Before we started cruising we had to haul out Pegu Club every fall and get her ready to go back into the water the following spring.  It was all we knew, so we had no idea what a gigantic pain in the ass it is until we didn’t have to do it while we were cruising.  As we worked on Pegu this spring, a very frequent refrain could be heard: “We’re NEVER hauling out in New England for the winter ever again.”

We had three weeks to get Pegu Club ready, but between Jeff’s schedule at Defender and the weather gods’ complete failure to cooperate, we went down to the wire.  Every speck of her interior needed a good cleaning – that alone took two days.  The bottom, propeller, and boot stripe were painted.  We installed a new, brighter anchor light and replaced the VHF coax cable and antenna.

The engine was dewinterized, along with changing the gear box oil and engine oil/filter, air filter, alternator, impeller, and primary and secondary fuel filters.  Despite our best attempts to ensure the galley foot pump didn’t have any water in it over the winter, it cracked anyway, so we needed to replace that.  A new hand pump was installed in the head, and we replaced the broken light switch in there.

Coir was prepped for the Nature’s Head composting toilet.  Items like cushions, clothing, and food were loaded onto the boat.  New connectors were installed on the AIS cable which we had to cut last September when the mast was removed (it’s a long story).

These were all things we expected to take care of (except for the galley foot pump, but it had happened to us once before so it wasn’t a complete surprise.)  But because it’s a boat, there were certainly some unexpected issues that cropped up.

When Jeff was working on the engine he discovered that the muffler hose was chafed so we replaced that, along with the hose that we had replaced in the Bahamas after IT had chafed.  The hose from the Bahamas wasn’t as robust as we prefer, so we wanted to install a better one.  When Jeff removed the muffler hose he cracked the muffler, but we didn’t realize it until we were test-running the engine and water started dripping out of the muffler.  Cue another trip to Defender to buy a new muffler.

Pegu Club was in the water, but still in the travel lift slings, when we discovered that water wasn’t coming out of the exhaust like it should have been.  What the heck?  It had worked fine when we ran it for 10+ minutes on the hard, using water in a bucket for the raw water intake hose, so we knew it wasn’t the muffler.  We motored 100 feet to the wash down dock, and after some sleuthing we discovered that the raw water seacock had failed in the closed position.  We didn’t know it when we were on the hard, because the bucket method bypasses that seacock.  We have no idea how it failed (it was working fine when we hauled out and it was only 7 years old), but after a quick haul we had a new one installed.

Fortunately, the broken seacock proved to be the last of the winter gremlins.  After tuning the rigging and putting the sails on, Pegu Club was ready for us to start sailing (and cruising post-Labor Day) on her again.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we had no idea what a hassle decommissioning and commissioning a boat is until we no longer had to do it.  Now that we’ve experienced the joy of not having to close Pegu Club up for the winter, we’ll be sure to be far enough south not to have to winterize if we decide to leave her again for several months.  Some things are a hassle no matter where you are: removing food, cleaning the boat, etc.  But letting the boat sit in freezing temperatures for months on end brings its own set of issues that we’d just as soon not deal with anymore.  Fortunately, we don’t have to!

We’re back in Groton and getting ready to splash Pegu Club. Are we excited? Hell, yes! Are we glad we took the winter off? Yes – with some caveats. Did we learn anything from this experiment? Definitely.

Last spring we decided to take a boat break for the 2021/2022 winter cruising season. We were feeling burned out, and we wanted to step away from cruising for a bit so we wouldn’t get to the point where we never wanted to cruise (or even sail) again. Over the summer we thought that perhaps we would spend the next few years traveling on land in the winter and cruising in the summer.

By the time we left in September, however, I was ready to cruise south again. I even brought it up as a possibility to Jeff. But he wasn’t quite there yet, and we did have a fun winter planned, so we decided to stay the course and go to California.

A few months into our stay in San Diego, Jeff was also ready to go cruising again, so we enjoyed the rest of our winter knowing that we would move back onto Pegu Club in the spring and cruise south to the Bahamas again this fall. We spent a lot of time excitedly planning our boat projects for the summer, talking about destinations (both in the near future and the not-so-near future), and figuring out what works and doesn’t work for us when we cruise full-time.

So what did we learn from our winter away?  Boat vacations are VERY important.  It simply can’t be all boat, all the time. That just leads us hurtling full-speed down the road to burn out. We actually figured this out after our first year, but when Covid arrived, traveling away from the boat wasn’t really an option for us – a factor that contributed heavily to our desire for a break.

Now that we’ve entered a new normal (fingers crossed), we’re going to take at least two boat vacations each year, perhaps even three.  It doesn’t have to be for months.  It just needs to be a vacation. Towards that end, we’ve booked flights to Puerto Rico for a week in January, and we’re kicking around a road trip to Montreal and Quebec City next summer (ideally during Montreal’s International Fireworks Competition).

What else did we learn? We aren’t ready to give up living and cruising on Pegu Club yet – not by a long shot. But Jeff prefers occasionally staying in one place for a while at a marina so we can just step off the boat onto land and settle in a bit.  I like to move along a bit more frequently and generally favor anchoring.  So, with the experience that comes from being happily married for 22 years and counting, we’re going to compromise.

To start with, we’re spending this summer at Shenny.  We have several big boat canvas projects for Pegu that will be more easily completed at a slip.  Of course we’ll do some day sails and short getaways this summer, and we are taking two weeks in July to sail to Martha’s Vineyard with our friends from S/V Infinity.  But a big focus will be getting the sewing projects completed (and blogged about).  Jeff is working part-time again at Defender, and I’m going to be one of the launch operators and fuel dock attendants at Shenny.  So all of that will certainly keep us busy.  

Right after Labor Day we’ll start heading south, and we’re planning on several one or two week marina stays at some of our favorite places. We also want to keep it fresh, so we have a few brand new stops in mind in the U.S. and the Bahamas.  

Anything else? We don’t want to necessarily spend the next decade cruising back and forth between Connecticut and the Bahamas. We’d like to spread our wings a bit more, so we’re kicking around some ideas that I’ll share in the future. In the meantime, we’re having fun talking about it.

We feel refreshed, energized, and as enthusiastic as newbie cruisers. By that measurement, our winter away from Pegu Club – while way too long – was absolutely worth it. Now let’s see what comes next!

One of the things I’ve really wanted to do for awhile is to get my Coast Guard Captain’s license.  I’ve been kicking around the idea of an occasional part-time or seasonal job to add a bit of structure to my day (fluffing up the cruising kitty is an added bonus), and I knew that I didn’t want to work in an office or do anything related to law.  If I was going to work, it needed to be connected with the marine industry, preferably outside.  With a Captain’s license I could drive a launch, a water taxi, a tour boat, do deliveries, etc., and I could do it in any state.  THAT’S my idea of the perfect part-time or seasonal job!  So once we arrived in San Diego, and we were finally going to be in the same place for awhile with solid internet, it was time to hit the books. Continue reading “I’m the Captain now.” →

I can’t count the number of times I’ve read on cruising forums that a given person can’t cruise on a boat less than 40 feet because they don’t want to “camp.”  I always suspected that people who say it have never truly camped.  Now, after five weeks of tent camping, I am certain of it.  Cruising on a smaller boat – even as small as our Bristol 29.9 – is absolutely NOTHING like camping.

Pegu Club has real furniture and a real galley.  When we want to do dishes we use a real sink and take advantage of 68 gallons of water – we don’t have to put the dishes into a bucket and head over to the camping facility’s sink.  Pegu Club has electricity – not merely flashlights.  She has a toilet so we don’t have to get dressed and trek across a campground in the middle of the night.  On Pegu Club we don’t have to put everything with a scent into a bear box.  When we want to go somewhere else, we spend ten minutes putting things away and raise the anchor vs. having to break camp and load up the car.  When we arrive, we drop the anchor and there we are vs. unloading the car and setting everything up.  Pegu Club may only be 30 feet, but she is 30 feet of pure luxury compared to camping.

There’s no doubt that an RV or a trailer would be more comfortable than a tent, and certainly more comparable to living on a boat.  Before we left on this trip, we talked seriously about getting an RV for land travel when we’re finished with boat life some day.  But now?  I have less than zero interest in doing it.  Perhaps I’ll change my mind in the coming years, but currently a life of land travel in campgrounds and boondocking doesn’t appeal in any way, shape, or form.  I miss the boat, and I miss cruising.