Liveaboardagain
A year to the day after declaring Winchelsea dead (to me and my situation), I am living aboard again. She is Alaina's father's Gulf Star 41; a heavy, solid cruising boat with a well appointed, yet simple, interior. He has kept her in Ft. Myers for the past few years while restoring and improving some of the more aged parts of the vessel. Allowing me to live aboard in Sarasota is mutually beneficial; he has wanted to keep her in Sarasota for a season ever since he got the yacht and it is pretty pricey to keep a boat at Marina Jacks. This way, he'll have someone with experience to watch over her and complete a few projects and I'll have a place to live in Sarasota, and thank God, on a boat again.
We dropped the hook here yesterday after coming up outside of Sanibel and Captiva islands and into Venice inlet. It was a two day trip with a stop near Cabbage Key; a picturesque island in Pine Island Sound just north of Ft. Myers. This is exactly what I came back east for: gunkholing. I've had the desire to gunk in the area I grew up ever since buying Winchelsea was a passing thought back in Boston.
Wow, Boston. That seems like a long time ago but it is less than two years in the past. Thinking back to the desk job, I marveled at how quickly the days, weeks and months congealed into an amorphous blur. Did I go sailing yesterday, or last week? It's winter again already?? Recalling all I did in the last 22 months however, is a breeze. I can distinctly remember each month, almost every week and a lot of specific days. I remember all the steps that it took to get where I am now, instead of an endless cycle of sleepwalking for 5 days punctuated by 2 to call "my own", repeat until death. And, honestly, it feels a lot more like two years should.
So here I sit, in a coffee shop again, blogging with borrowed internet and thinking about the boat on the hook. Did I remember to turn the anchor light on? Check. I took a look at the weather and its going to blow consistently out of the north to northeast for the foreseeable future at 20 knots or less. Ahhh, its nice to be living aboard again. Pictures to follow, of course.
We dropped the hook here yesterday after coming up outside of Sanibel and Captiva islands and into Venice inlet. It was a two day trip with a stop near Cabbage Key; a picturesque island in Pine Island Sound just north of Ft. Myers. This is exactly what I came back east for: gunkholing. I've had the desire to gunk in the area I grew up ever since buying Winchelsea was a passing thought back in Boston.
Wow, Boston. That seems like a long time ago but it is less than two years in the past. Thinking back to the desk job, I marveled at how quickly the days, weeks and months congealed into an amorphous blur. Did I go sailing yesterday, or last week? It's winter again already?? Recalling all I did in the last 22 months however, is a breeze. I can distinctly remember each month, almost every week and a lot of specific days. I remember all the steps that it took to get where I am now, instead of an endless cycle of sleepwalking for 5 days punctuated by 2 to call "my own", repeat until death. And, honestly, it feels a lot more like two years should.
So here I sit, in a coffee shop again, blogging with borrowed internet and thinking about the boat on the hook. Did I remember to turn the anchor light on? Check. I took a look at the weather and its going to blow consistently out of the north to northeast for the foreseeable future at 20 knots or less. Ahhh, its nice to be living aboard again. Pictures to follow, of course.
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