This time it truly is love at first sail…

Marc fell in love with sailing the first time he stepped onto a sailboat back in high school.  For myself it was not love at first sight with sailing, but through time and getting to understand the elements of sailing, I grew to really like it.  But I have to admit that it wasn’t until we sold our house and moved aboard Adagio here in Fort Lauderdale that I grew to truly love the sailing lifestyle.  Okay, granted living in sunny 80 degree weather by the beach in the middle of winter helps the situation.  But fabulous weather and location aside, I have quickly fallen in love with our boat and all she offers.  It’s taken me some time getting used to a bigger boat and maneuvering her, but I’m getting there.  We are taking Adagio out every other day to practice docking which used to give me heart palpitations.  But I’m getting better and better at docking, and with each landing my confidence is growing.  Marc and I want us both to be proficient at docking and not just Marc.

If you’ve read some of our other blog posts, you know that we’ve had a long list of projects with the boat.  Shocker, right?  A few of them caused us to not be able to sail until this past week.  Last week we finally got our new anchor attached and fixed the bow thrusters, so we were finally able to ‘hoist the sails’.  Here I am enjoying myself while Marc was at the helm.  I too was at the helm some, but we have no photos to prove it.  (I’m usually the one snapping the photos.)

The kids have never been sailing on the ocean before, just lakes in the Midwest.  So this was pretty cool for them to sail in “the big water”.The first 20 minutes was bliss for the kids, and then came the dreaded seasickness.But I busted out the Saltine crackers and a can of Sprite and all was well with the world within 15 minutes.  I never let the kids drink soda so this was a real treat.  We will be stocking up on Dramamine, Sprite, ginger ale and crackers before we set sail to the Bahamas.  But don’t worry, after about a week, you get your sea legs and get over the seasickness as your body adjusts to life afloat.

Other news is that we enrolled Joellen and Camden in a six week kid sail program here in Fort Lauderdale.  It’s easier for them to understand how to sail our boat if they can understand the basics on a small boat.  They each take out their own Opti boat that looks like a bathtub with one sail.  Here are some photos I took of them last weekend during their class.  Joellen feels that these boats are a tad too unstable for her taste, while Camden tries to tip his over in the water.  Talk about opposite personalities!  Maria is a real trooper during class and runs around chasing lizards and throwing rocks in the water.  Being the third, she gets lugged around everywhere we go but she loves every minute of it.  She ran around yelling, “Yeah happy”.  This little two year old melts my heart.The remainder of this week entails more docking practice, more sailing offshore, a visit from Ben and Teresa Carey and heading to the Miami Boat Show!  If we don’t post until this upcoming weekend or after, Happy Valentine’s Day!