Category: Uncategorized

A post by Mark
Hi all,
We’ve had a good week or so since I last wrote.

We stayed a bit longer in Bimini than we planned – as it took 8 days to get a weather window through which we could travel. Life on Bimini was good – we met some great folks, ate some good food, did a little fishing, enjoyed the beach, climbed the mast, and visited the Dolphin Museum.

The highlights:

Friends
We made some great friends – Carly, Alfredo, and their 9 (almost 10 YO) daughter Sophie. They are great folks – and Sophie and Sally were nearly inseparable by the time we left the island. We will keep in touch and really hope that we meet up again sooner rather than later.

We also spent a few hours with another cool boat family on South Bimini. Lastly, we met a bunch of other sailors at a happy-hour type gathering at a neighboring marina where we got some great tips on where to go throughout the islands.

Food
For the most part, we’ve eaten every meal on our boat since we left Racine, except when were visiting family in FL. On Bimini, we treated ourselves to some great conch salad. It was fantastic – very simple – chopped conch, onion, pepper, tomatoes, garlic salt and lime juice – and delicious. The folks at Joe’s Conch shack de-shell the conch when you order your salad and prepare everything right in front of you. So tasty! There was a side benefit as well – conch slop. Conch slop is the slimy, disgusting mess of that is cleaned from the edible meat of the conch. While it is really gross – it is fantastic fishing bait (more to come about that). Our other Bimini treat was coconut Bimini bread. Bimini bread is a really tasty, sweet white bread. The day we went to Charlie’sbread bakery, he was just finishing up a batch of coconut bread – which we could not resist. It was very, very tasty. It made a great breakfast!

Joe’s Conch Shack

Fishing
On our crossings, we haven’t had any luck catching anything – as most of the time, we’ve beeb sailing through the ‘good’ fishing areas at night. At the dock, we had better luck. Using our conch slop as bait, we caught about 10 fish over a few days – 2 were ‘keepers’. We ate one the night we caught it  (yummy) and have the other in the freezer (as it is supposed to be good in fish stew – but we need more fish for that).

The Beach
Bimini is known mostly for fishing – as it lies right off the Gulf Stream, so it is less than a mile from the dock to great bluewater sport fishing. While it doesn’t have the typical tropical beaches you find in the guidebooks, we made due with two small beaches that were a few minutes walk from our boat. When we first arrived in Bimini, the first thing we did after clearing customs was to walk to Radio Beach and go swimming. It was great – the water was clear and warm(ish) and there were pretty shells all around. About 10 minutes after we got to the beach, the cold-front that kept us in Bimini for 8 days blew in and cooled us down significantly – but it was still nice. A little closer to our marina was a small, un-named beach on the point of land that makes up the southern end of North Bimini. When we first arrived, it was littered with trash – mostly plastic and other junk that looks like it washed ashore. It seems as though all of the floating junk that comes by Bimini ended up on that beach. The 2nd day, we met-up with a Bahamian work crew that was collecting trash and helped them for about an hour. It was fun to help out – made us feel a bit less like tourists. This little beach was great for sea glass – as it seemed like all of the glass in the area washed up here as well. In our time in Bimini, we collected about 2 mayonnaise jars full of sea glass (and we didn’t spend all that long looking)! Lastly, our little un-named beach is where we would hang out with Willie – running up and down the beach, digging in the sand, and chasing sticks and coconuts into the water. Lucy did a great job tiring Willie out there each afternoon.

The Mast!
On our passage from Marathon to Bimini, our wind indicator decided to quit working. So, I ended up climbing the mast to take it down so I could try to fix it. It was really windy all week – so it was challenging at best. After I did my climbing, the rest of the family tried as well – and all had some fun. A few days later, I tried to put the indicator back on the mast – but only got 2/3 or so of the way up before I turned around. It was too windy for me to keep going – I was getting tired of getting banged around the mast – and I guess got a bit scared. Heidi, however, really wanted to climb the mast – so up she went. She flew up with what seemed like little effort and worked on the wind indicator. Looks like we found our new mast climber!

The Dolphin House / Museum
On our second day in Bimini, we met Carly and Sophie – and they brought Julie and the girls to the Dolphin Museum (I took Willie for a longer walk – and after hearing the stories of the museum, I wish I had joined them and walked Willie later). From what I pieced together from their stories, the Dolphin Museum is a 25 year-old work in process. It is a house, built by one man (Ashley), entirely of recycled materials with all of the design and artwork inspired by dolphins. A visit to the museum is a guided tour around the house by Ashley – where he tells one heck of a story. As he tells it, his life changed one day when swimming with the dolphins. On that swim, he connected telepathically with them, and now sees the world in full color through the eyes of a dolphin. He has since dedicated his life to creating his shrine to the dolphins. No – I’m not making this stuff up…. Like I said – I think I missed a good one here. Oh well – Willie and I did have a good walk.

So, as you can see, we had a good time on Bimini.

Next stop – Allen’s Cay in the Exumas (where i’m typing this now…). Our adventure keeps getting better – more details to come.

Until then,
Mark

Hi all-
As I write this, we are happily anchored out in Key West Harbor after a fun-filled day.
We left Naples Friday afternoon and sailed through the night, arriving Saturday morning. It was pretty windy – but relatively uneventful until about 7:00 am when we approached Key West Harbor.

As we entered the entrance to the harbor and fired up our engines, they didn’t work too well…. Since Lucy and Sally sleep on top of one of the engines, and Heidi sleeps over the bin of spare parts, it was a loud, rushed, rude awakening for the girls (Mom and Dad were navigating and steering). After some quick repair work (water pump belt), we got one working fine and motored into the harbor. In Key West, there are several anchor spots and a pretty big mooring field. We decide to pick up a mooring ball. Sounds pretty simple, however, with one engine, 25-30 knots of wind, ripping current and a ton of boats – it was anything but. The boat motors fine quickly with one engine, but has very little maneuverability going slow – making a challenging task. After 3 or 4 failed attempts, we finally get one. Unfortunately for us, the lines on it were very tangled, and snagged the boat hook. Try as she might, Mom couldn’t get it loose and the sea ate our hook. Ugh. It floated away from the mooring and dangerously close to two boats. On the third circle through that minefield, Heidi was able to grab it. Phew – things were looking better. After that debacle, we decided maybe we should just drop an anchor. That went very smoothly (should have done that first!)

There was, however, a bright spot in our mooring field adventure – Mom had a conversation with a sea turtle. During the second go-around to retrieve the boat hook, Mom saw a sea turtle surface and said “Hi Sea Turtle”. The turtle looked right at mom, waved (rolled to one side and flapped a flipper), and squeaked “Eeeh!!!”.

The rest of the day, we stayed on board, cleaned up from the passage, checked and fixed both engines (all good now), and laid low – it would have been a really wet ride into shore with the wind and waves.

Today (Sunday), we woke up to a brilliant, blue, clear sky and a bit less wind. We also all woke up in great moods – highlighted by Sally singing her new hit single “Its a blue, blue, blue, blue day” – sung at full volume. Lucy also serenaded the surrounding boats with a call of “Good Morning Harbor”, and Heidi quietly enjoyed her tea.  After a good breakfast (Thanks Dad), we headed into shore.

Willie was very happy to go ashore. Turns out, there are lots of good smells on Key West – an interesting combination of chickens, 6-toed cats, crazy people, and a few spilled drinks.

We first walked from the harbor on the north shore of the island to the Southernmost Point in the US.

After that, we walked down US-1 to the end of the road – Mile 0

We then wandered around a bit more and then headed to the boat for lunch.

After lunch, the girls tried their luck at fishing off the back of the boat. No fish tacos tonight.

In the afternoon, we headed back to shore without Willie (pretty sure he slept on the couch). We walked around some more, went to the Little White House, walked down Duval St, made the pilgrimage to Margaritaville, and hung out at Starbucks for a little while to download movies catch-up with some friends.

Hanging out on the grounds of the Little White House

 

A few highlights / interesting moments…

We saw a bunch of chickens and a cat that looked a lot like Cleo (our old cat).
We saw a cruise-ship tourist eat a free sample of soap (in his defense, it looked a little bit like candy if you squinted). He then returned the 4 other samples that he grabbed.
We then saw his horrified wife and shocked sample giver react to this display.
We saw a guy on a bike break into a spontaneous dance when he passed a car blasting music.

Back on the boat, we saw a beautiful Key West Sunset.

Not bad for day-1 on Key West. Tomorrow, we’re planning to say in Mallory Square for the sunset celebration on shore.

Bye for now –
The crew of S/V Love and Luck

A post by Mark

The other day – I witnessed a relatively rare astronomical event (I think).

It was the end of our 3 1/2 day passage – around an hour or two after sunset.  We were about 2 or 3 hours from the marina in Clearwater Beach – the end was finally in sight.  I’m at the helm – cruising on auto pilot and just scanning the water for stuff – mainly, other boats – as there were no other obstructions in our path.  I take a quick look at the instruments, look up – and out of the corner of my eye, I see a bright green flare landing in the water.  Quickly, I scan the horizon to see where it came from.  I’m about to turn the boat towards it – thinking I’m going to assist in some sort of rescue.  I can’t find anything, so I call down to Julie to come up and to help me scan the water as well.  I was shocked to see the flare – as I hadn’t seen anything in the water anywhere near where it landed.  After 10 minutes searching with our spotlight, we see nothing and conclude I must have just been seeing things – especially since all marine flares are either red or orange.  I guess the lack of sleep was getting to me.

After another 10 minutes or so, I finally convince myself that I was seeing things.  Just then, the Coast Guard transmits the following over the radio:
‘This is Coast Guard station St. Petersburg – Notice to all mariners along the Florida coast from Key West to Pensacola.  Please be advised that there is meteorite activity in the area, and all mariners are advised to use caution.’

Holy cow – I think I just saw a meteorite hit the Gulf – and not too far from us.  Pretty cool.   Ranks pretty high on the list of things I didn’t expect to on this trip.

As a side note – we had a pretty good chuckle about the Coast Guard advisory…  Exactly how does one use caution to avoid a meteorite?  Do we just duck? Wear helmets?  What exactly are we supposed to do?  Plus – they were about 20 minutes too late.  Chances are we won’t have to worry about this again.

Until next time…

Happy Turkey Day! Tehehehe. I have so much to be thankful for. This year has been quite a highlight of my 14 years of existence. Spending prime time with the people I love, meeting many new people that I have the privilege to call friends, and explored many new places, some of which have the coolest names I have ever heard. I am so lucky and thankful for all of my friends that have helped me through this transition and all of the family that is encouraging me daily. I am thankful for family, cousins, friends, grandparents, sisters, parents, and all of the amazing people who have made this trip so incredible. And of course, good health, water, food, shelter, and Mother Nature and all of her wonders. Oh oh oh! I am also extremely lucky and thankful to have made it to the hurricane benefit concert starring Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, Jake Owens, and Caroline Jones. It was an incredibly awesome concert and I loved getting to spend that fun filled night with my dad. Parrot heads for evaaaaa. Hahaha. Fins up! “I wish you lovely weather, more luck than you’ll need.” Jimmy Buffett, I Wave Bye Bye

Gobble gobble,

Heidi 🍂🦃🍁

NOTE: This was a few days ago, now we are unstuck and happy in the ocean in Mobile AL

Hi everyone! WELL, in the last two days lots have happened! I will tell the main things, and like always, please note that this might be a little exaggerated. All is good now, don’t you worry. Wait, we just got stuck again, in what we thought were tides, we are still stuck while I am writing this. We are better now, don’t you fear!

Wednesday, November eight,
“BRREEEMMMP BREEEM” I woke up with a start as the engine turned on. I stayed up for a minute then went back to sleep as I usually did when we first started. I was half sleeping half awake when the engine suddenly stopped. Now you might be thinking for me, finally some peace and quiet. But no, that is not good, I thought.
“Lucy,” Sally said awoke by the stop of the motor, “what happened?”
“I am not sure,” I replied a little scared. But sure enough I was talking to someone who was asleep. I stayed up expecting the engine to turn back on, but it didn’t. I looked at the window to get some assurance that we were fine, but what I got was exactly the opposite!
“Sally!” I said flicking her arm.
“Wha, evil gummy bear go away, OH MY GOSH, THAT TREE IS ON OUR WINDOW!” Sally finally came out of her dream land!
I quickly grabbed my shoes, as I wondered, what happened this time?
“Got your life jacket,” Sally exclaimed as we headed out to see what happened.
“What is happening?” Sally asked before I could.
Then the words came, the oh to familiar words came, three words my new least favorite. We are stuck, again.
“What should I do?” I asked eager, like the rest of us to get us out of the trees.
“Nothing yet, I just don’t know why we are stuck.” Said Dad as we started to pull our selves with the anchor, but it didn’t improve.
Finally, Dad thought he might have to go swimming, again, because the propeller wasn’t right, gosh, I might have to skip yesterday and go to today, there are some awful noises right now.
OK, so, this is Thursday, November 9th.
We just got stuck, again! So we are in what are supposedly tides, but don’t change for a day or something. I don’t really get it. Confused face.
So, you probably know what I am going to do now right? Well, this time I wasn’t that scared, surprisingly, not sure if that is a good or bad thing. Sally went up and asked what happened. I will let you figure the next part out. Just kidding, we are stuck. So now Mom and Dad are running our faucets and water out, (not the one we drink) into the river. Over about 50 gallons we only got an inch higher. We called the lock and tried to get more water on our side, but that would take awhile. Then this sample getting crew came by us. They asked us if we were ok. We said, yes, but we are stuck. They didn’t want to get stuck too, so when we asked them if they could maybe give us tow, they were hesitant at first. But, after we got our bridal with a long line attached they did it. Thank you so much to the USGS!!!!! Well, the rest of the day was a lot less eventful. It was nice to be at a nice anchorage after. Oh wait, I have to finish the first part.

Continued for Wednesday

“Huh,” Dad huhed as he realized someone else anchor was attached around our propeller. After a lot of work of uniting and cutting the line it finally came undone with an anchor!!!
So yay, we got a free anchor and we are unstuck now!
————————————Three hours Later——————————————
No one was outside except for dad. We were trying to get to a certain anchorage so we sped up and flush. There goes the new anchor! = (

Time lapse of us dropping 82 feet in about 8 minutes. 

​

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​​note – this was a few days ago. We’re now in warm and sunny Alabama. Only a few more locks to go before we are at sea level – and about a week until we are a true sailboat again. 

                                                 Changes                       

                                            By: Lucy Vannini

                There are lots of difference when you live on a boat. No matter how hard you try, it won’t be the same as a house. Some things you wish you have but you don’t, some things are way harder. There are lots of different tweaks and changes you have to make when you live on a boat. Changing your lifestyle completely one might say. The benefits overweigh all the cost another might say. On a house you can’t swing on a hammock over the water, on a boat you can’t walk to school everyday with friends. You can decide what you think, but first let me explain life on a boat versus one on a house.

                Changes are hard. They sometimes make you sad. Everyday routines vary a lot depending where and what you live on.  Yes, we all live on Earth, yes we all live on the same ground, but how we do it, is the key. It makes everyone special, I am going to start by talking about how that affects me.

                               

                Morning is about the same. You wake up. What you do differs though. In a boat you normally wake up do all the morning things; brush teeth, comb hair, etc. When you get up, you don’t have to rush to be out of the door by 8 o’clock but you do have to start school at a reasonable time. Yes, sometimes reasonable time stretches when we wake up at 11 o’clock the day after we started early. In the morning on a boat there is a lot more freedom to when you start things as long as you finish.

                Mid-day (school time). School. It is like a octopus in the waves. It always is there sucking on to you. But….you can make school more fun then the word “school.”  Homeschooling is like regular school plus lots more attention and freedom minus spending some time with your friends. An average school day on homeschooling is about 3-4 hours versus the long and ever lasting 7 hour school days. So, in my opinion that’s a plus. Another difference is that in homeschooling you can work wherever you want and can take more breaks. You can also play music, chew gum, and more things that you wouldn’t  necessarily be allowed to do in public school.

            Being able to move. I would have never thought before I moved on a boat that your home could get stuck in a sandbar or tangled up in riverweed. Being able to move your home wherever you want is fun! You can be in Alabama one day, and Florida the next. There are always new fun experiences in the new places. You can see lots of differences in what you do in just two states. Although some places aren’t as great as others, you can always not spend as much time there, and spend more time in fun places.

             Cooking, whether you are on a boat or house you still cook, you can cook the same things. The difference is how easy it is. Houses are easier to cook in, but boats give you more opportunities to cook things all the way from scratch. For example an dinner at your house might be pizza for example. So, you can just Domino’s and get it delivered. But on a boat you can make the crust and sauce and add toppings. On a boat you can make things from scratch that are better because you don’t get the option of ordering pizza to your boat.

     Friends.  They are special. You miss them. On a boat it is a little different making friends. Basically any kids you meet become  you friends pretty quick. On the river, there was one other kid that we barely even met,  we were with them for two days. We didn’t have that much time to meet each other unfortunately. So, once we get to the Caribbean, we will get to meet new people and kids. Both from the islands, and boaters. Basically, once we become friends with the boaters we can maybe change our path according to where they are going. So right now, I haven’t met that many friends.

     There are lots of differences when you live on a boat. No matter how hard you try, it won’t be the same as living on a house. Some things you wish you had but you don’t, some things are way harder. There are lots of different tweaks and changes you have to make when you live on a boat. Changing your lifestyle completely, one  might say. The benefits overweigh the cost, another might say. On a house you can’t swing over the water on a hammock, but on a boat  you can’t walk to school with friends every day with your friends. Happiness is not a destination, it is a journey.

A Post by Mark
Note – I didn’t originally plan this to be a two-parter, but Mississippi was the gift that kept on giving.  Part II tomorrow…

Part I

As I write this, we just experienced a beautiful sunset and stunning moon-rise from a free dock in a great little harbor. 

The 24 hours preceding it were maybe the toughest yet. Here’s the story…

Thursday afternoon, we head into our planned anchorage – a (supposedly) dog friendly spot (i.e. easy to get Willie on and off the boat). We’re struggling a bit to figure out how to get from the channel we’re in to the anchorage – as the directions in the guidebook seem a bit conflicting with what we’re seeing. Alas – we spot the small channel that leads from the main channel towards the shore. As we are heading right down the middle of the channel, we run into a bed of river-weeds (I assume that’s what you call seaweed in a river?). The boat stops dead in its tracks. We check the depth – plenty of water. We’re caught in the weeds. I try to back the boat up – nothing… the weeds are wrapped around the propellers. I try to go back and forth to free-up the props – the port (left) engine / prop seems to be working better, but the starboard (right) one is not doing anything – other than starting to emit a bunch of white smoke. This isn’t good… Luckily, Julie is smarter than me (not exactly a newsflash…) – and has the solution. We end up getting our stern anchor and tossing it out so we can pull the boat out of the weeds. After two tosses and a trip about 40 ft from the boat in our dinghy to drop the anchor further out, we pull ourselves out using the anchor and are free of the weeds. The port engine seems to be fine now, but the starboard one is not happy – so we shut it down for now. We limp ahead and find another way into the anchorage. Once we are settled, its time to go swimming under the boat to clear the weeds from the propellers. Even with a wetsuit, the water was chilly. Its also muddy – so going under the boat is pitch-black. I feel my way around and am able to clean out the weeds. I unwind a lot of stuff – so I’m encouraged that the engines should run better the next day. At this point, its starting to get dark – so I need to get a move-on to get Willie to the shore for a quick walk / potty break. Sally, Willie, and I hop into the dinghy and head to shore. Between the weeds (which the dinghy can’t penetrate) and really shallow sand bars, we can’t get near the shore. We end up stopping on a marshy sandbar and try to walk Willie up and down the tiny bit of solid land trying to get him to go to the bathroom. Based on how this story is going so far, I’m guessing you know how this went (not good). After what felt like forever, we had to give-up – as it was past dusk and now dark. Back to the boat – time to check the engines – belt tension, oil levels, coolant levels, etc. I start with the starboard one. I open the engine compartment to find oil everywhere – yikes. Then I see the oil cap is off – and realize that when I checked the engine the day before and topped off the oil, I forgot to put the cap back on. After a round of expletives, I get out the degreaser and clean up the engine. Once everything is cleaned back up, I check the other engine (all good), clean myself up, and have a great dinner (rice, bean, and cheese enchiladas).

After a smooth night at anchor, we woke up early and were moving by sunrise. Our goal was to get through the first lock of the day early so we wouldn’t get held up at the lock and could get Willie to a dock by about noon to go for his walk. We are close to the lock – and in the motoring to it, the engines both seem to run well – except that the starboard engine is still smoking more than it should. We get to the lock – only to find out that the lockmaster is holding the lock for 7 other boats (where was this guy when we got stuck in the rain a few days ago!). Ugh… almost an hour later, we finally get through the lock. As we’re going, the boat equivalent of the “Check Engine” light comes on for – you guessed it – the starboard engine. Message – high coolant temperature. Ugh… We shut it down, Julie hops up to the steering wheel, and I head down to see what’s up. I’m expecting to find that we broke the belt that drives the water pump (that has happened before – I know how to change that pretty quickly). I open up the engine which is under our bed – so I’m tossing bedding everywhere. All belts look fine. We start it up again so I can watch the engine – and the light is now off. Hmm… what to do. We run the engine for a bit longer – all looks good in the compartment – but Julie notices that there is a lot less water coming out of the starboard engine than the port one. The way the radiators in the engines are cooled is by outside water coming into the engine and being ‘spurted’ out of the boat. So, we shut it down again and I pull apart the water pump to see if its OK. I get it apart and notice that it is a ‘little’ broken (basically, it is pretty worn – but likely not the cause of the problem). I have the right spare parts and rebuild the pump – but as I feared, it didn’t fix the problem. I get everything put back together about 10 or 15 min before the next lock. Our plan now is to get to a dock so we can figure out our water blockage. By now, all 7 of the boats have passed us (as we’re only running one engine)- so we’re now last in like to get through the next lock. When we get to the lock, there is a barge in a portion of the lock – so not all of us will be able to lock through. This turns out to be somewhat of a blessing – as we see a small marina just to the side of the lock that we pull into. Willie is beyond happy at this stop as well. Julie and Sally took him for a walk – and without getting into the details, let me tell you that he needed to go!

Now – years of watching MacGyver finally paid off (and maybe engineering school too – but I’m giving most the credit to MacGyver – although, unfortunately, no chewing gum or duct tape was used in this repair).

Here’s the story… we figure something is blocking our water intake – probably the lousy weeds from the day before. Unlike a lot of other boats (and all other ones I’ve been on before), there is no water strainer that you can easily clear out and be on your way. To clear this blockage, we need to backflush the system. How the heck are we going to do this? There are certainly no tools at this marina we just pulled into (it was very run-down and a bit depressing). So, we pull out a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket and our small 12 volt pump. A random fitting and a hose clamp later, we have the output of the pump connected to the water intake hose and are pumping 5 gallons of water backwards out the intake. A second bucketful of water later, the intake was clear as can be. We put everything back together, started up the engine – and all was good. The check engine light was off, the right amount of water was coming out of the engine, and not a trace of smoke was coming out of the exhaust. Unbelievable! The day was turning around!

We end up going through the lock – only missing one ‘turn’ of the lock – and are on our way. Less than an hour later, we hit a small – but really strong storm.  For context, there have been possible thunderstorms in the forecast for each of the past three days- but haven’t had any. Until today…  While the lightning never gets too close, the wind and rain did  – complete wash-out conditions a handful of times. Really not a lot of fun. Luckily, the really bad conditions were relatively short-lived and we were able to get to full-speed again shortly. Because of our wait at the first lock, our running one engine for a while and our slowdown during the storm – we weren’t going to be able to make it to our preferred anchorage – which is just downstream of the next lock. Instead, we stop at a free dock before the lock – which turned out to be a great spot. 

To be continued..,

Number 1.
Never ever, ever, drive into the weeds even if it is  20 Ft deep

Number 2.
Always leave at least 5 Ft of wiggle room for your depth.

WARNING: SOME THINGS MIGHT BE A LITTLE EXAGGERATED!

 

So imagine you are motoring on down the Ten Toms and it is time to anchor. We start going to narrow path with some splotches of seaweed grossness stuff, ‘xcept it isn’t seaweed because it is growing in the river. Anyway, it is long and green and it kinda looked like green mermaid hair from the stories. We kept on going in not realizing we were slowing down. SUDDENLY, BAM, we stopped dead in our tracks. I looked around stunned by the loss of movement and went to ask Dad what happened. And when he said we were stuck, I saw a tow coming! Don’t you worry though because we didn’t get stuck in the channel, a barge wouldn’t be able to get unstuck very easily. So imagine us, practically in the middle of nowhere on our boat with white smoke puffing out of the starboard (right) engine. It wasn’t just a couple of puffs every so often, no, it was huge puffs with oil coming out in slugs. So you are probably thinking right now, are you still there, no way! We got out, thanks to Mom’s idea of using the anchor! WHAT A LONG DAY, IT COULDN’T GET ANY WORSE!

WELLLLLLLLLLL, I was wrong! It did get worse, way worse!
Mississippi has a curse with us I am telling you. SPOILER ALERT: Thank gosh we made it out of Mississippi! Anyway, we are going along our destination, a marina, that just closed down, what luck. So we are going to go stop at a little anchorage in a cute town and walk around then get back on the water. So as we approached there, I was writing a letter and going on like so until, “CREEEEEEEEEEESHUCCCCHHHHHHH” and a jolt. Well, you can imagine how I felt then. I got my life jacket and shoes on in a hurry and ran out on the deck.
“What in the world was that?” I asked, somewhat terrified.
My answer was we are on the ground and we might need a tow boat. OH NO! I thought, this can’t be good. We tried and tried with all of our strategies! We didn’t budge. We decided it would be best to call a tow. Fortunately the wait was only an hour. So we decided to eat lunch, don’t worry our luck was with us. We ate a good and successful lunch. The tow boat came, I was inside with Willie, I heard some occasional shouting but everything turned out okay!

Wish us better luck, until next time,
the one and only
Lucy