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One morning in 2019, while waiting for the tide to rise high enough to take our last sailboat About Time out for a day sail, Jimmy and I had a conversation that wound up with a serious talk about our future and lead to our implementing a five-year plan to go full time cruising. The conversation just kind of happened organically; I had never intended to ask Jimmy the “big question” that day, it just happened. It started with small dreams When we purchased About Time in 201

& How did we learn how to sail? Let's back up a bit and talk about our sailing background (and lack thereof), while answering the question of how Jimmy and I took up sailing. The short answer is that we were looking for a hobby to take on as a couple. When we decided to try out sailing, we had no clue how impactful that hobby was going to be. Early 2006 Jimmy suggested that we learn to sail as a hobby for us to do together. Apparently, he had lightly dreamed of sailing, altho

Now it comes to one of the main reasons we moved Utopia to St. Petersburg…Lithium Batteries. As we speak, Utopia is sitting over at “The Yacht Rigger” having the old lead acid house batteries pulled and having new lithium batteries installed. This project that has been on the project list from the very beginning will absolutely be a game changer for how we live on the boat and anchor in remote places. I might toss out some terms that might not be obvious so if you have

Jimmy and I have always loved hiking. Once we slip the lines we look forward to finding some cool places to explore and hike along the way. However we have one hiking trip in mind that will take us away from Utopia for half a year, and that is to hike the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail is a continuous route from Maine to Georgia. Those that choose to hike the whole path in one go typically take six months to complete it. Jimmy and I plan to hike the trail doing w

Last October I got brave and attended a women’s sailing meet up during the Sailboat Show in Annapolis, and attending that event led to a great day of sailing in Apalachee Bay today. I had heard about the event from a podcast I listen to (On the Wind Sailing). Believe it or not, I was even feeling shy when I asked my friend Denise to attend the event with me and was very happy to when she said yes. It was a great event, and we met a lot of women with a wide variety of exper

Now that we have been in St. Pete for three months, I though I would give an update on our boat projects. As in all things boat, the goal is to do projects as fast or faster than they are added to the list. This is a list of the big ones that are done or ongoing: Shaft Seal -We did a short haul in March and had a new shaft seal placed in one day. This should last us another 5 to 10 years hopefully. Radar -We successfully installed a new radar, and it is functioning. That

Okay, I debated whether or not to make this into a post, but thought it might be nice to share a story about sailing for a change of pace, after all this is supposed to be a sailing blog. Since arriving in St. Petersburg, we have focused on getting some projects underway that have kept us at the dock on days we probably would have rather been sailing. As mentioned in the last blog post, we finally left our slip after two months when we had an appointment to get the boat ha

Success! It took some work, but our boat's shaft seal leaks at a normal leakless rate. Jimmy found an authorized installer for our Tides Sure Seal, just over in Salt Creek (see Jimmy’s Feb. 5 blog called Keeping the Sea Out of the Boat ). Elite Marine scheduled our haul-out on a high tide and they also let us know that we would be required to back into the slip, then disconnect our backstays in order for the haul out to take place. Since Utopia had not left the slip since

It was quite chilly this past weekend so we filled our time on the boat taking care of miscellaneous tasks. A sneak peak into a day of chores on the boat: We wake up just as early on the weekends as we do the weekdays. This Saturday we had morning coffee and cooked oatmeal on Utopia before heading out for a long run. Our goal was to end the run the closest grocery store to the boat. As we approached the store, part of the concrete sidewalk caught on Jimmy’s shoe and down

Part 5 of 5! (finally the last Lessons Learned post of this series) So when I installed a new Raymarine chartplotter last year it immediately made our functioning radar into a big round brick attached to the mast. I knew this before the installation and I put a new radar on the list of things we needed to purchase before we retire but not high on the priority list. The crossing in January made us reconsider this. When we left New Year's Eve on the crossing from Shell Point

Part 4 Today's lesson learned is really about the need to properly keep time; clue: it might not be wise to use that fancy GPS watch... To put the importance of this topic into perspective, I will first cover watch schedules, then explain why a GPS watch might not be the ideal choice. " Watch Schedule ' is a term used to describe how the crew will split up the time to make sure someone is at the helm throughout a 24-hour period. On our four gulf crossings, Jimmy and I ha

There better be smoke alarms. And great neighbors. We are grateful to have both. This is the short story. For those who want more detail, there will be a follow up post about this incident sometime in the future. It all started when I had received a phone call at 9 pm Tuesday evening from my dock neighbor who lives on her boat in St Petersburg. Several thoughts ran through my head. First was that this call could not be coming with good news at this time of day. Then the ne

Part 3- Jimmy's tips on eating well underway Since I am the cook of the family unit it's probably best I take this one. Preparing meals while under way is more challenging especially if the seas are big. Rocking back and forth and bracing yourself in the galley while preparing food is a talent in itself. Knowing this and from our past passage cooking adventures I have three items that help out during overnighters or extended passages. First though a little story from our

Lessons Learned Part 2 - Sondra's tips on minimizing sea sickness When seasoned sailor and co-founder of 59 North Sailing Mia Karlsson was asked about a recent shakedown cruise made on Falken , their Farr ‘Millennium’ 65, she responded with something like, "I sea-trialed the buckets". Her delivery of this comment had me cracking up, but it is such a great line because Mia has been known to be one of the least prone seasick members of the team, and it is a nice reminder nea

If you are reading this then the boat is still floating. Whew. One of the most important rules of boating is "keep the ocean on the outside of the boat". So it was with much trepidation that I intentionally created a larger hole where a small one existed. All while floating in our slip in St. Pete. Let me back up a bit and I apologize if I dive into the weeds. So, where our prop shaft enters the boat there has to be some sort of mechanism that a)keeps the water out of the

Part 1 - Background Jimmy and I have had the opportunity to complete four Gulf Crossings so far, and still learn a lot with each one. I thought I'd take a moment to jot down some observations, however, even though I tried to be very brief, it was turning into a long blog post. So, Jimmy and I have decided to make it a series, starting off with an introductory background post. Jimmy noticed my use of "crossing" instead of "overnight passage", so maybe a definition is needed

This weekend Jimmy and I attended the St. Pete Boat Show, which was the 45th annual show, and is the largest boat show on the Gulf Coast. What made it extra special to us was that we did not have to stay in a hotel!!! (Sorry St. Pete tourism office). We have attended the St. Pete Boat Show on two other occasions, and stayed in hotels close to the venue. Last year some friends of ours (the P's) stayed at a hotel further out from the downtown area for a fraction of the cost

Why St Pete

Friday 12/30 - Three of us drove down to ABYC after work and unloaded our gear before Susie and Bill stopped by to say hello. A simple dinner was made up in the clubhouse before we made it an early night. Saturday 12/31 - We got up and prepped the boat for a potential 9AM departure. With nearly everything ready, we checked the weather and decided to wait for the afternoon tide, probably around 5:30PM to let some stormy weather pass by. The cloudy misty morning was spent

There may be a possibility to move Utopia to St. Petersburg New Year's Weekend. Jimmy has been checking weather and wave forecasts to see when we might have a good window to make the jump from Apalachee Bay. The trip is roughly 150km and could take between 25 & 35 hours. Since this is the first crossing with just the two of us, we are looking for a mild weather window. At the moment it looks like we may vacate our ABYC slip on Saturday. The latest would leave is Monday, d