Come Sail A .....Wait!

Prep prep prep, hurry up and wait.  Not a good position for a type A personality to be in, quite frustrating actually.  We are trying to head out to deliver a catamaran to Florida.  Ideally it will be positioned in Marathon on the 16th of March.  This being the end of February a gulf crossing is iffy at best so we planned to head down the ditch (the Gulf Coast Intercoastal Waterway).  This is the safest way to transit the trip but also the slowest.  In perfect conditions a boat can make an offshore gulf crossing, depending on starting and ending positions, in 5 to 7 days.  In the ditch it turns into 2 to 3 weeks.  Right now we have a great window to actually do it the fast way, a window that is quickly closing.

Sea Yawl Later a Seawind 1000

Sea Yawl Later needed a bottom job (new paint to help with growth) so we delivered her to the yard a week before we wanted to leave.  The yard guys said no problem, we can have her ready on Friday, that would have been perfect for our hoped for Saturday departure.  Unfortunately, here I sit on the following Wednesday while the wind is blowing 35 miles per hour and the boat is still on stands in said yard.  It's too windy to hang the boat in the sling and paint the parts that have been covered by the pads that are holding her off of the ground  so tomorrow is the earliest they will do it.

Now anyone that knows boats knows that a schedule is written in sand and changes with the wind, so I knew going into this that I was at the mercy of the weather, but the yard is a different story.  I'm sure that they did everything in a timely manner (no they didn't), I'm sure that they are going to have the sense of urgency that I have to get the boat in the water ASAP (no I'm not), but really I hate having to wait on other people to do their jobs.

So I wait, looking at the forecast for wind and waves vs. the possible date of departure, planning (like all type A people do) for the perfect weather window, all the while knowing that our intended arrival date is getting closer.  Do we have to get all the way to Marathon with the boat by the 16th?  No, but I really would love to make it all the way to the Keys!

Photo cutesy of Fla-keys.com