Randall and Jake took turns today going up to the mast to install the three new lower stays. Rigger Jake is not afraid to use a hammer to get an oversized t-head fitting in place. Well, he was a little afraid. He kept calling down, “I don’t think you are going to like the looks […]
Archive | All Posts
Clearwater Marine Aquarium
Lily could not wait to met Hazel at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. I could not wait to meet Harry Connick Jr. I had to explain to Lily on the way over that we were expecting a little too much. The human characters from the movie “Dolphin Tale” wouldn’t be there but we could see the […]
Beach Invitation
Randall, Jake and Lily went for a dinghy ride. There is a beach north of here which we’ve spotted from the top floor at St. Petersburg Pier so they are going to get a closer look. While they were gone, Lily had a visitor who left me with this cute note for Lily from both […]
Together Again
Well he hasn’t tried to talk Lily out of the V-berth, but Jake is definitely right at home on Foxtrot. He walked down the pier with us after arriving saying, “I do kinda miss boat life.” We wondered just how hard it would be for a six-foot+ sailor to get around in Foxtrot. So far, […]
Race Weekend
What’s it like to live close enough to the St. Petersburg IndyCar race to be hit by flying tire tread? Our neighbor, Lee, yelled it best. He was dropping Lily off after taking her and his own daughter, Emily, to see the action. “What’s it like” Randall yelled although he was within arm’s reach of […]
Sightseeing by water
Dinghy driving practice went well. Student 1 (Tammy) just needed a refresher course from having been land locked so long. She failed backing but can go forward in a fairly controlled manner. Backing was never her thing anyway and every effort is given to locating a spot on a dingy dock that doesn’t require significant […]
A Madden on the Indy Racetrack. Beware!
Downtown St. Pete is gearing up for the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg race this weekend and my friend, Maeghan Madden, has already tested tire traction on the popular waterfront stretch of track. Meaghan, her boyfriend, Colton Roberts, and her mom, Laura, visited on Monday all the way from Blanchard, Oklahoma!! Ok, they were on […]
Fishin’ From The Dock
“Can I go fishing?” We hear this request daily. Lily would like to catch something, sure, but a fish-less stretch is not an entire loss. She likes casting and casting for 30 minutes is, by itself, sport enough. Occasionally she gets the plastic worm to sail where she wants it and a minute of success […]
Bowls of Boatmeal
Tristan Jones is a well known among sailors for his fascinating sea stories. He claimed to have logged more than 450,000 nautical miles on various boats. Biographers and readers have argued a bit over this number but I think it’s more controversial that we don’t have an accurate count of how many bowls of burgoo […]
Boat rules
Once you decide to live on a boat, tons of thought goes into What BOAT? We’ve had three sailboats and so we’ve made this difficult decision three times. It probably shouldn’t be so difficult. In the end, it is how you live and not what you live on that makes for a happy/unhappy voyage. […]