nonsuch sailboat – Have Wind Will Travel

Chapter Seven: “Slow Down Buddy. Slower Than That.”

November 9, 2015December 11, 2015anniedike

Magic Eraser rocks. It does! The last few hours we were underway toward Clearwater I busted one of those magical white blocks out and went to town on the cabin of Mitch’s Nonsuch. The interior really was in such great shape. Was it moldy, dirty and grimy? Yes! But did the Magic Eraser fix all of that? Of course!

And maybe I’m a little partial to Mr. Clean because of the resemblance …

A little elbow grease and some magic, though, and the Nonsuch looked like a completely different boat down below. We had spent most of our time during this initial passage inspecting and learning the systems, hoisting the sail for the first time, trying the reefing lines, checking the fluids of the engine, etc., but once we felt all of the primary systems were running fine, it felt nice to finally get in there and do some cosmetic work. While you always want your boat to run and perform well, making her look good is always high on the list as well. I wiped just about every surface with Clorox wipes and came back with the Magic Eraser for the stuck-on stains.

I was making good progress until I made it to the head. The floor there was thoroughly stained ….

but it was no match for the eraser!

I was also excited to find the holding tank was backing up into the bowl. Yippee! It appeared the joker valve on the head was failing and allowing about three inches of holding tank goodness to eek back into the bowl and slosh around for the ride. I dumped a little bleach in and that seemed to help but the crew was greeted with a little pond of bleached sewage every time they lifted the lid. Overall, though, the boat was cleaning up extraordinarily well. Mitch had found a real gem. With still unfavorable wind (light and right on our nose) we were still motoring, though, which made the clean-up job a bit of a sweaty endeavor in the stuffy cabin. I was definitely looking forward to a nice, refreshing shower in Clearwater.

After all of the motoring we had been doing, we definitely needed some fuel so we pointed Mitch in toward the fuel dock at Clearwater. Only his second time docking and, I have to say, he did a pretty good job. The man loves that throttle though. I don’t think he realizes how fast he’s really going because he tends to barrel in. It was clear the team was going to have to work on this. And we tried! When Mitch was making his way from the fuel dock into the transient slip for the night, Phillip kept trying to ease him back: “Slower, buddy. Slower than that.” Mitch was flying into the slip with Phillip and I trying to catch pilings to slow us down. “Mitch!” Phillip shouted back to the cockpit and Mitch hollered back: “I’m not giving her any gas!” [Insert frown here.]

Thankfully, we had a few dock hands come up to help us and they held the bow off the dock but I’ll have to give Mitch a B- on that one. When we got her tied off and secure, Phillip walked back to the cockpit, looked at Mitch, pointed to the shifter and said: “Neutral. Reverse.” It’s easy to forget, though, if you don’t drive a sailboat often. It’s not like a car where you can just step on the brakes, but you do have options. If you’re going too fast, even in idle, you can throw it in neutral to slow her down or reverse and throttle her a little if you need to really need to put the brakes on. After a docking lesson or two and a few gentle reminders from Phillip, Mitch started to do this on his own. It just takes a little time to train your brain. Once we got the boat buttoned up and gave the boat a good rinse down, the crew immediately set their sights on a shower. I was coated in salt, sweat and Magic Eraser filth. It was still a steam bath outside and we were all sweltering walking toward the shower, dreaming of that first icy drench. However, the swelter outside could in no way compare to the sauna inside.

The AC was out in the women’s bathroom and it felt like a muggy 100 degrees in there. I had to kick and flail out of each sticky scrap of clothing I had on. While the water was cool, the minute I stepped out of the stream, I started sweating again. I mean the very minute. The thought of dressing in there seemed absurd. Whatever I did in there─I’m not sure you could call it a shower. Maybe a sauna rinse? A steam spray?─I was nowhere near clean when I came out, my clothes wet and sticking to every part of my body, my face completely beaded up and dripping. Only because I didn’t think a nude streak to the boat would have been appropriate did I dress in there. Mid-June, in the middle of Florida, and it was cooler outside than it was in that blasted shower room. I was at least soothed by the discovery that the men’s bathroom suffered from the same AC dilemma. We all had a good time regaling our individual streak contemplations and sweaty dressing struggles. Funny, each of us decided to brush our teeth and hair (well, those that had hair) and do all of that post-shower potions-and-lotions stuff back on the boat. I swear, the minute you stepped out of the stream, you could not get out of there fast enough. We all bolted back to the boat.

But, you know where we were guaranteed to have AC? On Tanglefoot! Mitch was blessed with such amenities. Although he about froze me out our first night on the boat before we left Ft. Myers, now I wanted to freeze. I welcomed it. I would have savored every shiver. We all huddled up in the cool boat, changed out of the clean-but-now-sweaty clothes we had just put on, got into some fresh dry clothes and cranked the AC up. Mitch even sat in front of the vent by the nav station with a fan directing the blow at each of us intermittently like an oscillating fan. It was only around 5:00 p.m., though, and the crew was absolutely beat.

Two-hour nights shifts always seems exhausting the first night but your body just has to adjust. After the second night of two hours on, two hours off, I usually feel like I’ve acclimated a bit and I’m not near as tired on the third day. But that second day is always a killer. We were trying to stay awake because we knew a “nap” would turn into a near-coma. We wanted to at least stay up long enough to get some dinner and then really get a good night’s rest that evening so we could sail out of Clearwater fresh at first light and make it to either Apalachicola or─if things were going really well─all the way back to Pensacola in one passage. We knew this was the “real jaunt.” The passage from Ft. Myers to Clearwater had been a pretty much parallel to shore. And, once we got to the Apalachicola area, the rest of the trip would also be, pretty much, a hug of the shore. This passage, however─from Clearwater to Apalachicola─would be the true Gulf crossing. This is where we would find ourselves on our longest leg of the trip and the furthest from shore. Let’s just say if Mother Nature sensed any opportune time to jack us around, this would be it. And, this is the exact time, last time─when Phillip, Mitch and I were bringing our boat back from Punta Gorda, FL to Pensacola─that she decided to really see what we were made of. The last time the three of us made this passage we found ourselves in the middle of the night, in the middle of the Gulf, sawing our dinghy off the davits in 4-6 foot seas that had sheared every bolt we had left to hold her. If there was any part of this trip to really be concerned about, this was it.

We checked the weather, for the forty-fourth time that day. The winds promised to be variable and light. Kind of annoying. It might mean more boring motoring. If that prediction held. And the sea-state looked to be calm. It definitely appeared to be a good window. We deemed it safe to go and decided we would leave the next morning as soon as we woke. But, we needed a good night’s rest. Our eyes were drooping we decided to venture out for an “adventure dinner” to wake ourselves up. It was fun seeing the old “big boobs diner” we had eaten at the first time Phillip, Mitch and I stopped in Clearwater when we were bringing our Niagara home back in 2013.

We decided this time to saunter over to Frenchy’s Saltwater Cafe for dinner and even opted for the early bird special, without shame.

I could tell I was tired when the only thing I felt after two stout rum drinks was sleepy. Exhaustion is a total buzzkill. We ambled back to the boat and cuddled up in our frozen palace to get a solid night’s rest before shoving back out into the Gulf the next day.

“Mitch,” I said shaking his shoulder a bit. Phillip and I had snoozed through the alarm twice before finally rolling out of bed and Mitch hadn’t yet moved. After his first night holding solo shifts on an offshore passage, I’m sure that was the most tired he can remember feeling. And, we’ll be nice and say that’s a testament to his state of exhaustion not his memory. “Mitch!” I shouted giving him a solid shove. He finally flinched to with a snort and looked at me in total shock, as if he didn’t know where he was, who I was and why the hell I was shoving him awake. I stood there with a raised eyebrow for a minute and he finally decided to check back into reality and started rustling out of bed. He said he couldn’t even remember laying down the night before. We had all just about felt that way. But after a good ten hours of sleep we were all feeling pretty rested and ready to get underway. We readied the Nonsuch and started talking about a plan to de-dock. Again, we made Mitch make all the decisions and simply tell us what lines to release when. Now, I’ll give him a solid A on the plan but a B on the execution. As soon as he put the boat in reverse and started to throttle her up, instantly the stern started kicking over to port. Sharp too. I was on the port side and pushing with all of my might near the beam but her stern continued to pivot around.

I looked over at Phillip on starboard but he’d already let off the bow line per Mitch’s instruction and didn’t have any way to control the nose of the boat. The further she kept turning, I watched with clenched teeth as the finger dock we had been using to get on and off the boat on the port side began to jut in through the lifelines. I scrambled toward it, braced my back against the cabin top and tried to push it out with my feet.

It was inching out but not fast enough. As the boat continued to move backward, the finger pier made contact with the stanchion post and I was afraid she was going to snap it over like a weed, ripping a hole in the deck in the process. I hate docking. Have I said that before? Well … And de-docking too. It’s always so stressful to watch your precious boat inch closer and closer to sure peril. But! Mitch saved us! With some instruction from Phillip but still─he did the right thing at the right time. Mitch threw her in forward, gassed her up and steered her right back into the slip. I was so glad to see the finger pier ease out from the lifelines and back away from the boat. Lesson to be learned here: check the rudder before you begin backing out. Mitch forgot to make sure it was lined up straight before backing out. Again, an easy mistake to make that could have cost him hundreds in damage. I don’t man the helm often and I can’t say I would remember to do that every time. Sailing. No one said it was easy.

Once we got the boat secure again, Phillip headed back in the cockpit to help Mitch re-group. I was still up on deck tying a line when Phillip so Mitch probably didn’t think I could hear. “Do you think I can handle this boat, Phillip?” Mitch asked and my ears perked up. I did feel for him. After a scary experience like that, you start to doubt yourself. “Of course,” Phillip immediately responded, which you may think sounds like he was placating Mitch but he wouldn’t. It was the truth. He could. Like any new boat owner, Mitch just needed to make the important mistakes while help was around. With the simple fix of lining up the rudder before backing out, Mitch handled the second attempt flawlessly. Seriously, Phillip and I let off the lines and he slipped out without any assistance. Even after that heart-pumping first attempt. I would have congratulated him but he didn’t even relish in the moment. He was all business. The minute he eased her out, Mitch clocked her around, put her in forward and started heading toward the channel. Phillip and I watched him silently for a minute like proud parents. He was doing it all by himself.

But as soon as we were all smiles and cheer for him he had us cracking up again with one of his Mitch’isms. He was watching the GPS trying to steer his way out of the channel and I’m sure he was a little shook up from our docking debacle and the whole adventure in general but he kept weaving back and forth in the narrow channel. We let it slide a time or two but after a few back-and-forths we had to ask. “What’s going on buddy?” I hollered from the deck. Mitch was quiet at first. Then he started muttering a little and finally said, “Oh, now I get it. I’m the long line.” Phillip and I exchanged a raised-eyebrow look. “You’re what?” I asked. “The long line,” Mitch repeated. “I couldn’t tell on the GPS which line was the heading or me. But, I get it now. I’m the long line.”

Mitch. He’s like a gray blonde sometimes, and so cute about it. We still joke about the long line.

But, as tired as we had been the night before, it was (and is always) so invigorating to get back out in blue water. Nothing but a blue horizon in every direction. Water meets sky and that’s it.

It’s stunning, mesmerizing. Some may find it frightening to not see shore, to not─without the assistance of charts, a compass or (nowadays) a GPS─know which way will lead you back home. Some fear this detachment. We love it. Phillip and I sat on the deck all morning just staring at the blue infinity stretched out before us. It felt so good to be back out in the Gulf. It was strange to think it was the same body of water that had rocked and tossed us last time, submerged and swallowed our dinghy because it now looked so calm. Big thunderheads began to build on our stern again in the afternoon but we motored on, ready for whatever adventure she had in store.

Thanks to my Patrons who help me share the journey. Get inspired. Get on board.

Chapter Six: Man Overboard

November 2, 2015December 11, 2015anniedike

Lightning is beautiful. It really is. When it’s far away and you can just watch it and wonder about the illusive static forces that are causing such shocking white streaks in the sky.

Just wondering how it occurs is fun. Wondering whether it’s going to come right up over your boat, however, is not. When I turned in for my first sleep shift around 10:00 p.m. our first night on passage from Ft. Myers to Clearwater on s/v Tanglefoot, the lightning storm was just that: beautiful and far away. Mid-way through my 2:00 a.m. shift at the helm, it started clocking around our port side and getting closer.

Mitch cracked me up when he finished his 12-2 shift and woke me at 2:00 a.m. I guess having sailed with Phillip for so long there are just some routines, some mutual unspoken courtesies that we fell into that Mitch apparently wasn’t privy to. But I guess that’s our fault. This was his first offshore passage with solo night shifts and we didn’t tell him. When Phillip or I are approaching a shift change, we generally go rouse the man coming on about ten minutes before our shift is over to give him time to wake up, get some water, brush his teeth. Whatever it is he feels he needs to do feel fresh and alert for his shift. Then we usually sit together for a bit, discuss the conditions, give a report of any notable events, sightings or observations and fill out the cruising log together (the time for which usually corresponds with the shift change). In general, we just have a routine of helping ease one another from dead sleep to alert watchman. It’s not anything Phillip and I talked about or planned out, it was just a pattern we flowed into.

But Mitch? He shook me awake on the starboard settee at 2:00 a.m. sharp, said “Annie, it’s your shift,” and started stripping gear off and heading back to the vberth. “Auto’s on. All’s clear right now. Holler if you need me,” he said on his way back. I blinked a couple of times trying to rouse myself quickly.

“Phillip’s on next, though,” Mitch was sure to remind me.

Thanks buddy, because I might have forgotten that part. But man I wish Mitch had the shift after me. I would have loved to have woken him in the same fashion: “Hey, buddy! Snap to. The helm’s unmanned. Get up there.” Now, to be fair, Mitch had not been indoctrinated in our slow-and-smooth method (patent pending) for shift changes and, technically, he had every right. It was my shift. My turn to hold watch. I needed to get up there. But … I was going to educate him next time. I like my ten minutes. I need it to clear my sleep fog. But, it was a minor transgression. Mitch had held his first solo shift─without complaint─and had done a good job of it.

It didn’t take me long, though, to ease into the atmosphere in the cockpit. It was so crisp in the Gulf, the moon lighting every little chop on the water, like the water was prickling with energy. The stars were so clear against the black sky. When you’re out on the water they don’t have to compete with any man-made light. It’s like everything is clicked into high definition. A view that was once hazy is wiped crystal clean and you can see, now, that all of the stars you could see on land actually have fifteen equally bright stars between them and five more little sparkling ones between each of those. It seems impossible to find a patch of pure black. I wish we could have dropped the bimini during the night but we still had the lightning storm on our stern, although it was far off in the distance─just a mesmerizing natural wonder to watch and wonder about. I hated that we were still motoring but the wind was still so light─blowing maybe five knots─right on our nose. The motor on the Nonsuch was chugging right along, though, impressing us all. And Mitch was blessed with a linear-drive AutoHelm 6000 on the Nonsuch. That thing held in twice the weather as the little wheel-pilot AutoHelm 3000 Phillip and I have on our Niagara. We had already been talking about upgrading our auto pilot for the past year but this trip on Mitch’s boat served as a stark awakening that we needed to stop talking and do it already. The autopilot on the Nonsuch was our champion on the trip. With the autopilot and the Westerbeke purring right along, the first hour of my shift was pretty easy.

Around 3:00 a.m., though, the beautiful, bewildering lightning storm that had stayed on our stern all night now started to drift over to my port side. Every once in a while I would see a crack of lightning out of my peripheral on the left, then every once in a while became every few minutes. With only the iron sail pushing us along, we had pretty much free reign over what direction we wanted to go. I picked the one that would take us away from the lightning storm. I clocked us over about thirty degrees east to try and head away from it. I hated to take us off course but if there was a lightning storm on our previous heading, an earlier arrival time was a sacrifice I was more than willing to make to avoid a storm. When I roused Phillip around 3:45 a.m.─yes, with the obligatory ten-minute wake-up routine─I let him know the status and he remained on my east heading as I fell back into the dead zone.

It seemed the Gulf just wanted to toy with us this time, though, because the lightning storm never fell on us. The crew woke to still waters and a stunning sunset off the starboard side.

Mitch seemed to be faring pretty well. Whatever queasiness had come over him the night before seemed to have subsided. We all had fun talking about the evening and the unique experiences we had during our solo night shifts. Mitch told us with the lightning storm threatening us from the stern and only the chugging engine capable of pushing us to safety, he admitted he was a little worried, a little scared. Which is justifiable. If the engine quit for whatever, a hundred totally possible reasons, we wouldn’t have been able to sail away from that storm with the light wind on our nose. The engine was our only ticket to safety and Mitch told us he just sat in the cockpit checking the engine temp and patting the the coaming saying: “Tanglefoot. You got this.”

It was cute. And totally understandable. But, Tanglefoot proved herself steady and true, chugging us right through the night, away from the storm and into a beautiful streaking sunrise. It had been a slightly frightening but also awe-inspiring first night on passage. The only bummer was the motoring but that engine, I’ll tell you, was solid as a rock. Never a hiccup, never an issue (that wasn’t a result of operator error). Thankfully, the breeze freshened up around 9:00 a.m. We hoisted that huge ass Nonsuch sail (again with the same halyard explosion threat but we did finally get her cranked up) and finally were able to sail without the engine.

There’s just something about moving through a vast body of blue water by the sheer power of the wind. It sparks a soothing at-oneness with the world around you. We all kicked back in solace and just appreciated what the boat was doing. I will say the ability to easily drop the bimini on the Nonsuch was nice. It makes you feel so open and connected with the salt air and sky.

Sadly, it didn’t last long. If I said the breeze was fresh around 9:00 a.m., it had grown a little stale and flat before noon. And, without the wind, it was scorching under the hot, overhead sun. We knew we were going to have to re-crank but Phillip wanted to check the fluids before we turned the engine over again. All told, she had been running a little over twenty-four hours straight through the night before we shut her down. Having experienced a rather unfortunate engine failure on our own boat due to lack of fluids after a solid thirty-hour run, Phillip and I were a little sensitive about the fluid situation. Again we made Mitch do most of the heavy lifting in checking all the fluids to be sure he knew how to access each one and identify issues. And, do recall all three─transmission, oil and coolant─are located in three separate areas on the boat. I’m not saying I could check them all in under five minutes but I will say it wouldn’t take me a damn hour! Oh, alright forty-five minutes but still.

Mitch did check them all himself, though, and assured us we were ready to re-crank and carry on. But, first things first. I did mention it was hot! We decided it was time for a quick dip. We dropped the sails and let the boat bob for a minute so we could go for a swim.

My God the water felt good. It was just the refresher we needed. And there must have been some strong current outside of Clearwater because we were still doing 1.8 knots with no sails and no engine. Mitch was struggling a bit to keep up with the boat so we threw him a line and all got a big laugh out of his “Tanglefoot!” re-enactment.

I was using the swim break to rinse our breakfast dishes and that current must have been stronger than I thought because when I looked back to make sure Mitch was still lassoed behind the boat, it seemed the water had sucked his britches clean off. We had a man overboard minus his drawers!

Oh, alright. He didn’t actually lose his britches. It sure looked like it, though, seeing him splash around in drawers the distinct color of bare bottom. And I wouldn’t have put it past him. After a quick, refreshing bathing-suit-clad dip, we piled back in the boat, cranked her up and set our sights on Clearwater. We were just a few hours out and this crew was ready for some shore leave!

Thanks to my Patrons who help me share the journey. Get inspired. Get on board.

Chapter Four – Tanglefoot

October 20, 2015December 11, 2015anniedike

“Tanglefoot,” she said over the loud speaker. Phillip and I kind of eyed each other curiously. “Tangle-FOOT!” she said again, this time with more emphasis on the “foot.” That’s when we really found out how serendipitous this whole boat-shopping venture had been for Mitch.

It was June 19, 2015 and Mitch, Phillip and I were heading down in a Beverly-Hillbilly style packed-out rental to Ft. Myers to help Mitch sail his recently-acquired 1985 Nonsuch back home to Pensacola.

Didn’t bode too well that I suffered my first “boat bite” (or I guess this would be a “rental car bite”) the very minute I stepped into the car.

Don’t ask me how. There were flip flops and a floor mat involved. That’s all I remember. But it was a bit of a bloody mess we had to deal not our very first mile into the trip. Leave it to me … But the boys got me doctored up and we continued our trek south.

We stopped in for some lunch at Panera in Tallahassee and that’s when we first heard the name: Tanglefoot. The third time the little Panera chick said it over the intercom Phillip and I started to look around to see who was going to respond to that calling. Then we saw him─Mitch─bouncing up to the table with our food trays in hand. “What do you think?” he asked, looking at us as if his question made sense. Phillip and I kind of sat there dumbly: What do we think about what?

“Tanglefoot,” Mitch said again. “That’s the name of the boat.”

You see what I mean? 6’4” Mitch Roberts finds a damn-near perfect boat, in great condition for a great price and it’s named the only single thing in the world I could imagine to be more fitting for his vessel name than “While You’re Down There.”

“Tanglefoot,” Phillip and I repeated him chuckling. It was almost too perfect. Plus, Mitch has no poker face. He holds nothing back. If he’s thinking it, you’re going to hear it. He kind of tumbles over his words sometimes they come out so fast, so Tanglefoot-in-Mouth works just as well. And it wouldn’t be long before we would actually be setting foot on the infamous s/v Tanglefoot ourselves. It was a long haul (approximately nine hours) to make in one day but we got to the docks in Ft. Myers around 10:00 p.m.─just in time for our first Tanglefoot adventure!

Stopped at the Barrel in Ft. Myers for dinner. Annie loves “Country Fresh Flavor.”

The boat was docked in a gated community with water access and slips. Mitch said the owner’s broker was supposed to have called the security gate to let them know he would be coming that day to the boat. Of course that didn’t happen and here it was─10:00 p.m.─and we find ourselves being held hostage by the little gated-booth police because we don’t have clearance for admission. Mitch tried calling the broker several times while the gate guards watched us. Mitch’s impatience was visible. “I can’t believe these knuckleheads are serious,” he told Phillip and I, thankfully behind a rolled-up window so the guards didn’t hear. After three failed attempts to reach the broker, he then tried the owner, which I thought was a long shot because it was so late and─I mean─the man is, according to Mitch, “older than molasses,” which we took for mid-eighties. But, I guess I have to admit I’m ignorant to the night life of eighty-year-olds because the owner picked right up, sounding cheery as a nun on Sunday and was able to get us clearance through the booth. For whatever reason, though─even after the phone call─there was still some very important paperwork shuffling and “processing” to be done in the almighty gate booth. You should have seen these three rent-a-goobers, wheeling around on their whirly chairs, shuffling papers back and forth, writing things down like they were solving the mystery of global warming. Mitch kept trying to roll down the window to say something to them─something Phillip and I were sure would get us banned from the place forever─and Phillip kept rolling his window back up to contain him.

Then─in an apparent effort to entertain us while the all-important “gated booth processing” procedure was completed─one of the uniformed security blokes comes out to chat with us. He pulled his pants up a few times, Barney Fife style, and leaned into the driver side window.

“Evening all,” he said tipping his hat to us.

“Evening,” we all mumbled back kind of awkwardly, keeping our thoughts to ourselves: What in the bloody name of gated booths was taking so long?

“You come here to stay on the boat tonight, huh?”

“Yes, sir,” Mitch said back, trying to be patient. I was proud he’d changed the “knucklehead” to “sir.”

“What slip are you in?” Fife asked. It seemed like he was trying to be cordial.

“I don’t know,” Mitch said, a little embarrassed, but more irritated than anything. Who gives a crap? Let us in!

“Well, what dock?” Fife followed up, now a little suspect.

“I don’t know,” Mitch barked back, now noticeably irritated. “I just know how to get to the boat. I don’t know which dock it is.”

“Well, there are only five docks,” Fife snapped, giving us a stupid, how-can-you-not-know frown.

“I told you … ” Mitch started to fire back and reach for the door handle. I thought he was about to step out of the vehicle and blow our chances of ever getting to the boat that night but, thankfully, he was cut off. Fife No. 2 stuck his head out of the booth, waved some papers in the air and said, “You all have a safe night, now,” as the gate buzzed and the arm finally started to lift, allowing us through. Fife No. 1 hiked his pants up again, because I’m sure there had been some slippage in the “which dock?” exchange and gave us a scowl as we drove by. The three of us were laughing about it─now that we had gotten in─but those rent-a-Fifes were unbelievable. How important is the maintenance of the gate log and documentation of thru traffic in a quiet gated community in Ft. Myers, Florida? I mean really?

Mitch held true to his word too. He had no idea what dock the boat was on but he knew exactly how to guide us to it. Here it was─our first time to see Tanglefoot.

Man, did Mitch get lucky. She was a sound, solid, well-built boat. Dirty as all get out but with just a few swipes of a Clorox wipe I could tell she was going to clean up incredibly well.

And, it was shocking how big the boat felt. At thirty feet, Mitch’s boat is a good five feet shorter than ours but it feels five feet bigger in every direction down below. It looked like you could line up three ballerinas in the saloon and have them each do pirrouettes and they wouldn’t hit each other. It was like a floating condo.

And, the companionway blew my mind. The entry-way is like four feet fall, with two measly steps down to the cabin floor and Mitch could stand tall and straight most everywhere in the cabin below.

No wonder Mitch said he felt comfortable on this boat. It’s like it was built for him. The cockpit is massive too. I think the fact that beam of the boat is carried so far forward and so far aft is what makes it feel so much bigger than ours. The Nonsuch is probably a little squattier in that regard (I like to call those “fat bottom girls”) which can make them a little less comfortable to sail in heavy weather, but it certainly makes them super comfortable to cruise around coastal waters and spend the weekends in. Phillip and I were both really impressed with the layout, look, feel, build and quality of Mitch’s boat. You done good, Buddy. You done good. We started poking around and tidying things up a bit and discovered some interesting eighty-year-old man finds. There was a complete drawer of canned Buds in the vberth. Think like eighteen cans in one drawer and a mounted can crusher by the companionway stairs.

It was gross─all grungy and moldy with years of dirt caked on. That was going to be one of the first things to go. But, modifications and thorough clean-up would come later. For now it was time to settle in─get all of our provisions on-board and stowed away and the boat put in a somewhat functioning condition for sleeping that evening so we could rise early and make sure she was ready to head out tomorrow morning for the passage.

Mitch was so excited showing us around the boat he kept dropping things and losing his flashlight. I can’t tell you how many times he had to ask Phillip to borrow his. We decided we were soon going to have to put a head lamp on him permanently. Or maybe a chest-mounted push light that you could just click on whenever he came near. That would have been helpful.

But, you couldn’t blame him. He was just excited. This was his boat! His very first sailboat! Tanglefoot! And this was his first time to have friends aboard and get to show her off. And (and!)─even better─we would soon be shoving her out of the slip and sailing her out into blue waters. That’s some pretty good stuff. Definitely worth a couple dropped nuts and bolts and forever-missing flashlight. I’ve never seen Mitch so giddy. Since he was all smiles and giggles we decided to give him his little Captain’s gift then─a log book and a waterproof accordion folder for all of his manuals. Pulling from experience, we know how important it is to keep those handy and organized.

After a couple of hours unpacking, cleaning and stowing, though, this crew was beat. It was well after midnight by then and we were planning to make one more provision run in the morning for perishables and then toss the lines around noon and start making our way north, toward either Venice or Clearwater. Venice was going to be a shorter trip, more paralleled to the shore. We were keeping it open as an option in case we suffered some equipment or engine failure or other likely catastrophe on the first leg of the trip. If things were going well, though, we were hoping to make it all the way to Clearwater right out of the gate. Talk didn’t last long, though, as the crew’s lids started to droop. It had been a long day. Phillip and I folded down the table in the saloon to set up the double bed on the starboard side for us, while Mitch prepared the vberth for him. The amount of room in the cabin of the Nonsuch is astounding. Phillip and I felt like we were sprawled out in a five-star suite!

Then Mitch cranked up the AC. Yes, a boat with AC. This would be a new luxury for Phillip and me. Whether it was the chill or the new sleeping digs or just the excitement of spending our first night on Mitch’s boat knowing we were going to sail it out into the Gulf tomorrow, none of us got much sleep that night.

Personally, I blame Mitch and the AC. He has got to cool it─no pun intended─with the AC because that about the coldest I’ve ever been in my damn life. I was tugging and grunting and trying to get every body part covered with Phillip and I’s shared sheet but it still wasn’t enough. I was barely groggy and froze-toed when the alarm went off at 5:45 a.m. the next morning. The first thing I did was step out into the cockpit to the much-welcomed muggy warmth. My feet prickled back to life as I walked the dewy deck with a smile. We were sailing today!

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