Blog - Page 3 of 6 - S/V While One

Having Dreams & Living in the Moment

I woke up, at 4:47am this morning, as I most often do. I don’t know why my brain awakens early in the morning. My alarm clock is set for 6am during the weekdays but I can’t remember the last time it actually woke me up.

I reach over, put on my glasses and check the latest headlines. What’s the stock futures today? What’s the latest on Ukraine? Mass Shootings. Political bickering. Rarely do I put my phone down before I get in the shower happier than when I picked it up. Why do I do that? The algorithms that constantly feed us articles on the same themes, ideas and topics that we’ve visited before is a cancer on society.

I’m at Apple Park now. It’s 7:22am. While some may consider this early to be at work, this is actually late for me. I spent the last 18 years of my career arriving by 6:00am. It all started in Chicago when I had kids, lived in the suburbs and worked downtown. The commute was horrible and I wanted to be home when my kids were still awake. This carried over while I worked for Apple for the first 15 years or so. Traffic in the Bay Area has gotten horrible…although the pandemic has really helped for the time being. Anyway, I digress…

Retirement is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. I left Apple before but at that time I guess I never thought it was permanent…even though I had told myself it was. However, this time is different. It’s been 8 or 9 years since I returned to Apple (holy cow!). I’m 53. This time is for good…until it’s not.

Selling the house has been a huge undertaking. Packing and storing stuff in different locations. Labeling them. Some packed for garage sale. Some for taking to Florida. Some for taking to the boat. Some to be stored long-term until we decide to quit cruising, buy our “forever home” and move again. On top of that, I have three of my kids’ stuff to deal with and each have their own limitations as to what they can take now.

But, back to the topic of this blog. I’m struggling to live in the moment while also needing to work so damn hard to get to my dream of over 20 years to cruise on a sailboat. How do I take a deep breath and appreciate the life I have right now, enjoy the little blessings and be content when so much of my time, energy and mental capacity is going into making this big move. Add on to this the fact the changing jobs (or leaving) and moving are rated very high in terms of anxiety generating life changes, it’s hard.

6 months ago, I had thought by this time, I’d be winding down work and would have more time to invest in myself and Sherine. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Our life is pretty crazy right now…which, when I think about it, will probably be a good thing. It’s just going to make finally getting on that sailboat cruising down the east coast so much sweeter. I just have to try to remember this.

Am I doing the right thing? I have no idea. I’ve so invested by this point it’s going to happen. The house is going on sale the week after I get back from delivering While One to Virginia. All I know is this: Sherine and I have made many challenging decisions and life decisions over our 32 years together and I can honestly say, I don’t regret a single one of them. Sure, some decisions have been better than others but, in general, we come out the other side better than when we went it.

I don’t know what this new life is going to give me but, we’ll be alright. Life’s too short to stand still.

Epiphany

So it’s been a rather turmoil month on the stock market with Apple really taking it on the nose. Then we have the invasion of Ukraine by madman Putin, the lockdown of Shanghai and Beijing due to COVID as well as cases rising everywhere. Suffice it to say, for someone who’s nearing retirement in 5 months, it has me uneasy.

I have a lot of anxiety about retirement and the future. To list them all, in no particular order:

Nuclear war
Running out of money in retirement
Running out of time on Earth
Health and inability to do the things I want to do
Walking away from an awesome job, at an awesome company and all the comp and benefits that go with it
The fear that I am so blinded by desiring a change in my life, that I’ve discredited the life I have and what I’m walking away from, only to find what awaits me isn’t all that great…or worse, it sucks.

There’s probably a plethora of other fears but those are what come to mind this Saturday morning. However, I had an epiphany in the shower on Friday on the money and job fears. I had read years ago a number of articles on a study on happiness which basically suggested that after about $75K/year, happiness generally declines. Now, I’m not saying that’s my number, because clearly the ability to retire at 54 on a brand new Catamaran took considerably more money than that. But, it does remind me that I really don’t need to maintain my current standard of living to be happy. Sherine and I have been through many financial phases in life and while we’ve been so fortunate to have never lost our home, we did go through a phase where we had to put cash in a drawer at the beginning of each month and when it was gone, it was gone. No more spending.

So, I’m confident we can get back to that, if need.

My father passed away in February. I will miss him. However, this did open up an opportunity for us with his home. So, after talking it over with my sister, she’s going to allow us to buy her out from his home and we can then make it our primary residence. The home is modest. It’s about 1/3 the size of what I live in now. But, it’s comfortable and I think we can make out home…at least until we figure out our next “forever home”. It also will enable us to change domicile from California to Florida. While I’m not super happy with the political climate of that state, I do see that as an opportunity to vote against what I disagree with in that state.

Anyways, I don’t want to talk politics other than: Can’t well all start talking and respecting people with differing opinions again?

This modest house is going to allow us to significantly cut our expenses and weather this financial storm and bring us closer to our boat and a most excellent cruising stomping ground.

Further, since we’re planning on selling our primary residence here, the stock market decline is an opportunity for us to reinvest the net proceeds from our sale.

I have to remind myself sometimes, perspective is everything. We don’t know the future. We can’t predict it so I should stop worrying about it.

Stuart, FL

Due to While One’s air draft of 75′, we’re unable to pass most fixed bridges on the ICW. When we first arrived at the St. Lucie Inlet, we wanted to get close to downtown Stuart so that we’d be close enough to get there via a dinghy. We motored all the way up to the fixed bridge, Evan Cray (SR A1A) but, unfortunately, we didn’t see a suitable anchorage. Well, perhaps there were some places we could have anchored but I was uneasy about where we were at and whether or not it would be frowned upon.

Anyways, we turned back to head to Manatee Packet Inlet as we read there were a few anchorages up there. We ended up anchoring just north of the Pirates Cove Resort & Marina. It was a calm anchorage but very tight.

We ended up spending two nights anchored near Port Salerno. First night we had Mahi-Mahi tacos…holy cow. Second night we decided to go into Port Salerno and eat at the Twisted Tuna. The place was packed but overall, it was a pretty decent ambiance and meal.

We would have stayed another night in Stuart but looking at the weather reports, a cold front was forecasted and 30 kt winds and hale for Titusville on Friday, March 11. We need to get going, I don’t want to get caught in that.

Mahi-Mahi

On the way to Fort Pierce we were trolling. Sam got a fish on around noon that day. We were sailing so we head into the wind to slow the boat. It was a beautiful fish. We cleaned it on the spot and put the filets in a bag for dinner. We weren’t due into Fort Pierce until the evening and already had plans for dinner.

We anchored about 50 yards from South Causeway Park. It was still light, Shawn and I jumped in and swam to shore to walk the park up towards Museum Point Park.

Upon returning and after a shower, I looked to the North and noticed the sky was looking very dark. Wind was starting to pick up. Another boat had come while were were walking the park about 20 yards North of us…they were too close for me, but I’ve always had anxiety about anchoring. Winds continued to pick up and it it started to get alarming. What was the quality of the bottom for our anchor? We’re close enough to shore we can’t afford to drag so I started both the engines to take some of the force off the anchor. We saw about 42 knots of wind as that front blew through. Definitely the strongest winds I’ve been on a boat in.

Where’s the Closest Emergency Room?

We weighed anchor early and started to retrace our tracks out of Marine Stadium. Destination: Palm Beach and Fort Worth.

We got to Fort Worth early evening, ate dinner and everybody started to chill for the evening. Sam & Shawn decided to fish and caught a few cat fish.

After a handful of fish, Sam pulled an unknown fish out. Shawn jumped into action to help Sam take the fish off…and, while Shawn was gripping it, it started to puff-up. Yikes! The fish was ultimately removed and thrown back, but then we began to remember. Aren’t blow/puffer fish poisonous?

Well, after about 30 minutes of surfing the web, we determined that yes, many species are poisonous…in fact, some are significantly more poisonous than arsenic! So, which fish did he touch? Shawn was saying that he could feel where he had touched the blowfish’s spikes but wasn’t in significant pain…what to do.

Fortunately, we were close to an emergency room. Since some websites suggested that even touching the skin of a blowfish could be fatal, I decided to go with Sam and Shawn to the emergency room. Ken took us over and we climbed over a concrete lookout near Lake Worth, only to find a person sleeping on the ground next to his motorcycle. Carefully stepping around him, we walked a few blocks to the Emergency room.

Shawn asked the receptionist whether she felt they should be seen…but had no ideas. “Do you want to see a Doctor?” Since death from this poison can happen 1-4 hours after being stung (so we read) and can result in respiratory paralysis, we decided to hang out for an hour outside the Emergency room before calling Ken to pick us back up. What a night.

Virginia Key & the Marine Stadium

My son, Sam, was flying in from Tucson Saturday afternoon. We awoke Saturday morning, weighed anchor…well, we tried to. The anchor was wrapped around a braided line attached to a crab or lobster pot. After some cutter, we were finally free and proceeded to head east through buoy #3 and #4.

The sea state was quite rough, especially heading east through #3 & #4 and ultimately #1 and #2 before heading north. We took at least one wave over the starboard beam of the boat and Shawn, lying on the bench, got completely soaked.

My broker had suggested that both No Name Harbor and Marine Stadium have poor holding. Perhaps they do and the lobster pot line held us. In any case, when I was planning for this trip, I was looking for interesting places to anchor.

We head into the Port of Miami and took the Fisherman’s Channel to port when the channel split. The Port of Miami is quite busy and kept Lummus Island and Dodge Island to starboard and through #16 and #17 before we turned to port to head south. The channel heading south is quite narrow. We turned south west around #67 towards Marine Stadium.

When we arrived, it was close to 1pm in the afternoon and the anchorage was as busy as I’ve seen any anchorage….and loud, with lots of boats and yachts, high-wattage sound systems and folks dancing on the decks.

We ultimately found a place to anchor. Sam was taking an Uber from Miami International airport to Virginia Key. On the other side of Atlantica Seafood Restaurant and Market there’s a parking lot and then a small dinghy beach.

We had dinner at Atlantica and it was meh.

We were going to head out on March 6 up to Palm Beach but looking at the sea state forecasts, we decided to stay another night and head out on the 7th.

Glad we stopped by Marine Stadium but I’d be surprised if I find my way back there. It was glad to see and experience but it was far from calm, especially with all of the people on personal water craft ignoring the no wake signage. Fortunately, the Coast Guard was out patrolling. We saw many people get stopped but never did we see anybody get a ticket as they were just spoken to from a-far.

The Beach near Atlantica Seafood Restaurant

A Few Days at the Office

All three of us worked Thursday and Friday from the boat. I can really get used that this!

Cellular coverage was good enough for my Webex meetings and for even accessing my cloud-located documents. The most difficult thing was dealing with the three hour difference than San Jose. By 5pm Friday, we’re ready for Happy Hour but California is practically just getting back from lunch.

We used a lot of power. While One doesn’t have solar (yet) and that generator was running quite a bit between the computers, electronics, refrigeration and watermaker.

No Name Harbor Anchorage

The trip from Matheson Hammock Fuel Dock over to an anchorage outside of No Name Harbor is about an hour or so. We decided to try to find a spot to anchor inside No Name Harbor but upon motoring around inside, we determined it was too tight for our liking so out we went to find a spot outside.

I had taken Wednesday off from work and Ken and I had plans to run into Key Biscayane to pick up additional groceries. We dropped the dinghy in the water and headed off to No Name Harbor to tie up. Shawn stayed back on the boat and worked.

I had some adhesive to glue my registration numbers on the dinghy shipped to a UPS store that we needed to pick up. I had been told that the Virtual Doorman service cost a small fee but it ended up not costing me anything. Not sure if that was a mistake.

Anyway, the State Park to the UPS store, Wynn Dixie and Wynn Dixie liquor store is about 4 miles, ISTR. Getting there’s a piece of cake. Getting back with all of our groceries is good exercise. We brought our backpacks to help.

That night, all three of us went in to grab dinner at the Boater’s Grill. Suffice it to say, it was rather so-so and doubt I’ll go back. In fact, I’m rather disappointed 9 times out of 10 restaurants I’ve eaten at visiting by boat. It doesn’t matter whether it was the BVI, San Francisco and now Florida, they all seem to be meh.

Anyway, we all ordered a whole, deep fried Snapper to share. Ordering a Dark and Stormy, a guy from the bar came over and asked me what was in it. I told him he should tell me, it was on the menu. I ended up getting a Rum and Coke, that was simple enough. Anyway, we all ordered a whole, deep fried Snapper to share and some appetizers.

Matheson Hammock Marina & Fuel Dock

Once Shawn arrived and we were all loaded up, we pushed off around 11 A.M. or so and headed out to Biscayne Bay and over to Matheson Hammock Marina and Fuel Dock.

I’ve always had anxiety entering in a new Marina, not sure on what sorts of things we might encounter. However, this visit to the fuel dock was pretty un-eventful given this was only the second time I’ve docked the boat. Fortunately, there were no other boats waiting nor were there boats at the dock, so we had it all to ourselves.

Unfortunately, we needed to wait around for about 30 minutes or so for the attendant to get back from lunch. I’ve yet to really figure out the simplest way of fueling While One. One person is usually at the nav station watching the take monitor, yelling out percentages and the other is fueling. Of course, there’s quite a bit of latency due to the filtering on the fuel gauge to take out the fluctuations due to boat moving. Always fearful of overfilling, I have a diaper over the fuel vent listening and feeling for any fuel. Despite all of this, I’m still not convinced I’ve got the tank fully filled. When I do the math based on the percentage on how much fuel the tank should take, it seems to be well above the amount when we finally read full. It’s weird.

We picked up some snacks, ice, frozen bait and about $250 worth of fuel.

The First Boo Boo

My broker’s house has a fixed concrete dock.

I have exactly no experience in tying up to a fixed dock. This spot in the rear of his house is at the end of a finger and While One is just a tad too long. Apparently one neighbor is cool but the other, not so much.

Upon getting read to take off, I looked over the Starboard Hull and notice that the hull were too close to the concrete dock. Upon further, I saw While One had experienced at least 1/2 of a Tide with its hull on the concrete. To say that concrete is quite effective as a coarse sandpaper is an understanding. It was deep.

Ken pulled me aside later and commended me on how calm I was. As I thought about my response, I began to think “better him than I.” I think I’ll feel a lot more upset if it were my mistake.