Cast Off All Lines
Holy shit! After a super hectic last month or two getting ready, we’re finally cruising. Dublin has been the least excited about our move onto the boat, and unfortunately for him, the weather for our first four day passage was nearly perfect for departure on his birthday. We managed to salvage things though. We listened to some Harry Potter while under sail, and strung up the Lucy Lights for a perfect family dinner capped with a flourless chocolate torte Grete picked up before we left Pensacola. We agreed to go get pizza and ice cream when we arrived in Punta Gorda as well. Happy 10th birthday to my Issimo.
Seasickness
Buy stock in Dramamine. Fira has to pop them like Mentos the whole trip. The cats too, have issues with the motion. Just about every time I went below to do something I also had to clean up some cat puke and feel bad for our kitties. The fact that we were underway for about 76 hours was the worst part. On shorter trips going forward, we’ll forego giving them their food until after we’ve anchored at the end of the trip.
Punta Gorda
I never would have planned to go to Punta Gorda (it wasn’t on my radar) but our old next door neighbors from Kansas City retired down here in the beginning of 2022 and we wanted to see them and catch up. Punta Gorda was a cool little town and seemed to have a lot going for itself. The senior living community that our friends retired to also seems like a really charming slice of comfort.
Food
We went out for that pizza that we promised Dublin on our first day there. Apparently many of the pizza joints in town are closed on Mondays but we ended up going to Pioneer Pizza for some gluten free goodness.
Chris and Tina picked us up in their boat and took us to Fisherman’s Village for eating and shopping. I love traveling in non-traditional ways and arriving there by water made it far more special than if we had driven there. It’s quite strange traveling on a power boat after sailing for four straight days. We’re used to 4-7 knots and Chris’s fishing boat does about 30-35 knots. It literally blew our hair back. We got Dublin his birthday ice cream, and also picked up some free bags we got from our old sails.
The boat we purchased had the previous set of sails aboard and after conferring with other cruisers who’ve been living aboard for a while I was told not to bother keeping them. So, someone pointed us toward a place called Sea Bags that makes high dollar totes out of old sailcloth. They have a program where you send in your old sails and they give you a free bag for each one. That’s the route we took and we just walked into the store, picked two cool bags and walked out with them for free. The bags are very high-priced so I don’t know if I’d have ever been able to part with the cash to buy them but I’m glad we have the bags now.
Hair and Cubes
Apparently Tina is an exceptional hair artist and for the week or so we were there Fira was her palette.
Dublin and Fira must have made Chris solve the Rubik’s Cube about 50 times over the week we spent in town. He obliged over and over, and even patiently spent time teaching them the steps. Neither of them ever got it solved all the way, but Dublin can do one face and the bottom row on four other sides.
Errands
We had to get fuel, groceries, boat parts and general hardware while we were in town. Chris spent his time playing Uber for us so that we could get everything done much more easily than we could have with actual Ubers. Thanks again Chris.
Last Day
Since the first time we passed the canal-front restaurant called The Riviera, we knew we had to go there for a meal. Finally on the last day we met Chris and Tina there for lunch. The fish tacos were delectable and the mango cocktail was just what I needed. We ended up leaving our dinghy, the Sea Pug, at the dock and went back to Chris and Tina’s place for a few more hours of visiting. Finally, with sunset approaching (and our 5 am departure goal approaching as well), we headed back out to the big boat to get ready for our next hop.