st. augustine, fl

I have a lot of catching up to do...

After lots of discussion we decided we would leave our boat in West Palm Beach for hurricane season. We were already there. We know the area after living there for a long time. We were all ready to get a break from the boat and head back to Minnesota. It was an easy decision... until it wasn't.

After several days of unreturned phone calls from local boatyards we decided maybe West Palm wasn't the best place to leave our boat. Our new plan was to go on one last overnight adventure and take our boat up to St. Augustine. Those boatyards were at least returning our calls.

When we sail overnight we always have someone awake on watch. There can be a lot of traffic on the ocean at night - cruise ships, container ships, this Navy warship. You never know what you might see out there.

Every boat does their overnight watches differently since what works for some doesn't work for others. For us that means I stay up as late as I can while Braden sleeps, then he takes over (usually around 12 AM or 1 AM) while I sleep, then some time before sunrise I get up so Braden can get some more sleep. Bonus for me: I get to see both the sunset and sunrise.

The girls always want to stay up all night with us, but they haven't made it yet.

Hello St. Augustine!

St. Augustine is such a cute city. I told Braden if we ever decided to sell our house in Minnesota I would definitely move here.

After a few days exploring it was time to get to work getting the boat ready for summer. My parents live 45 minutes away, so grandma came to pick up the girls and take them to her house. They were beyond excited.

Once they were gone Braden and I got to work - taking the sails down, cleaning, organizing, purging all the food, laundry, vacuuming sealing, etc., etc., etc.

In the end this is how we leave the boat. It may look like a mess, but it is a very organized mess.

We did manage to squeeze in some date nights after a long (hot) days work.

These dolphins would come by our boat every day for hours. Apparently our boat was right in front of their fishing hole. I know this because the local tour boats would also come by every day, which means I am in lots of peoples vacation videos.

I could (and did) sit there for hours just watching them. Sometimes there would be 10+ at a time and they would bring their babies. It definitely didn't help us get the boat ready in a timely fashion, but it was worth it.

Clearly our bottom needed some serious cleaning because this turtle would come by every so often for a snack.

After some long, hard days it was time to take the boat out of the water. This was by far the smallest space we've ever squeezed the boat. It was a tight fit.

Our plan is to come back in November, get a bunch of boat projects crossed off the list while we're in the US and can easily get boat parts, then go back out for another sailing season. Where will we go? We don't know. We have a couple options, so we'll just see where the wind and waves will take us.