We wanted an adventure and boy did we get it!

tealwatkins

11 Jan, 2023

We wanted an adventure and boy did we get it!

Recounts and reflections after living aboard for 2 months

Part 1 (October 21-October 29, 2022) :

As we prepared for life aboard Lady Rebel, we dreamt about days in the sun playing in the sand, swimming in clear blue warm waters, and enjoying quality time together as a family. We imagined lots of smiles and laughter. Reality has been much colder and the journey more bumpy with many more challenges than expected. It is often said in the cruising community that in this lifestyle you’ll experience the highest highs and the lowest lows. They are right!

New York City:

If you ever get the chance to see NYC by boat, take it! Seeing the city from the river and passing through Hell’s Gate was probably one of the coolest things we’ve done and seen thus far. We timed our transit through the city with the tide and saw a max speed over ground of 13kts! There was a true feeling of awe and wonder as we sailed along skyscrapers, under the Brooklyn Bridge and saw the Statue of Liberty standing watch.

We docked at One15 Brooklyn Marina which was a great location. We could see the Statue of Liberty from our slip! It was easy to get on a subway to Manhattan. But, it had one shower in the marina office that was across a park from the marina. Never before this trip did I imagine trekking across a Brooklyn park to take a shower. Due to all the ferry traffic, it was also a very “rolly” marina. So far, it’s been the only marina where I have felt sea sick.

Of course we spent plenty of time sightseeing; visiting the Hamilton Grange, the Brooklyn Zoo, the Statue of Liberty, 911 Memorial, the Natural History Museum and the Met. We saw a show (or two—lucky Aveline), and spent time with family. A note about visiting the Statue of Liberty: do not visit with a backpack full of boat tools. Teal had a set of Allen wrenches that he was told were not allowed and that he could hide them outside the restricted area, which he did. Can you imagine trying to dismantle the Statue of Liberty with a standard Allen wrench? HA!

Cape May, New Jersey:

We left NYC in the fog and started out on our first overnight sail from Sandy Hook, NJ down to Cape May. While leaving the city in the fog was stressful, the night sail was tiring but thankfully uneventful.

One complication was that our auto-pilot had died on our trip to NYC so we had to hand steer the whole way. That was definitely a mental exercise!

But we did it! It was such a relief seeing the sun rise the next morning, and there I felt such joy and sense of peace watching the dark turn to light.

It was even calm enough during the day to let the kids take a turn at the helm.

Unfortunately, this was where our luck seemed to change, and we met our first of several challenges in short succession.

The entrance to the marina we stayed at in Cape May was very narrow and the dock shaped like an upside-down U. We were docked bow-in on the left leg. On the day we tried to leave and make our way toward the C+D Canal, it was windy and there was an incoming current. But with our engine and help from the dockhand, we thought we could handle the short distance down the dock we needed to clear in reverse before turning into the channel. We figured our plan B should things go awry was to just drive back to the dock. Well, things did go wrong. The dockhand lost control of our line, and we lost control of our boat and ended up driven back by wind and current; crash landing against the horizontal part of the dock. In the process, our bowsprit took out a fuel pump, knocked an electrical stand, and narrowly missed a serious collision with another docked sailboat; only scratching their dinghy outboard motor that was sitting on their stern rail.

We were shocked, horrified, and deeply embarrassed. We were also humbled. After dealing with the logistics of the accident, we analyzed and ruminated on what went wrong. Lessons we learned:

  1. A working bow thruster is a must (Teal ended up fixing it later that day).
  2. Be patient. Don’t rush and try to leave in questionable weather conditions.
  3. New friends can be found in surprising places. Neil and Tasha, the couple in the other sailboat, were so gracious about the whole event. We ended up spending that evening in our cockpit sipping on wine and chatting about how we all ended up as liveaboards.
  4. Maybe the superstition is right. Don’t leave on a Friday.