Our first few hours on the mooring ball were magical. We marveled at the water surrounding us, and how free we felt. We went from zero to pirate in just a few nautical miles from the marina to the mooring field.
Reality Hits
But it didn’t take long for the mooring field butterflies to die. In fact, we only lasted three days out there before we had to move off the boat, cats included. Why? Battery issues. When you’re not connected to shore power, everything runs on your batteries, and ours weren’t handling the load. Even the small load we were putting on them.
So, Will loaded up the cats for their first dinghy ride to shore. They were rather vocal about the whole affair, but I think they secretly liked it. That is until they made it to land and Ryback’s carrying case broke open as he took off running into nearby bushes. Don’t worry, Will’s initial reaction was to pull out his phone, grab a can of wet food, and record a video of what could have been Ryback’s Great Escape. You can see it all unfold in the video at the end of this blog.
Where Did We Go?
Meanwhile, I carted all of our cold and frozen food from the boat, into the dinghy, to work, then to Bobby and Christina’s house where we stayed while we got the batteries situated. Who knew it takes 5 days for batteries to be tested! So five days and four new batteries later, we were eager to move back on the boat for “take two” of mooring life. Perhaps we were too eager, as we we woke in the middle of the night to an angry inverter beeping the words “low voltage.” Great.
So, back off we moved with cats, clothes, food, and attitudes in hand. This time I refused to move back on the boat until we knew for sure the batteries could sustain mooring life. Will explains the whole battery issue the video, but basically power was draining from our engine batteries, not our new house batteries, because they were all wired in succession. So Will-Stokes-the-science-guy figured out that we needed to isolate the batteries with their own battery switches to solve the issue. And it worked! He so smmart.
Man, It’s Hot
We moved back onboard and onto the next issue… air conditioning. We knew it would be a true test, surviving the mooring field in the heat of Florida Summer. As the days got hotter, so did the temperature inside the boat. So we purchased a portable AC and small portable generator that was able to operate on its own, without using any of our boat’s (precious) battery power.
Mooring Fail
There we were, loading up the 71 lbs. AC unit and 50 lbs. generator into our 12ft dinghy at 10pm on a Saturday night. We were rather successful at not dropping anything into the water, everything except Will’s keys that is. Which keys? All the keys. Car keys, work keys, house keys, dinghy lock keys (luckily the dinghy was already unlocked). Don’t worry the next day and $100 later we had a diver come fish them out in 12 seconds flat. Right where we left them on the bottom of the bay.
Isn’t This Fun?
That’s just a little taste. Our first few days living on the ball were some of the most challenging days we’ve experienced in a while. I felt like RumHaven was fighting us. Things kept breaking. The expenses continually added up. Sleep was interrupted. Patience was thin. Cats were hot. The dinghies failed us. The rain soaked us. And the list went on.
“We suck at mooring life…”
Will finally said it out loud. We both laughed and shook our heads. There are some things you just don’t know and can’t prepare for until you get out there an try it. We knew we’d get it right eventually. But the learning curve was steep – for sure.
Still, the evening sunsets were AMAZING. Some of the best we’ve experienced to date.
The cats loved being able to go in and out as they pleased, and we took time every evening to soak up the views. While we may have felt like we were on an episode of Survivor at times, the challenge and thrill that came with every day life in the mooring field was kind of fun.
… At last, the video of it all.
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