RELOCATING GYPSY BLUE (FLORIDA TO BELIZE)

Our departure from West Palm Beach on our boat Gypsy Blue was a culmination of lots of hard work and logistics squished in to just a few days. It didn’t take us long from living on land in Belize that we realized that we wanted our boat here with us. Why live near the water if you can’t go out on it? At least that is our theory. And we had put so much sweat and effort on her the past couple years, why just have it sit waiting for us to use it 2-3 months a year. Our plan of going to visit her once a year in the Pacific just no longer made sense. Our South Pacific cruising dream would have to wait.

Early December we flew to Los Angeles for a quick 2 days to prepare her to load on a long-bed truck. This involves taking down the sails, dodger and bimini, radar and AIS stands and archway and storing them inside the boat along with the outboard engine, life raft, cooler and all cushions.   The dinghy would be covered and stored under the boat on the trailer along with the large archway. But everything else is inside. It was stuffed. Then we took off the boom. The yard would pull the mast. They would wrap the boom and the mast along with the rigging with lots of plastic and tape. These would be stored on the trailer under the boat as well.

The across country trip would take 3 weeks. It’s interesting the logistics of shipping a sailboat across the country. Because Gypsy Blue is over 12 feet wide they would require an additional escort vehicle. The signs you see WIDE LOAD! That would be our boat. The trucking company organizes the route and plan. There are some states that don’t allow that size truck to travel on the weekends such as Arizona and Alabama.   Then they are also not allowed to travel at all on interstates between Christmas and New Years. Don’t know if that is in all states but it did include some of the states our boat would go through. So Gypsy Blue spent Christmas in Sealy, Texas parked in a locked compound with a security system, 2 Pitt Bulls and a retired Houston Policeman guarding it.   The timing worked out well for us to fly up to Florida in time to meet the boat as it arrived at Cracker Boy Boat Yard in West Palm Beach on January 7^th.   When we bought the boat 7 years before she was located in West Palm Beach and we had her trucked from Cracker Boy Boat Yard to North California. Now she has returned. So the entire time we have owned her, Gypsy Blue has done more miles on land than she has on the water.   3200 miles this trip plus 3600 miles seven years ago. But we would soon be making up for that.

It was a busy four days of putting the boat back together again. Mast had to be re-rigged and then put in. Sails and stack pack back on. All stands and radars back on and then all electronics and electrical re-installed. All of those are heavy and physical work but the worst – the most dreaded – job of all is the dodger and bimini. Last August we had put them back on after some repairs were done. Back then we said ‘Never again!’ But then we changed plans and decided to take the boat to Belize. On the second day Kelsey arrived from Key West to help us. She was excited about crewing with us on the trip to Belize which would be her first ocean passage on a sailboat. I don’t think she knew how much hard work would need to be done before we left though.

But finally by Sunday, the boat was back together and ready to go.   I had provisioned and pre-cooked some meals. We were all exhausted with muscles aching. Monday’s weather was not good for leaving. We can always deal with a storm when we are out there and it happens but we won’t leave in a storm.   So Monday was a good day to finish up any final tasks on the boat, check out of the country and then have an early night. We were up early on Tuesday, got fuel and headed out the Lake Worth inlet to the Atlantic Ocean.

The seas were slightly confused as we got the sails up. The wind was light so we had to motor sail down the coast. But it was a pleasant enough Day 1 that ended in a beautiful sunset over Miami.   We settled in for our watches of 3 hours on/6 off. Although with it being Kelsey’s first over night, either Whitey or I would be with her on her watch.

So we had waited for the bad weather to pass before departing but as Whitey looked at the weather reports, he was worried that we would not have enough wind for sailing most of the way. Which could potentially mean not enough fuel on board. Always planning and looking at ‘what may happen IF’ he made the call to pull in to Marathon down in the Keys and top up with fuel.

 

The first 2 days were motor sailing and trying to cross the Gulf Stream with over 2 knots of current on the no se. We wanted to get closer to Cuba where there is a counter current that would assist us moving south.   You can definitely notice the change in speed once you are out of the Gulf Stream. But Whitey was still concerned about the fuel capacity as we were not getting enough wind so only by motor sailing were we able to do 6 knots.

On the end of the third day as we rounded the south west corner of Cuba the winds began to build.   A trip is rarely without some mechanical problem and poor Whitey had to be below working on the engine. First the alternator bracket broke and the engine wasn’t charging. But we have a generator to do the charging. Then the banjo fitting on the high-pressure fuel pump broke.

Great mechanic that he is, he was able to fix it. Glad my husband has a strong stomach doing mechanics in a rolling boat. So as the engine was acting up, we were happy that the wind had filled in and we were scooting along at 7 knots.

Whitey and I were so happy.   The final two days were the most perfect sail we had had in years. It validated our hard work the past 2 weeks and especially our decision to move Gypsy Blue to Belize.   We had the engine off for two and a half days during this perfect sail and then she cooperated as we started her so we could motor safely through the reef entrance at English Caye.   At 5 pm on Sunday we pulled into the marina at The Placencia. We felt so satisfied, fulfilled and thrilled to have our own boat, S/V Gypsy Blue, parked in our marina. To visit her daily, slowly do the boat projects that we love doing, and take her sailing to the cays along Belize.

We love out boat!