Returning to Wild Horses

Mike, Ocean and I returned to Florida and our lovely Beneteau 473 “Wild Horses” on Wednesday October 23rd.

Our summer in Canada had been incredible. My brother’s house is situated just north of Belleville, Ontario and it became our base camp for our summer land-life adventures (thank you Michael, for opening your home to us and being the most fabulous brother ever!!!). We were also lucky enough to find an affordable used Nissan Rogue that could get us around town and to visit family and friends. Perfect! For four months our heads and hearts were exactly where they needed to be whether we were in Belleville or Kingston or Toronto or Ottawa or even New Hampshire. We enjoyed every hug, every bit of news, all the fabulous experiences and so many smiles that really warmed our souls. Heck, we even learned that a couple of die-hard dog owners could fall in love with an African Grey parrot (shout out to our “pretty boy” Rafiki, my brother’s awesome pet bird). 

Lots of visits with friends and family

Reconnecting with Canadian boat friends

Meeting brand new family members, like our great-niece Amelia

The star of our summer - Rafiki the parrot!

Frost covered the lawn and garden on the day we left to head south

In a nutshell, being able to reconnect with everyone this summer was inspiring. It was a heart wrenching and sad (and frosty!) day when we started our trip south to Florida.

And, we were nervous.
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We had no idea how Wild Horses had fared through the extremely hot Florida summer. Even more worrisome, three hurricanes had crossed Florida this season. It started with Debby (category 1 in early August), then Helene (category 4 in late September) and, of course, Milton, a category 3 hurricane when it hit land. This last hurricane came as close to Wild Horses as I would have ever wanted a hurricane to get. The eye of Milton crossed less than 100 miles south of our boat (by that time it had downgraded to a category 1 hurricane).

Hurricane Milton heads across Florida (Green Cove Springs Marina is where the white dot is)

An understated weather report for Green Cove Springs says it will be "very windy" on the day Milton crossed the town. Um, yes, very windy indeed!

Thankfully, our first leg of our trip south was first to go east to New Hampshire to visit our friends Dave and Lisa on Indigo Lady. We had met them and their all-electric catamaran in Luperon, Dominican Republic back in March 2023 and travelled with them extensively all the way to St. Bart’s. There, we said good bye as we continued our journey south to Grenada and they went to St. Kitts. We never would have guessed that, a year and a half later, we would be visiting them on land at their home in New Hampshire. It was a wonderful visit catching up and exactly what we needed to calm our anxiousness about Wild Horses.
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After a quick but fabulous two days in New Hampshire, we continued our trip south to Green Cove Springs Marina in Florida and to our beloved Wild Horses.

Mike and Lisa stop to chat on a fabulous hike we took in New Hampshire

New Hampshire is stunning!

Mike and Dave celebrate a win by the Tennessee Volunteers, our adopted US College football (NCAA) team in honour of Caretta our Tennessee boat friends

And, yes, Wild Horses was fine. Actually, she was almost perfect. Truly, she was exactly as we had left her, sitting on land in the long-term storage yard, hurricane-strapped to steel bolts below ground, stripped bare of gear and sails, and with our dinghy “Ocean Transport” sitting tarped up and strapped down on her bow.

Whew.

We climbed aboard and opened the companionway door. I fully expected a waft of mold to hit my nose and to see remnants of bugs or dried condensation on the floors. But no. Her interior was wonderfully mold-free. There was no water in the bilge and no “boat” smell. Just one dead bug carcass laid alongside the bug traps I had put on the floor. Take that bug! You can’t mess with Wild horses!

Whew.

Our boat was moved to the work yard on the same day. Although we were anxious to get to our system checks, we needed to take care of priority number one which was to get some stairs so Ocean could go up and down the 9 feet to the stern of the boat. Mike was 100% ready to build the stairs, but we got lucky. One of the yard crew wasn’t using their stairs and they were the perfect solution for us. Yes!!

Hurricane straps hold Wild Horses firmly in place

Mike is first on Wild Horses and loves what he sees - no mold and no bugs!

Chatting with Steve from Lola, who we first met in Bimini, Bahamas

Getting Wild Horses ready to move from Long Term Storage to the Work Yard

Wild Horses in the Work Yard with our much-needed stairs in place

Oh boy! That is one dirty boat. We have our work cut out for us!

​Although all was going swimmingly (all system checks passed with flying colours), the boat needed a little tidying up and organizing before we could move aboard. We spent a few more days at our hotel near St. Augustine and then finally moved aboard exactly one week ago.

Ocean and Cow relaxing at the hotel

Hotel stays mean take out. We went crazy with a Japanese-Mexican meal...sushi and tex-mex dip. Yum!

Of course Ocean had to get her share of sushi too!

How long will it take to get Wild Horses ready for the water and a winter of sailing playtime in the Bahamas? Not sure. We have a list of projects and tasks but the big driver of our schedule is our engine rebuild. Last spring our mechanic had estimated that he would need 2 days to tear down our engine and another 7 days to put it back together. In between that time, our fuel injectors need to be sent out for servicing, which he guessed would take 4 weeks. Ugh, that equates to about 6 weeks in the work yard. To add to the pain, the hurricanes have played havoc with our mechanic’s schedule so he has been delayed in starting the work on our engine. He is currently set to arrive on Tuesday November 5th. So, the six-week clock starts ticking on Tuesday.

Hold on Bahamas! We will get there!!
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In the meantime, how are we managing life in a dirty, dusty and noisy work yard in hot old Florida? Check out the next post from Sailing Wild Horses to find out!