Friday, May 6, 2011

Turning around

We headed out into the big blue... and the kids got sick.  It was windy, and waves were choppy.  David thought we'd head down the coast line to Palm Beach and if we did it in the ocean instead of inner coastal, than we could set the auto pilot and not have to "drive" the boat.  Well, it was not fun.  After 20 mins, the kids were all sick and getting sicker.  David had left me up top to drive with the kids, while he checked on some of the repairs.  The boat was set to auto pilot but the kids were not.  Calvin threw up, then Benjamin.  Finally David came back up and said the repairs on the rudder shaft were not working right.  I didn't care too much about that as I was keeping watch in the rolling water and dealing with sick kids.  Rob got sick.  Finally David said I think we should turn around!  Yea!  We turned and headed back in, but it was at least 30 minutes in the rolling waves to get back to the inlet.  I brought Benjamin and Isabel inside and laid them on the couch--lucking they both went to sleep. But then Matthew threw up all over me.  I was starting to feel sick when david came through to check the rudder shaft again and said, 10 minutes to the inlet.  So i held it together, knowing calm waters were ahead. 

When we got back to the inlet, we called the boat yard again, david had called them earlier, and they met us with a mechanic to come aboard to look at the rudder shaft.  They decided it needed a little more work so back into the boat yard we went for one more night. 

In the morning we headed out again, this time with 3 mechanics on board to fix the rudder shaft and test.  After an hour they had everything good to go, so we dropped them off and continued on our way--this time we stayed on the inner coastal waterway, with calm seas.  No one was sick!  The kids had a great time watching 3 dolphins swim and play along side our boat.  They also had fun watching drawbridges open for us to slip under and waving at boats passing by.   It was a pleasant day.  We anchored at Lake Worth, just outside of Palm Beach.

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