A Week Aboard S/V Sabado: 6/26/2022 – 7/3/2022

Hi hi!

This week started out pretty uneventful. 

When we’re on the dock for too long, we start to feel a bit… out of it. There are plenty of different lifestyles to choose from as a liveaboard– there are people who stay on a dock year-round, there are people who hop from one marina to the next, never staying on anchor, there are people who split their time between their boat and their van, the list goes on and on. Whatever lifestyle you choose, you do so for a reason, and when you dip your toes into a different style, you’re reminded of why you chose yours.

We are not dock people. 

Ray and I prefer remote, empty anchorages. We like being on the move, existing in a constant state of unfamiliarity. We like being self-sufficient, making our own power and water, relying on our anchor and our meticulously calculated decisions regarding location and scope. We like spending our mornings working on the boat, our afternoons sitting on the bow in bean bag chairs reading and sipping cocktails, and our nights looking at the stars and enjoying the breeze from the open hatch above our bed.

I guess technically we could still do some of those things while tied to the dock, but the background noise would be the cars from the nearby road or the boat next to us having a dinner party which kind of takes the magic out of it; you know? The best comparison I can think of is staying in an apartment complex versus a cabin on several acres of land- they’re two very different experiences, and we prefer the latter. 

I think we had an exceptionally hard time this week because of the weather. It started out unbearably hot and miserably humid. We were stuck inside the boat with all the curtains closed to keep the sun from undoing any progress our air conditioning was making on cooling things down. 

We took our scooters to the Grog Shoppe one evening to pick up a very cheap bottle of wine and a very expensive bottle of bourbon (life is about balance, people!!) and waited out the heat wave sipping our bevs and flipping through our guidebook, trying to decide where we’ll go next. 

The package we’d been waiting on arrived on Tuesday, but the weather forecast for the remainder of the week was littered with storms, delaying our departure. So, we decided we might as well tick a few more things off our never-ending to-do list. I applied some epoxy to a few areas where our interior “wood” was starting to peel off, and Ray braved the heat to wax another portion of the boat. 

By Thursday, we were going insane. To mitigate our cabin fever, we ventured into town for lunch. We grabbed some Thai food and decided to tackle another project together when we got home. 

While dripping sweat, we took apart our windlass. 

Our windlass is what deploys/pulls up our anchor, and the manufacturer suggests you service it once a year. Admittedly we’re a bit past the one-year mark… but this boat has a lot of equipment to maintain, so sometimes things slip through the cracks! Still, we were shocked to see just how much corrosion had occurred. See all those craters on the baseplate?

Not good. 

We spread all the parts out on our cockpit table and spent the rest of the afternoon scrubbing away at the old grease and grime. 

We decided to put a couple of layers of J-B Weld over the baseplate in hopes of preventing (or at least delaying) the corrosion from going all the way through, before greasing everything up and putting it back together. 

If we’re not doing this again next summer, someone send me a text!

On Friday, the storms started. I was able to squeeze in a quick walk through town in the morning before dark clouds swallowed the boat.

We spent the rest of the day at home, cleaning and keeping tabs on the lightning. We’ve heard a few too many stories of fellow Lagoon 42s getting struck recently, so we’ve been extra nervous about it this week. ☹️ 

Saturday morning looked promising- we woke up to blue skies and a message from the marina saying the ice cream truck was coming by around noon, so we got in line with all the kids to get a little treat! We decided to walk over to the local farmers market after but had to head back to the boat as the clouds crept in. The rest of the day looked like this: 

Today should be similar: sunshine in the morning and storms all afternoon. Although we’re itching to get out of here, we’re thankful to be in such a safe spot while we wait for things to calm down from Tropical Storm Colin. This really is an excellent marina and a great town, but if you have any extra patience, send it our way!

I hope you have a great holiday weekend if you’re celebrating! Mayyyyybe next week I’ll have some sailing to write about. ❤️