I’m laying here, on the trampoline at the front of the catamaran, and my only thought is, “it just doesn’t get any better than this.”

Today started out fairly early. I made some coffee and hung out outside to watch the sunrise. Right as it was getting really pretty, Pierre called us in and it was 103 test time. Gulp. I got a 93% this time, which was fine, considering. 

We went back into town and had breakfast in Coconut Grove on one of the guys — he said it was his turn and he’d made breakfast.

We went back to the boat, filled the second water tank, and cast off. Pierre basically had told us we were on our own today, and he went inside to do some paperwork. We set a course towards Boca Chita again, and put up the main. 

Eventually, I took over the helm, and we were trying to decide when we should tack… I had a gut feeling we should have tacked sooner, but I was consulting the others and overshot the channel by a mile… Which meant like ten tacks in an hour and a half. Eventually we got there and I managed both to not run us aground or hit anything getting into the dock. I was pretty proud of that, but it was stressful as hell. 

We hit the bathroom, made some sandwiches, the boys jumped in and I stuck my feet in the water, and then we cast off again. We set a course for our last night out (sad face!), and that brings us to my first statement of the day. 

We pulled into our anchorage for the night about 6:00 pm. Wow, that was a long day of sailing. And probably one of the best days of my life. We (okay, one of the guys) made dinner – tortellini with shrimp in garlic and butter… That’s all I can say. Once again, I’m blown away by the quality of the food we’re eating! 

The rest of the evening was spent chatting, drinking a couple beers, and watching the sun set behind the Miami skyline until it lit up…. What. A. LIFE. 

“Oh, it’s going to be windy today. We’re going to sail on the ocean.” Immediately followed by, “today is a life jacket day.” These were the words out of Pierre’s mouth as we headed out of the bay this morning. 

We’d had breakfast, taken the 104 test (I got a 94% with some help from the others – at this point, we’ve given up on not), and headed into Biscayne Bay to head back to Ft. Lauderdale.  

As soon as we got out of the channel and turned left into the ocean, it was on. Holy shit. I was alternately terrified, nauseous, sleepy, and hungry. At least for the first two hours… Eventually I settled down for a bit. 

The first time I tried to drive, I panicked and freaked out, and pretty much screwed it up. The angle at which you had to hold the boat to keep it from accidentally jibing but also from getting broadsided by waves was tiny. And every wave pushed the boat into one or the other. SO hard. 

I gave up pretty quickly the first try, and essentially put myself in time out to have a serious talk. I managed to convince myself that I HAD to do this, and to calm the fuck down… Lo and behold, it worked. I managed to drive the boat through that shit for a solid fifteen or twenty minutes and didn’t screw it up once. Whew. 

I drove the whole way back in after getting gas, which was cool, and didn’t snake the front end around too much. Once back in Ft. Lauderdale at the marina, we all showered, had dinner (thanks to one of the guys again), and a beer, studied our books for one last test tomorrow, and (sadly) headed to bed for our final night on board.

We woke up before the sun, as has become our usual, made the coffee, and sat out on the back of the catamaran for one last time while the sun came up. After everyone had woken up, we took our last test – the 114 catamaran-specific test. It was a group effort, so we all got 100%. 

We went about the business of packing up our stuff, stripping the bed, pulling out all the food, hosing off the boat, and all the things to give it back, and it was time to leave. SO SAD. 

We took an Uber to the airport, where we were picking up our rental car. It was about 10:45, and we had said 2:00 pm, but there was a huge line and we figured whatever…  Yeah. Over an hour had passed by the time we got to the counter, and when we checked in the guys was like, “but you guys are way early.” He said there was nothing available for us, except a Mustang and a Mercedes. We asked which was cheaper, and he quoted us a price for the Benz. We said no, we’ll wait… Long story short, he came down three more times until the total cost was only double what the shitty entry level car would have been, and we saved ourselves three hours. 

When we got in the car, we couldn’t figure out how to get it out of park, or how to pull off the emergency brake – it’s the fanciest car either one of us has ever been in. It’s got cool dashboard lights, though, so there’s that. 

As we were standing in line waiting for the car, I’d realized that I had NO IDEA the last time I’d seen my GoPro. Eek. I searched my bag and was sure that the last time I’d seen it was on the bed with my wallet and my phone, both of which I had in my possession, so I had no idea where it could have gone. I immediately called Blue Water, and they said they’d go look for it for me and to head on back if we were still around. We were almost back there when they called and said they’d found it. WHEW. Crisis averted. Turns out I’d managed to roll it into the sheets and towels when I was stripping the bed. Oy. That was a stressful few hours, but no harm done. I had my GoPro back, AND we got a cool car to drive around that we never would have otherwise gotten.

We got to my parent’s house, grabbed some food, did a load of laundry, chilled for a while, and were off again. We were meeting my cousins down in Delray for dinner. We got down there sorta early, and managed to find a free spot to park. We wandered for a bit (I really do like Delray) and found a bar to have a drink before we met them. 

We sat down to dinner at (ironically) the Park Tavern at like 8:00 pm and had a wonderful time telling stories and hanging out in general. Of course, we didn’t get home til after 11:00, which is crazy late for me, but whatever. SO good to see them. 

Matt had to work today, and boy did 7:00 am come early. We were exhausted from staying out late last night.  We had some breakfast, and headed over to my aunt’s house for the Ohio State game.

There was food, there was football, there was family and hanging out… And we were all mostly asleep by mid afternoon. Matt said let’s go home, and we did. I fell asleep for like an hour. Then, we got up, had some dinner, went for a walk, and laid back down. Boring day. 

Matt worked again today… I worked briefly on video stuff, and lost all patience for it. Turned into a super boring day…

By the time Matt was off, we had some dinner here and then went out in downtown West Palm. After drooling over stupid expensive boats at the marina, we checked out the former City Place, rebranded Rosemary Square, and had a fairly shitty margarita at the Mexican restaurant…. Then went back to our old standby on Clematis, ER Bradley’s. 

Then home and bed. 

Second to last beach day today. So sad.

We had breakfast and got our stuff together and headed to Singer Island via Dicks, where we returned the rain pants we didn’t use on the boat. We stopped by Publix,  bought some lunch, and hit the beach by 11:00. 

What a beautiful day! Calm, blue seas, light winds, it was lovely. I even went in the water, it was so nice. We had lunch, chilled out…

By about 3:00, we were ready to move on, so we hit Guanabana’s one more time. Ahhh, hurricanes. Yum. 

Then home, croquetas for dinner, a walk after, and bed. 

A nice chill morning today, Mom made pancakes for breakfast – YUM. Tia Helen pancakes FTW!

We moseyed back to Singer one last time, spent a few hours soaking up the last of the salt air and the sun. 

We went back home early afternoon, showered, and chilled til dinner. 

Dinner was salad, steak, carrots, and potatoes. Damn, we were FULL. 

My aut stopped by for a bit while we were eating to say goodbye, then we went over to Stormhouse, where Evelio Enrique met us for a couple beers. Good times. 

Sadly, tomorrow we go home.

Home again. 

A fairly routine travel day – get up early, chug some coffee, hug parents goodbye, drive to airport, return rental car, board aircraft, take off, land in Denver four-ish hours later…  The only thing of note was that the pilot asked the flight attendants to sit in their jump seats for turbulence TWICE – and it was (thankfully) never that bad. 

We picked up our gate-checked bags, ordered an Uber to Renee and Kris’s house, hung out a while with them, and came home with our car and our cat. 

The end. Sniff sniff. 

Here’s the video: