Viking

How many hours did the trip take you? When you wrote 200 miles I started thinking like a cruiser and figuring out how many days that'd take. But you're in a Ferrari vs my VW bus. Badass boat by the way... I need to figure a way to cross paths so I can bum a ride. Are you keeping it in S FL for awhile or taking it up to the lakes?

I've been meaning to post some pics of the boat but I got my phone wet and dead shortly after we got to Staniel Cay and it took 6 weeks until I could get a replacement in George Town. We left GT the day after my phone finally cleared customs (which was a total clusterfuck) and then took off to the DR on half a weather window. The first half from GT to Turks and Caicos was glorious down hill sailing.. 15 knots at 120deg and 3ft waves. The second half was shit. The wind increased to 25 gusting 30 and the waves and swell grew to 6-10ft and it was on our beam for 36 hours. The boat is a 2004 Manta 42, built in St Petesburg FL. This is at Water Cay in the Raggeds. After 2 weeks in George Town my wife and I needed a break and found it here. There were no other cruising boats for the 5 days we were there. Here's where we are currently in Samana, DR. The boat looks small but that's a 70' monohull on the right that belongs to a boarding school in RI and a 65' Bertram on the left.

That sounds miserable. Does your route take you between Nassau and the Berrys? The waves look particularly shitty there.

Whoopsie!

Not yet. I've got a bunch of pics taken while on the boat but very few of the boat. I'll try to get some at anchor. Maybe we'll do some MOB drills and I'll get some of the boat under sail. 😁 Our plans are *breathes deep* to get to Grenada by June which is the start of huricane season. It's going to be a bitch though since we're going against the trades until we get to the Virgin Islands. Might need a new thread to document your travels. There's a thread for boat retirement/sabbatical but I'd be the only one posting to it. I dunno if my ego is big enough to have my own surly thread. We'll prob hit staniel cay on the way down to Georgetown. Been there? Any recs? We know little about the exumas except what is in the explorer charts.

I finally got the boat "ready", quit my job, and pushed off the dock for good a week before Christmas. We were trapped in the Fort Myers area for a week while a system spun around but Christmas day brought us a N wind that we used to get to the keys. We've been moving fast ever since trying to get to the exumas. We generally sail a day for 6-10 hours and then take the next day off. We're currently anchored off Highbourne Cay where the Christmas trades are in full force. Winds E at 25 gusting 33 all day and night for 3-5 days straight.

My wife is from Kansas and her family has a huge gathering every three years at her cousin's house in Wichita. The place is fucking huge and badass. No cookie cutter mcmansion bullshit. There's at least 6 entrances to the place. Marble throughout. The master stairway (there's 3 sets of stairs) is 6+ feet wide. I was in awe of the place. Put that house in Highland Park and it's 5-10 mil easy. In Wichita? They bought it for 450k. My mass built home in the Dallas suburbs was just a tad cheaper.

My marina neighbor has a Lagoon 450 flybridge like the one pictured. I used to think that the flybridge would be fucking badass but then I saw that the riggers needed a 5 step ladder to reach the gooseneck and the end of the boom. Fuck that.

This man speaks the truth. Also look for uncooked torts in the frozen aisles. Those are the best. The others have preservatives which ruin the simple flavors of a tort.

I lived in Memphis for 8 years and still travel there regularly for business. I'll just echo some of the good suggestions made so far: Gus, Central bbq, Wiseacre. I'm not a fan of fried chicken but I fucking love Gus'. The original location downtown is by far the best. Just be prepared for really slow service. There's been a restaurant boom in Memphis in the last decade. Lots of really good food beyond bbq and fried chicken. If you want a great steak then Folk's Folly is badass. Los Tortugas Deli Mexicana is great. Get the torts and not the tacos. Cooper-Young and Cooper-Madison have some good restaurants. Alchemy and Robata Ramen and Yakatori are good. Kudos for no one recommending Rendezvouz. That place sucks.

If any financial entity offers to loan me long term money at 0% interest, I take it.

I get about 30 minutes into episode 1 of every season before I remember to turn on CC.

Here's a good example of why boat projects can take so fucking long. The hatch over my helm is busted up. See that boom on the left? It strongly objects to the hatch being open in the most violent of ways as the previous owner discovered. Fortunately the manufacturer of said hatch is still in business and still makes the exact same hatch. Same part number, same dimensions. This should be an easy job! But nah, the holes on the bottom frame were all moved by 1/10 of an inch. My bimini top is aluminum and I know of know good way to "relocate" a hole 1/10" in Al. This isn't the first time where I've replaced an item from the same manufacturer only to discover that the mounting template is totally different. Why?!

Since you don't have much I'd recommend negotiating straight cash, as much as you can and grossed up, and you take care of everything. You can turn it into a nice bonus that way. Just hire movers on each end and a company like ABF to move your container. My wife once worked for one of the largest corp relocation companies in the country and she's got crazy stories about the shit that CxOs put them through. Long term hotel stays, 0% mortgages for new homes, guaranteed sales price for their current home, refrigerated trucks for their wine collection, cranes to lift their custom built outdoor grill over their home because they can't live without it.

No idea. The A/C wasn't running so the only load on it was my charger keeping the batteries topped up which requires less than an amp.

A tornado in Auckland vs 56' catamaran. Fuuuuuuck. I've been away from the boat the last 6 weeks but will be back in Florida in 2. I did get a nice email from the marina office shortly after I left that my shore power pedestal let out all of its smoke. Boats... they can't go 1 week without needing attention ($$$).

The helicopter parenting in this country just gets worse and worse. We've done the same thing with our kids (10yo and 7yo) multiple times.

"master recklessly contravening his duty" is a badass sounding charge.

Amazing that the mast stayed up. https://www.instagram.com/p/B0I5PPDHob-/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Yeah that was probably us. We started learning about 2 years ago, bought the boat 18 months ago and have been living aboard and fixing shit since then. We've been in SW FL the entire time.

That went even worse than I was expecting which is something. They got the jetski in back just in time to drown it.

Most of my boat pictures are of stuff I'm working. Corroded and burned shore power connectors, the backside of raymarine windspeed display, etc. I'll try to get and post up more boat pics though. Current plans are to leave in Nov-Jan to head to the Bahamas. Longer term is to get south to Grenada for next hurricane season.

Hauled the boat out two weeks ago for a bottom job, port saildrive work (new gasket, ring, and valve), and replaced two thruhulls. We brought her back yesterday and were soon greeted by this: There was no getting around it. Sanibel Island was to our starboard and the storm extended far to the south off our port. Fortunately we caught just the northern tip of it and only had bad weather for an hour. Once we got past it we had great sailing. 15-20 knots of wind on our beam for our ~40 mile trip past Captiva and Cayo Costa and into Charlotte Harbor.

You'll know the first shot has been fired when they downsize the drink sizes. Medium will go from 32 to 21 oz and the price will stay the same. The bean counters will salivate over the money earned by doing that alone.

I'm a fan of oatmeal when done right. Done wrong using instant or quick oats with nasty artificial flavoring and it's gross. Seriously America, how can you fuck up something so gawd damn simple? Steel cut oats, slow cooked. I top with granola, dried fruit, and fruit compote.