Maiden Voyage—Prep

For almost a year we have been messing about with boats—living aboard, fixing/cleaning/remodeling and getting to know our boats (now just one boat). All of this with the intention to be together as a family and to actually do life with our kids. Even being stationed at a marina for nearly a year, the Lord has brought us an incredible adventure. It is unbelievable how He crafts situations and relationships in such unexpected ways—we never could have imagined the friendships and love we would encounter upon our arrival to Saint Augustine. We absolutely adore our marina family, community and church there, which made it difficult to leave out, but we are so excited and know this is what God has for us!

If you’ve read prior posts, then you know our current vessel is a 30’ S2 9.2 sailboat and that we are a family of five—six, if you count Orli’s buddy LaShonda (a large, ethnic doll who was handmade for me by my grandmother 35 years ago) and seven with Robot (Zion’s pet Betta fish). So with the amount of space and people aboard, we have been tapping into our creative powers for overall arrangement, provisioning and packing.

Robot scored this sweet gimbal and corner office.

After returning to Saint Augustine from three months in Missouri/Arkansas, we were finally ready to gear up for our 75-day sailing journey to the Bahamas. Our goal was to square everything away within one month

Kyle focused on preparing the boat and finishing crucial projects such as:

• Electronics install
• Solar install
• Watermaker install
• Masthead, anchor and running lights
• Dinghy davit install
• Dinghy inflated/assembled/hung
• Hull sanded/painted and new vinyl
• Refrigerator/Freezer
• Running rigging
• New interior LEDs
• New house batteries
• Rewired engine harness/new engine gauges
• Acid-cleaned heat exchanger
• Changed engine oil
​• Replaced fuel sender

My responsibility was to tend to children, daily tasks, errands, organization, laundry, shopping and to plan the trip provisions. Provisions = food. If you know me, you know I am a foodie to the max— so an expedition of this caliber was extremely exciting to meal-plan! Here’s a peek into my shopping/food prep/stowing:

As the end of the month approached, we adjusted our departure date by a couple days and scheduled to leave March 1.

On Sunday 2/25 we decided to take a much needed day of rest and took a friend up on an invite to go sailing on his boat. The outing was so informational and fun and we were back in time for church at Colonial. We all slept like babies that night!

On Monday 2/26 we picked back up with projects, organizing, locating last minute parts, an unexpected run to Jacksonville, lots of shopping, and laundry.

We made time for celebrating Kyle and Orli’s birthdays on 2/27 & 2/28, respectively.

On our last day, the final component arrived in the mail. After some goodbyes and running around non-stop we were in bed at about 2:30am.

The alarm clock rang at 5:30am.

A good friend came over at 6am to help with dock lines. Our pastor also came to see us off and blessed our trip with a prayer.

And then—we set out!