After moving the boat, thanking our Captains and saying goodbye to our former marina, it was back to our townhouse to grab our final remaining items and hand over the keys!
Just a few overnight bags, a bunch of hanging clothes, and the kitty cats were left to move aboard. It was time for the true test, how would they react?
Arriving at the marina it was already dark and quiet. Our dock carts clanged loudly with every dock plank the wheels rolled over, as we carted our crap to the boat. We threw the bags on the ground and clothes on the table before bringing the cat carriers on board.
The boat looked like chaos, which had me worried about the cats first impression. I was just hoping Ryback wouldn’t bolt through the screen door, and that Turbo wouldn’t freak out and start panting like he does when he’s overwhelmed.
Walking the dock with cat carriers in hand, we made it to the boat successfully with only a few meows along the way. Opening the cage, both cats eventually poked their heads out and set paw in their new home.
With big eyes and tail between his legs, Ryback low-crawled his way around the cabin, and Turbo trailed behind, unsure he wanted to leave the cage. Both cats slept in the bed with us that night, as it was the first night staying onboard for all of us!
I woke up a few times and peeked out the window to make sure we were still at the dock. I was legitimately worried we had drifted away from the marina and were somewhere in the Gulf, or halfway to Cuba!
I laugh now thinking about it, but this actually occurred for a couple of weeks until I gradually gained trust in our dock lines, and didn’t worry about floating away. 😄
It didn’t help that within the first week of us moving on board we had a hurricane hit the east coast of Florida and bring some nasty rain and winds our way. Talk about a warm welcome to boat life!
Some of the boats at the marina moved to a “safer location” either inside the barn or up the river where we had literally just moved the boat from a few days ago.
Since neither of these were an option for us, we just tightened the lines and “batten down the hatches” as they say. We uncorked a bottle of wine that Bobby and Christina had given us as a “house warming gift,” and made the best of our first hurricane on aboard.
The canvas flapped a bit and we learned that bungee cords are helpful at keeping the canvas in place… sort of. We also discovered which windows leaked, when a droplet of rain landed on my face while lying in bed. 😒
The next day we did a few “patch jobs,” to stop the leaking the best that we could… and this started our theme of patching up all of the imperfections we would continue to find throughout the weeks to come.
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