Almost there...

After a few enjoyable days of visiting with family we are still in Kent Island waiting out some blustery winds. They are forecast to settle down in a day or two and, when they do, we will head to Oak Harbor Marina. There we will prep First Light for a winter's hibernation, pack up a rental van, and land-motor west toward St. Louis. That trip will take about a week as family stops along the way are not to be missed. Once in St. Louis, Grandson Eldest will be reunited with his Florida-based sailing family, and we will be reunited with the St. Louis clan that have been in my thoughts every day since we first headed East in April.

Our Kent Island extended family

Some additional hardware will be going along on the trip home. A pacemaker for me. A titanium plate and screws for Deb. For all of the thoughts and planning for things that might happen while moving First Light from New Bern to St. Louis, not a single wisp of those possibilities ever came up. We did what we could to plan for catastrophic engine or generator problems, knew for sure there would be mechanical and weather related delays, renewed our towing policy and double checked that our boat insurance was valid for the trip we were planning. But planning two ambulance rides, two trips to the ER, and multiple trips to the OR?—only in the sense that Deb did a lot of work to make sure we had adequate health insurance. But there was no thought such would be the focal point of our summer activities. Life is like that.

There were many things learned on our truncated half-a-great-loop trip in a new-to-us trawler. We really like living on a trawler. We really don't like taking on much weather in a trawler. We always thought that boats with flying bridges were butt ugly. We still do. But that ugly shower cap offers a fantastic view when anchored, tied to a dock, or underway – as long as the water is pretty docile, the temps not too cold, and nothing wet is falling from the sky. Hump up the waves, drop the temp, or throw in some rain, and the lower helm station or hanging out in the salon with its 360 degree view is the place to be. Things not available on Kintala. 

Being able to steer with precision while docking takes a lot of the stress out of traveling on a boat. In fact, docking this thing is actually kind of fun. The exact opposite of trying to get Kintala into a slip. Having a honking big, yet still quiet, generator on board makes living on anchor a whole new, and much more enjoyable, adventure. Routine maintenance does include two engines, a generator, and air conditioning. It does not include running rigging, standing rigging, sails, blocks, winches, masts, and booms. So far it seems First Light is coming out a bit better in the “daily chores” department. An engine room, even a smallish one lacking standing room, is a whole lot better than the disaster that was Kintala's (and many a sailboat I worked on) limited access to the engine.

Five or six knots, mostly in the direction one actually wants to go, is plenty fast enough. Even 50 mile days go by easy. It is true that buying 100 gallons of fuel at a time is an eye watering jolt. But it only happens every couple of weeks. On land buying 20 gallons of fuel happened every couple of days. Our total fuel consumption living on water, even on a 3 m/p/g trawler, appears to be appreciably less than that of living on land. The simple fact is that we travel far fewer miles on the boat than we do in cars on land, yet see far more new and interesting places in the process. (Those living on a go-fast trawler that measures fuel use in gallons per mile might have a different experience at the fuel pump.)

As much as I enjoy living and traveling on a boat, missing family is still an unavoidable downside to the life. When we left to head East last spring there was no thought that it might be the last time I would ever see them, or them me. But that came, literally within a few heart beats, of being the case. It will be good to be home.

Come next Spring it will be good to get back to First Light to finish our half-a-great-loop. I'm sure there will be more new things to learn along the way. But for now, and for all of the challenges and obstacles we faced, it feels like it has been a good summer. We didn't get where we wanted to go. We took some pretty good beatings along the way. But we managed.