“Plans made on a boat are written in sand at high tide.” We know that, but still thought we’d be able to leave Ft. Lauderdale on Sunday, November 24, after spending four days at a dock on the New River and completing all the repairs on our list except a jib that wasn’t furling well while sailing on the ocean coming to Ft. Lauderdale.  On Saturday, while trying to fix it, the jib furler froze up completely and we realized we’d have to contact a rigger for help.

Monday morning we called Ft Lauderdale based Nance and Underwood, riggers we have worked with before. Unfortunately they couldn’t  get to us for a month, possibly in two weeks if they have a cancellation. We texted Scott, the hybrid guru who helped all of the Lagoon 420 owners when they were electric sailboats. He texted back immediately from France and gave us the name of a local man whom he highly recommended.

Kyle came to check our furler this morning. The good news is that he can help us. The bad news is we need a new one. Parts will be ordered and should be here in two weeks. We will go to Miami tomorrow morning and wait at Dinner Key on a mooring ball until Kyle can bring the new furler to us and install it. Mark has been able to fix 99% of the repairs on our boat, but this is one time we had to rely on an expert. In the last week and a half Mark has repaired or replaced a VHF radio, our watermaker, a bilge pump, the inverter, and  our chart plotter. While we heard the saying, “Everything on your boat is broken…..you just don’t know it yet,” soon after we moved aboard Seas the Day, I hope that is not true right now. We definitely need a break from this.