Real life really happens. Yeah, despite what the 6/49 Lottery ads tell you, there isn’t some crazy magical nirvana-type life that happens when you live on a sailboat. And social media? You are not helping! Yes, we have those fantastic, magical moments. Yes, we do. And they happen day-after-day at times.
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But normally? Most of the time? Yeah, it is regular life. Stuff breaks. Lots of stuff breaks. It rains. It is too windy one day and then not windy enough the next. We bang legs, arms, heads on whatever and barely notice. Oh the bandages we go through!

Just recently, I was chatting with a fellow cruiser in a very crowded laundry room. She asked how we liked living full time on the boat. My response? “Oh my gosh, we love it, love it, love it”. I paused as I thought back to the events of the morning and then quickly added “ish” (meaning “sort of”). It was honest. It was real. It hit the funny bone of every cruiser in that laundry room. They got it. It is a great life, for sure, but it isn’t protected from reality.
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So, what were the events of the morning? It began with trying to accomplish a few items off our to-do list. Simple enough. Mike was in our back cabin, adjacent to our battery display. We are plugged into shore power so our batteries should always be at 100%. That was the expectation as he quickly glanced at the battery display.

But they weren’t. We were somewhere around 85%. Not super low in terms of lithium batteries but, as I said, we are plugged into shore power so anything less than 100% is weird. And curious. And frustrating.

We immediately did a few tests of circuits and wires and it really seemed that our Xantrex battery charger had just decided to die an untimely death. Ugh. We stepped outside to clear our heads. We were wandering around the yard, talking to each other about this crazy battery situation, when a cruiser friend happened by. Mike gave a quick explanation of our charging issue and within half an hour we had a whole bunch of people on Wild Horses, including the yard manager who has the same battery charger as us. There was lots of chatter and various electrical testing tools were pulled out of pockets and bags. Reset buttons were pushed, electrical connections were tested, theories were put forward. The troubleshooting was in full bloom.

But alas, no solution. We even went so far as to get a price quote for a new Victron charging unit which could be delivered within a week (we have a Victron sales dealer as one of our cruiser friends). At the end of the day, the decision was that the charger was dead but we should call Xantrex Client Support first thing the following morning just to leave no stone unturned.
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We went to bed that night feeling very tired. Very tired of things breaking and very tired of our bank account getting a full workout.

The next morning at 9:00am we called Xantrex Customer Support. By 9:02am the issue was resolved.

What?????

It turns out that Mike had inadvertently pushed a button that changed the charging level of our Xantrex to 5 amps. Oops! The level was increased to 30 amps and, yeah, problem solved.
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We both smiled from ear to ear. Then we cancelled our order for that new Victron charger. And Mike promised to wear his glasses for all future button pressing of any kind 😉.

​And where are we with our engine rebuild and eventual launch? Still waiting unfortunately. But all is fine. We are thinking of getting wheels attached to our hull just so we can still explore the world by sailboat. Hmmmm. 😊

As we await our engine rebuild, we have been hard at work getting small and large tasks done on Wild Horses.

We arrived at Wild horses in the Fall with a fairly large to-do list, which we have slowly been working through. The list has big tasks, small tasks, some weather or temperature dependent and others are personal-energy dependent. This last bit is huge. We have definitely learned not to take on a task if we are not feeling physically or mentally ready to do it. Not only will we rush through the process, causing mistakes which need correcting, but we just won’t be able to deal with all those little “surprises” that inevitably happen.

“Surprises” happen a lot so, yeah, you really have to have your head in the game.

Over the holidays, one of these scope-creep tasks popped up about our ground tackle but, thankfully, we were ready to tackle it head on. What is ground tackle? This is everything that is used to anchor a boat and on Wild Horses it includes an 88lb Rocna anchor, 250 feet of 5/16 G4 chain spliced onto 190 feet of anchor rode. This is a great set up that has carried us to Grenada and back, even keeping us AND another 47-foot sailboat set in Carriacou during Tropical Storm Bret when that other boat dragged into us at the height of the storm.

Although we love our ground tackle, we knew that it needed a good fresh water cleaning when we arrived at Green Cove Springs Marina in Spring 2024. Our anchor was clean but our chain was beyond salty and dirty and well, yeah, it could tell a story or two about the places it has been 😊. Last Spring, everything was pulled out of the anchor locker and washed thoroughly with fresh water and then a commercial “saltaway” product that is meant to remove all the last nasty bits of salt from everything was applied. The anchor and chain were looking pretty decent when we set them back in the anchor locker for the summer.

This Fall, our plan was to remove all the ground tackle from the anchor locker again and flip our chain around so that the unused bits of chain at the end of the 250 feet would be attached to the anchor and the really used end of the 250 feet would get re-spliced onto our rode, waiting for opportunities for deep anchoring.
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But surprise! The heat, condensation, and any remaining salt that hid away in the chain links all did a big number on our gear. Oh, Florida summers, you are some nasty stuff! 

​We decided that the best option was to revitalize our gear by giving it a zinc bath. That’s right, our anchor and all 250 feet of chain went off to Metalplate Galvanizing near Jacksonville to get a fresh layer of zinc. This re-galvanization process is an inexpensive way to bring new life to ground tackle and we were thankful for it. One week later, our gear came back shiny and new.

​But, surprise! The “dipping” of the chain in zinc meant about eight hours of hammering the chain to loosen the links. Metalplate Galvanizing doesn’t use a tumbler after they dip the chain so each link had to be hammered free of the one beside it. Mike was onto other projects so this task fell on me. It was definitely a good workout! Did I mention we have 250 ft of chain? That is a crazy amount of hammering! But, I cannot deny how shiny and new it all looks. Worth every blister! 

​Bling #2 is our new spare anchor. We have carried a 45lb CQR anchor around for awhile but we really felt we needed a good modern anchor (Fortress, Rocna, Spade) as our spare, you know, in case things got really wild 😉! Seriously though, a spare anchor is awesome to have if you happen to find yourself at anchor through a particularly strong storm, or if your primary anchor gets snagged and is not recoverable. We have encountered neither situation to date but, if we did, we feel better launching our brand new FX37 Fortress anchor that is meant to hold a 47 foot boat in strong conditions. We are ready for Mother Nature to bring it on, but, just in case she is listening, we are sending an "all hail to Mother Nature" (please don't bring it on!).

​The other bling in our lives over the last week was a fantastic New Years celebration and light show here at Green Cove Springs Marina. The yard chief here had a truckload of fireworks that he had been saving just for this kind of celebration. It was our first experience with a non-city light show and we were amazed on a few levels. First, it was a beautiful show (we were stunned) and, second, it was incredible that it was legal to have such powerful fireworks without a permit (again, we were stunned). Florida is a different place! We were thankful that our yard chief had the experience to properly store, set off and clean up after the show. He did an incredible job keeping everyone entertained and safe 😊.

​Now that we are past the holidays, we are awaiting confirmation as to when our engine rebuild will finally happen. Fingers crossed it is in the next few weeks. It is getting cold here! We need the Bahamas!!