been installed
• We had our vintage 2002 navigation system, autopilot and transducers replaced. No more autopilot shutting down unexpectantly in the middle of a passage!
• Our outboard has been fully serviced to correct some intermittent hiccups
• Our Honda 2200 generator, which we haven’t used in almost a year and a half, has been serviced and is ready to use. We were thrilled that it purred like a kitten!
• The freezer on Wild Horses had been frosting up fast. The cure was a new gasket and a repair of a loose freezer top.
• Picked up our new indoor cushions which had been worn from age (they are original) and full time liveaboard use. They look fabulous and really jazz up the place!
• After removing one of our six docking cleats to give them a good inspection, we could see that the spacers beneath the cleats had significantly deteriorated. We have now designed our replacement spacers, involving 316 stainless steel base plates and backing plates. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of sourcing the metal and having them sized, pre-drilled for the cleats and then polished to a mirror shine. Installation will happen soon!
• Of course, we also spent a bunch of time with regular commissioning tasks: cleaning and waxing, new bottom paint, cleaning the dinghy (and replacing our worn registration numbers), shining all the stainless on the decks and polishing all the wood inside the boat.

​We have also tackled a couple of unplanned projects:

• Our bilge pump broke down and had to be replaced
• One of our freshwater hoses sprung a leak and had to be re-plumbed

Another major “semi-planned” (i.e. dream) project came to fruition thanks to our friends on Caretta, Barry and Andrea, who visited us all the way from Tennessee. These two amazing gems are the same Caretta who we travelled with for 9 months in 2023/2024, from Luperon, DR to Grenada and then back north again.  After returning to North America in 2024, they headed back home to Tennessee to spend time with family.
We hadn’t seen them in a year and a half but, lucky for us, they took a quick weekend trip all the way from Chattanooga, Tennessee to see us in Green Cove Springs, Florida. Amazing!
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The reunion was just what the doctor ordered. There was so much hugging, laughs, stories, smiling and solar. Wait…what? That’s right. Our fabulous electrician-slash-solar expert Barry installed a new solar array for us in just one day. One day!

Caretta was only visiting for a weekend so installing solar wasn’t in the plan. Our visit with Caretta was supposed to be just about visiting! In fact, we hadn’t even ordered our solar panels prior to their arrival. It was during dinner on one of their last nights with us that we chatted about the panels and Barry helped us narrow down which ones we should get. We ordered them at 7pm that night.

The next morning, the four of us arrived at Wild Horses, ready to do a couple of small boat tasks and then head to St. Augustine to play tourists. Shortly after our arrival at the boat we got a call from the Marina office. Our solar panels had arrived! An incredible 12 hours from placing the order to delivery at the marina office! Wow!
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That was all Barry needed. In just over one day, he had all four 400-watt panels installed and working. This upgrade takes the solar power input on Wild Horses from 1,050 watts to 1,600 watts. We are thrilled!!! 

We launch tomorrow and then will head just a mile up the St. Johns River to Reynolds Marina where we have secured a slip for a few weeks. Our plan is to finish up a few projects and attach the sails. We will also get all of our provisions and spares for the next four months. That will get us through the very expensive Bahamas and into the much more affordable Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
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Grenada – here we come!

Oh my, oh my. We have returned to our lovely Wild Horses after seven whole months back home in Canada. We crossed the border on Oct 19 and arrived in Florida, and at Wild Horses, on Wednesday. The trip was easy and the border crossing fast. As expected, the border guard told us that we need to be registered with the US government within 30 days of being in the United States. He offered that it is free to do this on the USCIS website by completing a G325R form for each of us. Great! Easy, legal and free!  (If you want more detail on crossing the Canadian border into the US, check out this article => Guide to U.S. Registration Requirements for Canadian Travellers)

It is hard to describe the multitude of emotions from the past week. We have gone from land-living to boat-living, from family-centred awesomeness to being just our little family of three (yes! Ocean counts!), from easy and stress-free days to the ups and downs of getting projects done on the boat.
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The great news is that Wild Horses looks amazing after her seven months in the long-term storage yard. She was a bit grimy on the outside but the inside was just as we left her. Well, almost. There were about half a dozen dead cockroaches scattered about. And one very alive salamander. I guess the cockroach killer did its job on the former uninvited guests, and the salamander? She hightailed it out of the boat as soon as she was discovered. No harm, no foul! The important thing is that Wild Horses had no mould or pesky boat smells. We will take that as a win! 

Our first two days were spent assessing the boat, sizing up our boat project supplies and reconnecting with our boatyard friends and sailors.
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Then day three. Time to dive into boat projects! We have a fairly lengthy list to get through but none are as large and as complicated as our engine refit project that kept us in the boatyard for almost four months last winter. On our list this year: a new hot water heater (it is leaking), fixing our freezer (we have a serious frost issue), servicing our six docking cleats (they need a good inspection for possible corrosion), replacing some halyards (they are old and tired), fully servicing our outboard (it has had some hiccups lately), adding more solar panels (more is always better!) and replacing our 2002 navigation system and autopilot (our current ones have bit the dust). Whew!

Our timeline for all this craziness is a bit aggressive. We are hoping to launch Wild Horses in early November and then spend a few weeks at a dock finishing our projects, getting provisions and stocking up on spare parts before we start heading south. South to where, you ask? We are targeting a second trip down to Grenada.
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With this big goal in mind, we are ready to spend long days under the hot, humid Florida sun, getting the boat ready. We will be at the boat early in the day and stay until late afternoon. But this time, we are giving in to our soft underbellies. We are not living on the boat while she is high and dry in the boatyard. Truth be told, our four months of living on the boat at Green Cove Springs Marina last winter was hard on all three of us. Many aspects of a floating boat life are challenging but we signed up for all of that. Living on a boat sitting on jack stands in a dirty boat yard, rain or shine, isn’t for the faint of heart and it isn’t what we signed up for. Floating boats have indoor plumbing for toilets and showers and dishwashing. Boats on jack stands do not. Constant dirt, mud, no indoor plumbing, hot days, cold nights. Ugh. This go-around we are staying in an affordable off-site rental that makes our “after hours” life more comfortable for all three of us. Even Ocean is thankful to not have to negotiate a long set of stairs going up and down from the boat. While we are on the hard, all four of her paws will stay off the boat! Yes, our rental is a haven after a several hours of dirty, grimy, greasy, and very tiring, boat work. Every day we are finding our off-site time makes it easier to be well rested and ready to tackle whatever boat shenanigans arise!

Okay, enough chatter! We need to get back to those boat projects!

​We are back in Canada! Although we arrived in beautiful temperatures of around 17 degrees Celcius (62 degrees Fahrenheit), the weather quickly switched to being slightly below seasonal (-2 C / 28 F) and we have snow. Compared with Florida, it is cold! But we are happy and fully enjoying our time home.

Want to see what I mean? Click the buttons below!

Wild Horses was hauled out of the water about two weeks ago and we prepped her for a hot summer in Florida. She is now safely sitting on land at Green Cove Springs Marina in Northern Florida and, yes, she is hurricane-strapped to deal with the worst Florida wind events. Everything on the boat was removed and either put in our climate-controlled storage unit near Green Cove Springs Marina, or it was loaded into our car to be brought back to Canada. But the prep work didn’t stop there! All the walls, cabinets, floors and ceilings inside the boat were cleaned and sprayed with a mold control solution. We placed several moisture wicking containers throughout the boat to deal with condensation and lots of cockroach houses to kill any roaches that decide that Wild Horses might make a lovely place to stay for the summer. In order to further dissuade roaches and any other bugs, we closed our seacocks (water pipe outlets) and also stuffed them with steel wool. To also help with mold control, we have to make sure there is some ventilation within the boat. Since every hatch (our usual go-to for ventilation) has to be firmly closed to protect the interior from weather, we opted instead to just offset our cowl vents (also called dorades), with one facing forward and the other facing backward. Cowl vents are those odd-looking vents that sit on the boat deck. They are shaped to mitigate rain or seawater intrusion while still allowing fresh air to flow into the boat. And although they are effectively open tubes, one layer of screening at its base prevents any bugs or critters from entering the boat. These fabulous cowl vents have been our solution to allowing sufficient airflow to circulate within the boat while it is closed up tight during hot Florida summers. Awesome.
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All this prep work was what we did last year for our first Florida summer on land and it worked very well. There was no mold and almost zero bugs. We did have three roaches that tried to take up residence but they were quickly evicted. Then we immediately upped our roach prevention in both the boat and in the storage locker. Staring eyeball to eyeball with a cockroach while you are lying in bed is no fun!!

So, here we are, back in Canada with our boat back in Florida. Our plans are to return to the boat in October and then journey back to Grenada for the summer of 2026. But…
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There are lots of ifs, ands and buts with our plan!

​Unlike our first trip to Grenada, we now have a car that we have to store or sell. We will also need to figure out a good solution for health insurance. Last time, we were eligible for a two-year extension for our provincial healthcare. Coupled with travel insurance, we had low-cost health coverage for emergencies where ever we travelled, including the United States. But that option is only available every five years, leaving us ineligible for this next journey south. Likely, we will need some sort of “Expatriate health insurance” to cover us once we have exhausted our seven-month out-of-province health insurance.

And then there are new regulations, and a new political climate, around travel to the United States. We are unsure how this will play out but are watching carefully. Right now, our concern is low. Although we feel confident that we can navigate the environment today, we are working on back up plans, just in case travel to the United States becomes far less than welcoming. Still, our feeling is that all will work out just fine and we will be reunited with Wild Horses next fall.

For now, we still think of ourselves as liveaboards but with a temporary status of having land full time under our feet. It has been a fun two weeks of getting back to the conservation areas and trails we have missed, the climate-controlled living that make our days super comfy, and hugging our family and friends that we love dearly. Yay!

Oh my. What a season. Or, non-season, to be more accurate. Yeesh.

We happily launched Wild Horses a few weeks ago and quickly moved her to a dock at Reynolds Yacht Centre, a mere 1.3 nautical miles north. Yes, you read that correctly. After four months living on the boat on land, waiting for our engine to be rebuilt, and dreaming about heading south…our first trip on the water was to head north.
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But this wasn’t a move borne in craziness. No, Green Cove Springs is on the St. John’s River and the only way to get to “getting south” is to first go north to Jacksonville, where the St. John’s River meets the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and also provides an inlet that opens itself directly to the Atlantic Ocean. Sailors take either of these two routes as they head south.

At Reynolds, our plan was to spend about a week provisioning and emptying our storage locker before making our own journey south, with a new plan to go to the Florida Keys rather than the Bahamas. We had about two months left in our season, which sounds like a lot until you start factoring in distances and weather. The Bahamas is hundreds of nautical miles from Green Cove Springs. And the weather was forecasted to be terrible for crossing to the Bahamas over the next week. We knew it would improve but our fear was being in the Bahamas and trying to rush back to the States to haul out before we needed to be back across the border. We do our best not to move Wild Horses on a schedule and all we could see was a big old schedule if we tried to get to the Bahamas. We would be rushing provisioning, rushing the crossing of the Gulf Stream, rushing to get to a Bahamian sandy beach. Maybe we would have one moment to breathe deep and dip a toe in the beautiful blue Bahamian water and then…we would be rushing back to stage our crossing of the Gulf Stream again, and then rushing to haulout and to prep the boat for another summer in Florida. Yikes, it only sounded stressful to us. No, we wanted some calm joy on the water. So, instead, we set our sights on the Florida Keys, or as far south in Florida as we could get.

We started to get the boat cruising ready. We attached our sails, installed our full enclosure, set up our boat cushions, and made a loose plan of our journey.

​Sigh. Two weeks later and we are still at Reynolds Yacht Centre.

What happened?

First, another boat issue reared its ugly head. On our short cruise from Green Cove Springs Marina to Reynolds, we saw that the navigational instruments tied to our autopilot weren’t working. That means no depth, wind or speed readings and no autopilot. All of this is not critical…except depth. Without a depth reading, running aground becomes a real possibility, especially in the ICW.

We did some troubleshooting of the issue ourselves and with some of our sailor friends, but we couldn’t find the source of the failure.

At our wits end, we called Al’s Mobile Marine Service (our fabulous mechanic!) and he had one of his electronics technicians come to our boat to diagnose and fix the problem. This added a one-week delay to our plans.
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During all of this, we were chatting with family and friends. We are very lucky to have lots of support and cheering from the sidelines, biggest among those are our moms and dads. They share our joy and our pain, and make both even better, no matter where or what we are doing. It was after one of our calls back home that we realized that a quick trip to the Florida Keys is not where our hearts and our heads are fixed.

We are ready to be home, back in Canada, where we can give real hugs to our moms and dads and to give back some of that support that they so freely give to us while we are living out our dreams on the water.

Lucky us 😊.

Our sails are now off again and Wild Horses is getting ready for its second summer in Florida. We will move the boat back to Green Cove Springs Marina in about a week and then head back to Canada. The boating season wasn’t much for us this year but it hasn’t spoiled our sense of adventure. We will return to Florida next fall with plans of sailing south once again. Where? Not sure but the dreaming is in full swing and we are ready for whatever is next for our cruising life 😊.