One in, one out

 

This is Raconteur just after she hit the water at Branford Landing marina, where she was stored for the winter, on 3 June. Susan and JP took her back to our slip at GYC for the first time since summer of 2024 after the delayed dredging made getting in and out of their so difficult last year.

That said, the dredging they did manage over the winter was, shall we say, incomplete, but the controlling depths in the channel are good, the fairways are okay, and the C dock slips, while silted in pretty badly, are deep enough if we keep her out a few feet from the dock, which is what we did.

No immediate sailing plans - we've booked the key parts of a planned three-week voyage in September (Newport on Labor Day weekend and Nantucket five or six days later) - as Susan and JP are now in Florida to haul Third Flight out.

We'll be in a new place this year; the old Florida marina, Banyan Bay, where we've kept her for hurricane season since we brought her home in early 2022 has been sold to a developer and will now be something sad - warehouse space, we hear.

We did manage a nice trip on Third Flight in late February and early March; as we did two years ago, Susan and JP took her down to Marathon over a couple of nights via Elliott Key, and Leigh drove the car down [hitting a perfectly horrendous traffic jam after a bad accident closed Card Sound Road].  We stayed at a new marina this year as Safe Harbor Marathon originally had only a too-large slip available. We landed on the Bay side, at a place that was planned as a high end condo and marina for the owners.  That didn't quite work so now the multi-story townhouse units that were built - a dozen or so - have a large pool, clubhouse with fitness room, a pool bar and are rented by the week or month and the marina slips are available on Dockwa.  We enjoyed our stay; several of our Marathon favorite restaurants for breakfast and for dinner are in walking distance, the pool and bar were great, and since it was pretty cold and windy for March we were happy to be on the bay side.  Alas, ONE shower in the clubhouse, open only from 7am to 7pm, so that was less convenient (pool bathrooms 24/7 though).

Here's a shot of the pool, taken from the clubhouse; Third Flight was a few steps beyond all that, to the left, and stayed put the whole time we were in Marathon.

Susan and I took a side trip to her niece Caroline's wedding shower, leaving JP on the boat and driving to Miami on a Friday, flying back Sunday and driving back to Marathon Sunday night.  That's one of the nice things about bringing a car down. That and (this year) being able to get ourselves to what is probably our favorite dinner spot, Castaway Waterfront Restaurant and Sushi Bar.  From Safe Harbor, we could dinghy around, but it's worth crossing the Overseas Highway for. Castaway Marathon

Here's a snapshot of Castaway; probably have a better one somewhere.  The fish is the freshest anywhere.

JP and I will be 70 this year; Susan passed that milestone a little ahead of us.  I think we are all grateful we can still do this.  JP and Susan do the lion's share of the work - and it's a lot of work, as my mom always said when she heard our stories. Here's hoping the pleasures outpace the pain for a while longer.

Bill Buckley sold his beloved Partito when he was 78 - here's a gift link to the Atlantic article he wrote about it - 

Aweigh

after a lifetime of sailing (he was 12 or 13 when he got his first sailboat, about the age JP was when he started sailing and racing on Lac Leman).  

Here's to 8 more years?