It was a very muggy and humid end to 2025 in Kemah, and as we closed our boat before heading home for the holidays, we did so with fingers crossed, hoping the dehumidifier we purchased would prevent us returning to a damp, mildewy mess.

We arrived home the night before Christmas Eve. It was an unusual holiday for us. The kids were their typically busy selves and there were no festive decorations nor tree, not even a single string of lights on the house. They opted not to exchange gifts this year, I don’t know if it was a decision based on their unwillingness to part with their precious funds or their precious time in shopping. Chris and I attended a Christmas Eve service sans our otherwise occupied children, but we all met up for dinner that evening with Chris’s family. Having both our son and daughter in attendance together at the same meal seemed like a Christmas miracle! That and lunch out with my daughter made our long drive home for the holiday worth it!

attending Christmas Eve Service

We were there for Christmas, New Years and our daughter’s birthday, (even though she wasn’t, lol). I admit, when it came time to go I was a little reluctant to leave. I miss the kids of course, but I also miss other things…our pets, friends, our church. And even some less important things like our king-size bed that you can walk all the way around, a washer and dryer that is available on demand instead of by queue, a shower head that rains down on you as opposed to being held in your hand, a place for everything and everything in its logical place (I’m still wrestling with the idea of having to store canned goods under the salon floor and small appliances in cubbies behind sofa cushions)!

Still, I also missed our boat and the daily challenges of learning how to maintain her as well as sail her. We missed the bustle of the marina and conversations with our neighbors here; meeting new people every day. So, torn between being anxious about leaving and anxious to get back, we finally packed up the truck and made our way to our new home.

We were welcomed back to beautiful weather, and (much to our relief) a dry, mildew free boat! And lots of projects. Bonus-win… the dinghy we had patched up before we left was still holding air!

We wasted no time. We arrived Sunday night and replaced the non-working TV. On Monday Chris had the Bilge-B-Dry system installed. He thought it would take a few hours, it took all day, because like most projects we had to go searching for necessary items that were not included in the box and were as hard to hunt down as a flock of snipe. But the system is in and works beautifully.

a view of our salon

On Tuesday Chris was able to get our electronics up and running and on Wednesday he tackled the dingy motor. We were told by several people that these never work after sitting so be prepared to replace it, along with the leaky dingy. It took most of the day, but Chris had it running by late that afternoon.

This is us leaving the marina…

We ran out of gas, and three young men took pity on us as we attempted to row back to our slip and offered us a much-appreciated tow.

…and this is us returning!

I thought a clean, dry bilge would be the perfect Christmas gift. But the best gift I received was a framed sailboat of driftwood and stone made for me by a precious friend. So cute, and the perfect addition to our salon.

To celebrate our continued good fortune we decided to take it out for a spin.

Since there was a nasty cold front coming in on Friday, we planned on going out for a sailing lesson on Thursday when the weather was forecasted to be perfect. It wasn’t, of course, so we decided to catch up on laundry instead. Our marina has free machines for our use (if you can find one that isn’t in use), and it has a small take-a-book/leave-a-book library, so we sat under the pavilion by the pool, while the rain came down, relaxing and reading while our clothes spun in the machines.

Chris picked up a Clive Cussler novel called “Iceberg”, about a “crew of corpses manning a bizarre ocean vessel frozen inside a million-ton mass of ice”. I picked up “A tale of Two Idiots – 100+ Lessons and Laughs from a Non-sailor Who Quit the Rat Race, Took the Helm, and Sailed to a New Life in the Caribbean" by Renee D. Petrillo. I don’t know what Chirs thinks of his book but I’m finding this one quite funny and somewhat relatable. The author recounts how they met most of their friends during the numerous times they were towed back to their boat in their dinghy.

It was a nice and breezy evening, so I decided to cook a proper meal for dinner: Italian Chicken with Broccoli. If you’ve ever cooked broccoli, you know why it’s important to have a breeze while preparing it on board a small boat. PU!

I am beginning to get the hang of cooking in a small galley. Although it did take several failed attempts to light the stove before I realized I had not turned on the LPG solenoid on the breaker panel in the salon. But once that was remedied the rest of the meal came together smoothly, for the first time. Seems I’m finally learning the importance of gathering everything together that I need, or think I might need, before I start. Every utensil, pot, pan, seasoning and ingredient, because if I put up the counter extension as my work station and then need something out of the pantry I must clean everything off the extension, unlatch and stow it just to reach the pantry, then put everything back again. Or if I have ingredients spread out on the countertop which is also the lid to the fridge compartment only to realize I forgot to take out the jar of sundried tomatoes…well, you can imagine what a headache that is. This time, however, everything went as smooth as a fresh jar of Skippy. I even remembered to open the hatch above the stove so as not to set off the smoke detector in the cabin. I know it is a small accomplishment, but you’ve got to take the wins wherever you can get them.

Our limited galley workspace and our even more limited fridge space. The freezer is large enough for one ice tray and half a bag of frozen peas. Despite that (in spite of that?), it is a very, well laid out and usable kitchen!

I felt like we had been having a streak of wins since our return. Still, I was disappointed we didn’t get to sail Thursday, since Friday was supposed to be rainy, windy and cold. Of course, it wasn’t. We awoke to find that the temperature and wind was mild, and the rain would not arrive until the middle of the night, so before we could talk ourselves out of it, we started getting the boat ready to sail. This means stowing our things, closing seacocks and hatches, shutting down electronics and turning on all our nav equipment then disconnecting from shore power. We got out our safety equipment, did a radio check (answered by Dustin who had taken us out for our first sailing lesson a few weeks earlier), warmed up the engine, readied our dock lines and mainsail. A prayer was said for wisdom and safety, and then we were off!

Once out of the channel and into the deep waters of the bay we headed into the wind and raised the sails. We passed the sailboat that had overtaken and passed us in the channel moments before, grounded in water too shallow. We saw the tow boat heading for them, but they were able to back up and free themselves pretty quickly. We had to laugh, not at them but because they were in a similar size Catalina as us and we could imagine our friend Dustin who worked for the tow boat company, receiving their distress call for help shortly after our radio check, and thinking it was probably us. We were relieved it wasn’t. It easily could have been if Dustin had not taken the time to point out the spoils during our previous lesson and had made sure we knew which marker to look for before turning out of the channel.

There were only a few boats on the water which made it a perfect time to practice tacking, which is turning the bow of the boat across the wind while moving the sail from one side of the boat to the other. It's not a hard maneuver, especially in perfect conditions like we had, but it still took me a few times to feel comfortable doing it.

Part of learning to sail together is learning how to work as a team and how to communicate. Chris likes to learn by doing. He doesn’t like questions or suggestions while he is trying to figure things out. I like lots of wordy explanations. If you are going to tell me what to do, I would also like to know the how and why. And I want to know this before any action is required of me, if possible, not in the thick of things. Even more importantly, I want to be heard and my input acknowledged. We are getting better at this too.

We had a couple minor hiccups and got caught in a light rain that lasted just long enough to get us thoroughly drenched. But all in all, it was a perfect day. The more time we spend on the boat and on the water, the more we feel a sense of accomplishment and the more this really does feel like home. Not just a home, but our home sweet home.

stick-in-the-mud

:one who is slow, old-fashioned, or unprogressive