A Week Aboard S/V Sabado: 1/23/2022 – 1/30/2022

Hi friends! Long time, no chat!

Sorry about our little hiatus, but things have been tough for us lately. Let’s rewind a bit-

This was the first hurricane season that we hauled Sabado out of the water for and although we had a great time traveling/visiting friends and family on land, not being on the water took a toll on us. If you recall, we’ve been out of the water since August, so by mid-November we were going a little bit crazy and hopping from one Airbnb to another was getting old. We began to feel like we were living each day simply to pass the time until we could get back to doing what we love- sailing Sabado. 

Unfortunately, our timeline didn’t play out how we anticipated. Once we were back in the water we had one thing, after another, after another break. We ended up spending the entire month of December begging customer service departments, contractors, and vendors to help us get everything back up and running again only to be ignored, overlooked, and even threatened. It was an expensive and discouraging month, and it was difficult to pick up the camera or write while we were in the midst of it. 

In hindsight maybe we were being a bit dramatic, but the amount of time and money we were spending to sit on a dock in Florida was getting to us… By January we had had enough. We cancelled every contractor who hadn’t completed their job and bought whatever equipment we needed to do it all ourselves. It took us ages, and man was it hard work, but we did it. It was a nice reminder that even though we’re in the USA and can easily hire experts to work on the boat, it’s always better to be self sufficient. Lesson learned. 

*We’ve decided not to publicly name/shame companies and contractors. If you’re heading to Cape Canaveral and want a list of our recommendations though, feel free to reach out to us via email at sailing@svsabado.com* 

ANYWAY, I’m THRILLED to tell you that we had the boat ready to move again last Sunday!

That’s right- we finally left Cape Canaveral!

It would be a disservice if we didn’t take a moment to thank Ocean Club Marina. During our most uncertain times, they made sure we had a spot to keep Sabado- even if it was on their fuel dock. Their staff and facilities are top tier, and we couldn’t be more grateful for their flexibility and hospitality. 

We said goodbye to the locals we’d befriended and pulled away from the dock bright and early Sunday morning. It was a cold and windy morning, but we were bundled up and ready to sail regardless. We motored for a little over an hour before turning into the wind and hoisting our brand new sails. We made a few adjustments and set our course for Ft. Pierce, where we planned on anchoring for the night before going to Palm Beach to pick up my parents for a visit! My parents had yet to see our floating home, and we were excited to have them aboard for a few days. Things were finally looking up for team Sabado! ❤️

Things started off great- we were sailing downwind, SOG 8.5-9kn- until… our wind instruments cut out. I went inside and turned them off and back on again (a novel, high tech approach I’ve learned over the years), but nothing changed. After acknowledging what a pain it would be to sail this deep downwind without wind instruments, we decided to drop the sails and turn around. We motored into the waves and wind for a couple more hours before pulling back into our spot at Ocean Club. Although we were bummed about turning around, we knew we had already paid for our spot on their dock through the end of the month and it’s always better to have a shipping address when something goes wrong + be tied to a dock when we need to go up the mast. 

Ray did some research on our wind instrument issue and found it to be a common problem frequently solved by replacing the anemometer. He found a replacement online and ordered it. With express shipping, it said it would arrive on Tuesday. We were supposed to pick up my parents in Palm Beach (a ~15hr sail South) on Wednesday. 

Feeling defeated, we called my parents and apologized profusely. We explained that we could potentially leave Wednesday morning and get in sometime that night but that wasn’t necessarily certain enough for them not to get a hotel, ya know? Luckily my parents took the news like champs. They assured us that it was no big deal, they booked a hotel for Wednesday night and let us know that if we end up not being able to leave that morning they’d rent a car and drive up to us on Thursday. 

With all of that sorted, we made some gin and tonics and moped around until bedtime.

The next day I sent Ray up the mast to take down the malfunctioning anemometer. There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with it, so we were left to wait for the replacement. Tuesday came and went, still no replacement. Consequently, we missed our weather window Wednesday morning and relayed another set of apologies to my parents. They ended up renting a car and driving up to us on Thursday. Our replacement anemometer arrived that morning and appears to be working just fine now!

I started writing this because I thought our first sail in over 6 months would be the perfect way to jump back into these weekly recaps, but like a lot of things lately… that didn’t go as planned. We ended up spending the rest of the week with my parents exploring Cape Canaveral from the dock. We’ve got good wind today to take them out for a little day sail, but it would be miserably cold… That’s the silver lining to this whole anemometer debacle: it’s been below 50 degrees (35-40 with wind chill) almost everyday this week, but since we’re plugged into shore power my parents don’t have to worry about taking cold showers or not being able to run the heater in their cabin at night! Maybe everything happens for a reason?

Thank you to everyone who has reached out to check on us- we’re okay! Sabado has just been making sure we know how much she hated being left alone on land for so long.

Anyway, I haven’t filmed anything new for YouTube, but you can check out a few of the upgrades we made to Sabado on our latest Instagram Reel! Regular blog posts (with photos) will resume whenever we actually get out of here.

I hope you all had a great week. ❤️