Sailing with Bob and Melinda on SV Counting Stars (Day 6)

Wow, very delayed in posting this; got stuck in "Drafts".

End of an amazing trip

We ended up doing some work from the saloon in the morning on our laptops, packed up our belongings and tidied up our cabin and then we all headed to West Marine and Sailorman before being dropped off at the airport. 

The flight back to Raleigh was easy and Chuck and Lucy were happy to see us a day early. 

Reflecting back on this trip, we learned quite a few things, aside from just building our sailing skills. 

First, Sue and I don’t get seasick easily.

Second, we never felt claustrophobic or like we didn’t have enough room. 

Third, the Leopard 45 is a beautiful boat and I could easily call it home. 

Fourth, Bob, Melinda and Andy were super easy to spend a week with on a boat (and we’re looking forward to circumnavigating Vancouver Island next year even more!)

Fifth, and most importantly, this trip didn’t push us off of our retirement plan; if anything it has further convinced us!

Sailing with Bob and Melinda on SV Counting Stars! (Day 5)

Wow, very delayed in posting this; got stuck in "drafts".

Favorable Wind!!!

This was a great day to be sailing!  We were able to leave No Name Harbor with daylight, so we were able to take the tighter, quicker path out to the Atlantic, passing behind Stiltsville. 

We decided to sail ESE to the 3 mile line to empty the holding tanks. We then turned North to head up to the cut at Ft. Lauderdale. The wind was variable, but was mostly coming from the NW, given us just enough angle off the wind to be able to sail along the Southern Florida coast without having to tack too often. 

We played around with the auto helm and learned how to use the auto tack feature, which let us press one button and switch to the other “side” of the wind, the same angle off the wind. We would press the button, then easily move the Genoa from one side of the boat to the other, quickly and easily right from the helm. 

The trip took about 6 hours but only required a few tacks. We were close hauled and fine tuning just how close we could sail to the wind, to limit our number of tacks.

Sailing with Bob and Melinda on SV Counting Stars! (Day 4)

Calm seas, but head-on winds

After a very refreshing night of sleep in an actual bed (not on various spots in the cockpit and saloon), we woke up early to another beautiful day! 

We did our morning checks of the engines, cleaned the raw water strainers and had breakfast. We pulled up the anchor, secured it and the bridle and started our trip up the outside of the Keys.  Our plan was to get to No Name Harbor, located at the very bottom of Biscayne Bay, just South of Miami.

This was one of our stops during our ASA sailing school and is a great anchorage. 

This day was pretty uneventful.  Even though the trip from Boot Key to Biscayne Bay requires a gradual turn to port for the entire trip, the wind magically made the same turn and we motored the entire way.

Sailing with Bob and Melinda on SV Counting Stars! (Day2/3)

Exciting! Time to actually hit the water!! (or did the water hit us...)

7am and we were up and at 'em! Melinda made some delicious egg and asparagus scramble that we had on a tortilla, along with some diced melon.  The folks from American Yacht Outfitters were back by about 8am to get the last few things done.  They wrapped up the rest of the items from their punch lists, the water tanks were topped off from the dock pedestal and we were heading to the fuel dock right around about 9:30am.  Right when we wanted so we could have the best/longest wind for our sail.  Nick, from the outfitters, took the helm to bring us to the fuel dock and after about 50 gallons of diesel, the half full tanks were topped off.

Bob did a great job of getting us out from the fuel dock and back to the narrow channel to Charlotte Harbor, which we would take to get to the Gulf of Mexico.  The plan was to motor until we got out to open water in the Harbor before raising sails. We could see white caps as we headed out the channel and soon thereafter we could feel them too.  They seemed to settle down some as we got into the deeper waters of the harbor.

The topping lift, which keeps the boom from going lower than you want, was replaced when the boat first arrived in Punta Gorda, and when it got replaced, it appears that something was not done correctly as the topping lift line was wrapped around the main halyard.  We had to use a pair of binoculars to be able to tell that was what was happening.  We also discovered, through several failed attempts of raising the mainsail and one ripped-off sail attachment point at the head of the sail, that the short line at the top of the sail used to raise the top bit of the sail against the battens also seemed to have been mis-routed.

Sailing with Bob and Melinda on SV Counting Stars! (Day1)

Vendors meeting deadlines and submersible docks

The trip to help move of friends Leopard 45 from Jacksonville to Ft. Lauderdale started with a flight down to Punta Gorda Airport.  We left the ground in Raleigh just in time to avoid the early AM thunderstorms that were forecast to become possible PM tornadoes.

When we landed at PGD airport, Bob was already waiting in baggage claim to pick Sue and I up (which was super nice).  We then went to do perishable provisioning for the trip and divided and conquered the shopping list.  As we were driving to the Burnt Store Marina, Bob warned us that there were a number of people on the boat, trying to get things like their vinyl enclosures and cushions squared away before they departed.  They had been promised that everything would be done by that Friday.  They got close to completing on time.

SV Counting Stars at the Burst Store Marina

Our cabin (Port Aft)

On the plus side, the folks working on the boat, especially those working on the canvas (American Yacht Outfitters) did really nice work.

At some point in the day, we did a little route planing by looking at the weather and by using the route planning in the PredictWind app.  After Sunday evening, the wind turned foul for our trip up the outside of the Keys, so we all agreed that the first plan would be to try to sail as long as we could, hoping to leave by 10am Saturday and arrive in Marathon on Sunday around 6pm.

Bob and Melinda had been using a rental car while there and I helped Bob drop it off with the added help of a friend of their's Mini Cooper to which they were given access.  The line of storms that we missed on the way out extended all the way into Southern Florida, and they didn't miss us on the second attempt. As we were driving back from returning the rental, the skies were getting darker and louder.  We called the rest of our group still at the boat and figured out an early dinner plan to meet at the Marina restaurant.

We got over to the restaurant just before the skies opened up and the westerly wind started kicking up, a lot.  So much so that the fixed docks at this marina were underwater at the peak of the storm.  Andy (he's a 2020 Leopard 45 owner, that we met at the Miami Boat Show when we met Bob and Melinda) had jogged back to the dock to help Bob secure the boat from the high winds and the flood current that was now pouring into the marina at a visually noticeably rate.

They arrived back at the restaurant, with one or two dry spots between the two of them after they were happy with how Counting Stars was situated.  Dinner was actually very good, though our waiter could not remember things like who got the margarita with salt and without, who got the steak sandwich with mushrooms and who without.  These were very serious first world problems.

At any rate, we returned to the boat and soon after the folks from American Yacht Outfitters returned with some very cool "Transom-handles-turned-Transom Steps" and some panels to finish up the enclosure.  I ended up staying out in the cockpit watching and helping for a while (actually, yes helping, I was even thanked the next day when we saw them again!)

After they were all squared away, we all turned in, ready for our big sail the next day!