For the trip we brought our friend Randy along as a cabin boy. We left with our buddy Dan on his boat 'Barely Twisted' and had a good time racing until we lost sight of each other. Due to a big one the night before we decided to stop half way at Fort Pierce - at midnight while coming in the channel our transmission cable snapped on the engine so we had little control of the boat. We ended up coming in real fast to a coast guard dock, stopping about 1 ft away from smacking their frigate!
The coast guard had a bit of a field day - no one really knew what to do with the 2 kiwi lads who couldn't move their boat from their 'off limits' military base, and being a NZ boat we strugelled to provide any US documentation they were used to seeing. We managed to get the boat going at 7am and after a few more inspections of registration, passports and saftey gear we were out of there.
We had another great sail to West Palm, a good breeze and 9 knots of boat speed at times. Our little brother Pete was skiing in Jackson Hole and decided he wanted to join us on the boat so flew to Fort Lauderdale - is really cool to have him aboard . We plan to fix up the boat and get the last of our shit sorted here this week, then head to the Bahama's with a weather window. We're provisioning pretty hard out as we don't want to have to come back to the states.
2 comments:
Hey Jon,
Great to see you're on your way. What an amazing experience - I'm very jealous, especially since school starts back on Wednesday, so that's the end of the summer holidays...damn! Glad to see your beverage supplies are in good shape....in true westie style! Have a great trip, keep the blog coming,
Martine x
Gudday Jon, Paul & Peter???
Great to see your blog and all your adventures so far looks like your have an ace time of it. If only I was younger, fitter, healthier, not so stuck in my ways, you get the picture. Must say I'm a bit green with envy though, good on you for doing all this while your young and you can. Good to see from the photos you only stocked up on the bare essentials, don't drink it all at once and don't get so shit faced that you fall off the boat and get left behind. When's Pete joining you. Great Pics, I especially liked to one of Paul diving off the top of the mast, afraid I'd have to take my shorts off for a wash after even climbing up the ladder let alone jumping off it, NUTS. Anyway have an awesome time of it and have heaps of fun together
Thinking of you and will catch up on you daily now that I know you've got a blog up
Best wishes and cheers
Sven :-)
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