Know When to Fold ‘Em
We’ve been up before the sun each day, straining to catch the voice of Chris Parker (nautical weather guru), coming at us through our handheld SSB radio. We’ll rely on Mr. Parker and his broadcasts from here on out...
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Category: Rico Rally
When a Window Opens, Fly Through
Anchored just south of Peanut Island in West Palm Beach at daybreak, we felt like the last kids picked for dodgeball as we watched every boat around us raise anchor. A weather window for safe passage across the Gulf Stream had...
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The Choices We Make
Three maddening weeks spent in our worst anchorage yet had us chomping at the bit to haul anchor. The moment our weather window opened, we made tracks and cleared our most terrifying inlet so far, out into the blue...
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Regrets… I’ve Had a Few
As we move on into our third week on the hook in St. Augustine, each day of our extended stay feels like penance for some poor decisions we made while outfitting our boat for cruising. Admitting that those carefully researched,...
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Happy Boatsgiving
Our arrival in St. Augustine meant the beginning of the end for our merry band of sailors, collectively known as the Rico Rally. The stone of melancholy is settling as we come to accept that the significant bond we’ve...
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Into the Ditch
Big waves and a damaged bulkhead aboard our buddy boat Jasaru made us reconsider our plan to sail on down the coast of Florida from Frenandino to St. Augustine. So it worked out well that we’d anchored near an inlet to...
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Out of the Darkness
As a natural born chicken, overcoming fear has been my single greatest challenge in this new life of ours. When facing a new experience, my imagination automatically goes into overdrive, hell bent on convincing me that...
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Learning by Doing
Packs of dolphins sprang out of the water as we rounded the point into the scenic anchorage in Cape Lookout, NC. It was the perfect ending to a 30 hour sail that marked a few big firsts for us. The decision to “bust our cherry”...
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Transformation
Hauling out three weeks ago, we’d braced ourselves for a painful and boring stretch on the hard. Instead, we stumbled into a routine of work and play with comrades in the boatyard who taught us many new things and inspired...
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Where are we now?
