I can’t even begin to say what a crazy trip. Three flights and almost 24 hours straight travel… barely made it away from the dock before low tide. My heart was racing in hopes I wouldn’t run aground when the shallow water alarms were going off. But finally broke away and got anchored in a nice bay for a peaceful moment to relax. Tomorrow is maintenance day. We have a long ways to go. Dinghy not working and several mechanical issues with Freebird. But we will press on because the weather is good. Hope to share some sailing pictures and video. Not a lot of time to record anything unfortunately. Maybe tomorrow

We did see a stingray fly out of the water and belly flop 20 feet from us. It was amazing. Then we went and changed our shorts.

I could not have done this without the help of Stephen Brown to get through this day. He was a life saver!!

It was mostly a maintenance trip for Dad, Dave, Jeremy and I. We need to find out what Freebird needs to make as safe of a journey as possible when we get started over spring break. Plus we just plain need practice. We would be lost without Dave’s experience. In fact… if you listen closely enough to the dialogue, I can’t tell the difference between the Pacific and Atlantic… But even a shake down cruise and work trip has a lot of fun moments. We will get a better amount of video on the next one.

I have some videos to put together, but this is where the boat is located as of last week. The maintenance haul out is to get ready for the trip across the Gulf Stream (currents) passage to the Bahamas.

We will post a lot more videos, but this is a shot of Freebird leaving the Bahamas for the sea trial just prior to when we made plunge to acquire her.

Nine knots on wind power is good and you can see that on the instrument. This is just over ten miles per hour. Most monohulls are happy to hit six knots.

Dave said he once sustained 18 knots for a long period on Freebird, which would be sailing at over 20 MPH!

It’s so good to see her in good hands. Judy & Dave are honored to be included her next chapter. Lots of fun and adventure ahead…

Judy took this photo as she and Dave first pulled up to Freebird after having left the vessel in Sicily in 2011. Over the next several days, this image became familiar to us all as we moved back and forth from land to the mooring field as we began equipping her and prepping her for the long journey ahead. We have a long way to go… so stay tuned.

After Christmas I will be hoisting myself 6 stories into the air on a bosuns chair to fix an all important tri-color navigation light.