Dec 25th-27th

We completed our longest passage to date! A full 48 hours from Ft. Pierce, FL all the way to Key West, FL. Thankfully, we had a fairly uneventful sail, but our first night shift had some tense moments with the Coast Guard and Cruise Ships. So grateful the weather held and we made it safely to our first anchorage in the Keys – with the props in tact!

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Excerpt from the email we sent to our family and friends on Dec 28th, 2025 …

“Ahoy Nobad Fam!

…And yes, Santa made it to our boat! We used pillowcases for stockings but we had milk, cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeer. We challenged the kids to make gifts for each other this year and this was probably the most special part of Christmas. The kids spent all Christmas eve making their gifts for each other. Watching them proudly give their gifts and their graciousness in receiving them was more than I could have anticipated. We freaking love these kids. 

At around 1pm on Christmas Day – WE SET SAIL to Key West. This would be a 48-ish hour passage. The longest for both boats – our buddy boat is also relatively new to this whole sailing thing as well. That means 2 days and 2 nights on the boat, nonstop. And we did it!! The night shifts were as hard and anxiety filled as I had anticipated. hahaha. Starting at 6pm, we took 3 hour shifts. Josh and our buddy boat Amber were on the same shift, so Jeremy and I were on shift together through the nights. When we weren’t on shift, we were sleeping right by the helm in the cockpit on the benches just in case we needed to jump in to help somewhere. The kiddos  handled the passage incredibly well, as did Kramer. And we took a huge sigh of relief when Kramer finally went to the bathroom – which we have designated spots for him to do this on deck. 

The seas and winds were totally fine until we made it around the bottom of Florida and started heading West. The wind no longer at our backs but perpendicular to us had choppy waters rocking the boats pretty good and some serious hull slaps (when waves between the two hulls under the boat slam against a hull – it’s very loud). We started to zigzag our navigation to soften the waves against the boat. 

Two interesting things that happened during my nights shifts —

1. Shortly after we passed by Mar A Lago, US Coast Guard (USCG) started a routine announcement stating that waters off the coast of Mar A Lago were closed to transient vessels. Wanting to avoid any issues, Jeremy radioed into USCG to let them know we had already passed and were continuing south. They gave us the green light to keep going and wished us a Merry Christmas. We would continue to hear that announcement over the radio every hour or so all night. 

2. During our approach to the waters and channel entrance to Ft. Lauderdale, we started to see cruise ships lining up out in the open ocean heading toward the channel to dock. As we got closer, I became very concerned about our paths crossing perpendicular to these massive boats. Two of the ships had already entered the channel and it was looking like the 3rd one may be on collision course with us. I radioed Jeremy a couple times and he continued to calm my nerves and said we were good so far. As we were close to the mouth of the channel, the captain of that 3rd cruise ship came over our radio waves asking to speak with the captain. So Jeremy hopped on the radio with him. He could see both our vessels and said he would slow his ginormous ship down so we could pass in front of him and to “maintain current cruising speed”. So that’s what we did. Little did we know that 4am in the morning is actually a really busy time for the Ft. Lauderdale channel and with the cruise ship safely behind us, we were then dodging a slew of other boats whipping in and out of the channel. Once we finally crossed, Jeremy radioed me and said he never wanted to do that again. Amen amen. 

We arrived in Key West around 12pm and are anchored at an anchorage called Wisteria. It’s pretty crowded and we hear jet skis zipping by all day long, but I can’t complain. The water is bluer and clearer here. The temperature is perfect. We haven’t had time to do a ton of exploring yet but we plan to. So stay tuned. We did visit Wisteria Island today and were disappointed by how rocky the beach was. We planned to snorkel a sunken ship but the churn from boats and high tide made the waters not clear near the underwater vessel. But if felt good to swim and snorkel (and be off the boat finally). We are in the keys for all of January, so we will be popping around to different anchorages, exploring and snorkeling. We are even heading to Dry Tortugas National park sometime in the next two weeks. We are stoked for that! 

But WE DID IT! WE sailed our boat down the the FL Keys!! We have sailed our boat almost 300 nautical miles. …

Love you all! 

Ride the t, 

Capt. Josh, 1st mate Sam, and our salty crew”