Planning

In only slightly more than a month we will be leaving on Dubhe for the Florida Keys.  We have always dreamed of cruising again and this is our chance.  We plan to depart with the first weather window after Christmas and return by the end of April 2015.  I hope to make this Blog a detailed record of our cruise so this post is practice.

Thanksgiving is only four days away  and at this point, I don't see how we can get everything ready, especially Dubhe, and get packed.  Our original intention was to do this last year but it did not work out.  I am bound and determined to make this happen on time or it may never happen.  Dubhe is "on the hill" at Marine Propulsion in Rockville, SC, I discovered a hydraulic leak in the main steering helm pump, and the weather may delay getting her back to Beaufort.  It seems as if all is conspiring against us, but I am not really discouraged.  We are going to do it.

About three years ago, life was going great.  Nancy and I seemed to be enjoying and appreciating each other more, I was working part time when I wanted, we were able to pretty much whatever we wanted, we were planning more travel, I was fishing a lot, I had a lot of relaxing time, and was just enjoying life.  Then DUBHE came along.  For years, I had been thinking about a boat, a trawler in particular.  I would look at brokerage websites, collect pictures, and just daydream about boats.  I never seriously thought about buying one, primarily because I could not manage the cost and continue to work infrequently and do whatever we wanted. 

A small blue hulled trawler (Thusdays Child) at Port Royal Landing Marina caught my eye several times while going over the McTeer bridge.  Just what I would like to have I thought, but never pursued it.  One day when visiting a friend  in the hospital, we were talking about boats and to my astonishment, she said that the pretty blue hull trawler belonged to her and her husband.  As we talked, she mentioned that there was another Willard trawler just like hers for sale in Beaufort.  In October 2011, we bought DUBHE. 

Our lives have changed radically in the past three years.  Our granddaughter Lillian has been the greatest change, but we only see her every couple of weeks or so. DUBHE has changed our daily lives…what we do, what we think about, and where we spend our money.  We are obsessed with restoring her.  Almost every day revolves on what we are going to do to or with DUBHE.  I don’t hardly fish anymore.

Life was going so well, WHY would we do this to ourselves?  Now instead of planning trips to Europe or traveling around the US, we are driven to cruising to the Florida Keys and Bahamas on DUBHE.  Whether this comes to fruition or not remains to be seen, but for now, she is our life.  Why is this?  DUBHE has some kind of power over us not unlike an addiction.  What is it about boats and the water that drives otherwise educated, sane, mature adults to this?