First Year of Cruising

We took possession of our boat in late May 2025. We were a bit miffed because commissioning the boat took much more time than either we or anyone on the vendor side had anticipated. Given the insurance deadline requiring us to take the boat north of Hatteras by June 1, we had to set out immediately on a long journey. We were not worried because our insurance stipulated that we also needed an experienced captain for 50 hours.

We were quite lucky in finding a very good training captain. Not only did he have extensive experience training boat owners, but he also had significant experience living on a boat full-time around the world. He taught us not only how to pilot the boat, but also how to read the weather, handle key maintenance tasks, and handle all kinds of small details about being a full-time cruising couple. Had we not found and engaged this person, we would have taken years to learn such things on our own.

We drove the boat to Annapolis, partly along the coast and partly through the ICW. Spent 3 weeks in Annapolis before taking our boat to Camden, Maine. Camden was chosen as a destination to spend our summers because we were familiar with the area. We owned a 40' sailboat that we had kept there for several years and sailed in it around Penobscot Bay and far east beyond Bar Harbor, going almost to the mouth of the Bay of Fundy.

The journey from North Palm Beach, Florida, to Maine was full of surprises. On the very first overnight ride, we discovered that it "rained" inside the cabin on to the helm, while we were off Cape Canaveral. The cause was not discovered until we reached Annapolis. It turned out that a contractor who installed a hailer on the forward of the helm on the flybridge had either forgotten to use the sealant or used the wrong kind. The rains that night were rather heavy, falling almost horizontally on our beam. We were doing 8 knots and facing steady 25 knots of wind, with gusts to 30 knots on our beam. The rainwater accumulated in the flybridge locker that sits directly above the helm. The water collected reached about 3 inches deep before overflowing and dripping through the ceiling above the helm. Bummer. I wish I had taken the picture to show how we dealt with it. Basically, took a couple of long towels and taped them to the ceiling with blue tape.

We stopped for three weeks in Annapolis and had service personnel at the Port of Annapolis Marina investigate the problem. They quickly identified the cause and resealed the hailer area with waterproof sealant.

There were several other problems we had to deal with because we chose a LiFePO4 house battery bank from Mastervolt, but I would not go into gory details about that. Suffice it to say that by the time we were ready to start going south again, most of those problems had been fixed or at least under control.

Problems with the boat were one thing, but we also had to deal with other stuff. I have an ailing parent living in India. Had to take a month off from being in Maine to visit her. That meant we cut our time cruising in Maine. Moreover, as soon as I came back from the trip, I caught one of the rare (in the USA) tropical diseases - Dengue fever. Made me quite weak. I was hospitalized for 5 days. Fortunately, there was one lady doctor with extensive knowledge of tropical diseases, so she quickly diagnosed and provided excellent care. I was still rather weak, so I again called our trusted Captain to help us take the boat back to Newport.

One our way to Newport, RI

We stayed at Liberty Island Marina one night. Very Expensive place, but next day we motored past the lady with the torch. Had to fight away so many tour boats circling the place.

Finally, we got a chance to be on our own when we took a trip down south from Newport, stopping at Solomon's Island for a KK rendezvous, and then in Washington for a week; Afterwards, since we needed to get back to Florida by a certain date again due to my (frequent) commitment to travel to India to see my ailing mother, we ended up getting a crew member. We needed three people on the boat, as part of the way would be a 2- to 3-day, day-and-night trip without stopping. We did end up doing 3 overnights and a 4-day offshore trip from Beaufort, NC, to North Palm Beach Marina in one long stretch.

Overall, the last year, we were learning with training wheels on. On the other hand, we did get comfortable living full-time on the boat. So, it seems this will be our long-term occupation: cruising full-time.

We created this website in anticipation of our full-time cruising plans, but given all the hiccups, we haven't quite gotten into the mood to post here regularly. Overall, between May 2025 and December 2025, we travelled 3500 miles in our boat, with several long stretches of motoring punctuated by stops for more than overnight.

I am posting this blog post on March 6, 2026, while we are in Exuma, Bahamas. I will get to this year in the next blog post. I hope I can keep the promise we made to ourselves that, from now on, we will post blog entries more frequently about our journey. In the beginning, it will be more of a Dear Diary style than an informative one.