Publish Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Location: Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Coordinates: 26° 07.155′ N 80° 06.649′ W
Bobby O arriving via dingy in 35kts winds for his warm Bahamian vacation.
When we were in the Chesapeake last fall, we had a number of visitors come and stay with us for a few days. Many friends and family members were anxious to see our new home and new lifestyle, and we were excited to share it. Although it all felt quite new, we were still in one location, at a marina, and had a car. It wasn’t too different from having house guests in Boulder.
However, since we officially slipped our lines in November and began actively cruising, we’ve had just two guests. Our incredibly good friend Bobby O came to see us in the Bahamas in February ; and last week, one of our daughter’s closest friends came to see us in Florida during her spring break. Both visits were wonderful, but not without more lessons learned.
There is a common cruising phrase when it comes to guests: You can pick the dates or you can pick the
Introducing Bobby O to Happy Hour.
location, but not both. It is definitely a challenge trying to coordinate travel logistics with visitors, because you are never quite sure where you are going to be. Often guests need at least a couple of month’s notice for planning purposes and airline tickets.
We had heard you should plan to be where you are meeting your guests at least a week in advance of their arrival. The more remote the location, or absolute need to be there when your guest arrives, the earlier you should plan on arriving. For example McKenna was arriving in Ft. Lauderdale on the 24th of March. We took advantage
McKenna and Ayla in coordinating crew uniforms.
of good weather window to cross the Gulf Stream back to Florida on March 14th/15th (which seemed early to us). Another good window didn’t open for over two weeks. Had we waited we would have either missed her visit, had to deal with some very rough seas, or come back via plane to meet her. We were fortunate to have crossed when we did.
You can have a cruising itinerary for your guests visit, but it needs to be flexible given what “mother nature” might have planned. As much as this makes sense intellectually; the reality is it’s hard to let go of the dream to give your friends the ideal cruising experience during their visit. It’s easier to stay put, if the weather is horrible or downright dangerous. But, when it’s on the bubble, what do you do?
With Bobby, we went for our original cruising plan, which was to give him the highlight tour of the Exumas, sharing all of our favorite new discoveries with him. Of course, we made these discoveries over a six week period, which might have been important to remember. Also, we made the mistake of having him fly into one city and out of a different city, which
We needed to have a fire to warm up Bobby's vacation.
just encourages you to cruise. Without taking you through all the details, the cruising conditions were poor. The weather did something she had not done the entire winter, which was to blow out of the West/ Northwest for almost a week. The prevailing winds in the Bahamas are out of the East, making cruising on the Bahama bank nice even in windy weather, but out of the West makes it lumpy (3ft to 5ft seas with 3 second interval) and unprotected in most anchorages. Although Bobby was a good sport, and we had lots to laugh about afterwards, it was not the warm laid-back Bahamian vacation we had in mind for him.
We did better with McKenna’s visit. We had her fly in and out of the same city; and when the wind direction did not cooperate with our plans to cruise in the Hawk Channel through the Florida Keys, we took the inside route for a few days, and
Ayla and McKenna playing in dingy.
only went as far as Key Largo. Truth be told, she and Ayla didn’t care where we went as long as they were together. They had plenty of time to talk, swim, play games, and give Mckenna the feel for what it was like to live on a boat.
It’s important to remember, that most guests are coming to see you. Any cruising or sight-seeing is a bonus. I’m reminded of the phrase m/v Easy Duet shared with us: “Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.” Sometimes, I feel like a kid having to learn the lessons for myself versus learning from the experience of others. Oh well, here’s to being a life long learner. 🙂