January 11-24, 2026 | Florida Keys

This week’s episode covers 2 weeks! So we have two emails to home down below and some crazy times covered in this episode.

We test out our anchor set up in 30 knot gusts.

The highlight was attending the Bluewater Cruising Summit. The first of its kind. We met so many people and made so many friends.

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Excerpt from email sent home to family & friends v. 01.11.2026

Hiya Nobad Fambam! 

I forgot to mention in last week’s email that we had a very special Sunday as a family. We tuned in to home church zoom as Boca Grande Key did not have a church on it (being uninhabited and all) and it was fast Sunday. It was one of the best fast and testimony meetings Josh and I have listened to. People said things that both of us clearly needed to hear. Our homebase ward is so good. Then Raegan asked if we could have our own testimony meeting on the boat, which was a brilliant idea. So after the meeting was over and we closed the zoom, we did our own intimate fast and testimony meeting on the boat. Everyone bore their testimonies. It was beautiful and a memory we will always treasure. 

We spent one last glorious day at Boca Grande Key, hit up the beach again. There was a family visiting the beach too, so the kids finally had some new friends for a couple hours. 

We woke up Monday morning and prepped the boat to set sail motor back to Key West. Our original plan was to spend one night in Key West, one night in Big Pine Key area, and then one night anchored outside Boot Key and then go into our slip that is in Boot Key Harbor. However, as they say, sailing plans are written in sand at low tide. 

As we were prepping the boat to leave, our buddy boat was sailing past Boca Grande (having come back from their adventures out further west). We said hello over the radio. They were headed to Big Pine Key for the night and then would return to Key West…basically doing the ole switcheroo with us. Well, we set sail for Key West, dodging the stupid number of crab traps along the way. It was a wonderful sunny day and smooth sail. We made it into the main Key West channel and radioed into one of the fuel docks to check openings. You gotta radio in first or you may show up and there isn’t room for you. They confirmed they were open so we continued onward thru the channel. Just outside the main channel entrance into Key West one of our props started acting up. Josh lightning fast threw the boat into neutral and before we could even dread the thought of losing a prop again, we look back and see a crab trap tangled up in our prop and rutter. We went from anger at there being a crab pot in the channel to panic mode as we were sitting ducks in a busy channel. Josh jumped into action throwing off his shirt and grabbing his fancy knife (thanks Dad!) and dived into the water to cut it off. I immediately called our buddy boat and told him what was going on and asked if I needed to alert anyone since we were in the channel. He reassured me Josh should be able to cut if off quick and no need to alert anyone. He was right, Josh was back out of the water, our boat free of the rope and buoys, within 30 seconds and we were good to go. Getting tangled in a trap is sort of a rite of passage, so we can check that off our “sailor rite of passage list”. While I was on the phone with our buddy boat, they informed us they had a change of plans and would be joining us in Key West for the night. Woo! 

And I’ll have y’all know, Josh and I made it to the fuel dock without a hitch! We got a bunch of trash off our boat as well as re-fuel and filled up our water tanks. We were stoked! We hadn’t done the fuel dock by ourselves before. So another rite of passage, complete. 

We ended up anchoring with our buddy boat in almost the exact place we did before. Just North of Wisteria Island and West of Man of War Harbor. Our buddy boat had a slight hitch anchoring, as their first anchor spot had them snagging a mast from the ocean floor with their anchor. Again, never a dull moment. With the holiday over, the jetski traffic was way less and we spent a blissful evening at anchor as a family. AND….We celebrated hitting the 300 nautical miles marker! So crazy. We decided to stay another day in Key West – we had time and the weather still looked good for getting to our reserved slip in Boot Key in time. So we loaded up the fam bam and finally went into Key West to explore and stretch our legs. We walked the famous Duval Street, ate Key Lime pie, and walked the historic seaport and harbor walk. 

The next morning we prepped the boat to head out, said goodbye to our buddy boat, and took off for Big Pine Key. It was another smooth sail to the Niles Channel Anchorage. This was quite a high stress anchorage to get too, which we knew based on all the reviews, due to its super narrow channel (it’s a very shallow area). But we chose it because we anticipated it not being crowded, it’s protected and was a good midway-ish point to our final destination. After a couple close calls in uncomfortably shallows spots and again, the crab traps, we made into the anchorage and anchored with no issue. It was a gorgeous sunset night. I will give the Keys some credit – their sunsets are insane. And it was a calm evening. Josh taught the kiddos how to play old maid and BS (although they call it “bull hockey”) and they’ve been having a blast playing cards with their dad. 

In the morning, we took it slow. To avoid the stress of the day before we were waiting as long as we could to get to high tide so navigating would be a tad less stressful. Although the later we waited, the more the oncoming storm would be building. Based on our weather apps, the swell and waves were not bad and it was just wind/rain. As soon as Josh was comfortable with the tide depth, we went through our pre-launch checklist and set sail. The exit of Niles Channel went way smoother and faster than the night before, thank heavens. But as soon as we were out of the channel and out in the open ocean, we headed straight for the building squall. We went from 1-2 ft waves, choppy but not uncomfortable, to 3-4 ft waves, some 5 ft. It was windy and raining but the app was totally wrong on waves and swell. Even checking it in real time it was reporting much less than what we were experiencing. Everyone except Josh got seasick as we plowed up and down thru the waves. Although I will say, we were not the only ones out there. Josh was loving it and he blasted sea shanty music the whole way to Boot Key.  Luckily, his calm helped me, because the kids were not having any of this storm (nor was I, to be honest). We even had the coast guard circle us by helicopter as they were trying to locate a vessel that was hailing them over the radio. It was fascinating to hear them discussing over the VHF. It does sound like they did find the vessel that was in trouble thank heavens…and it was not us. After 3 hours of rough seas, they finally started to calm. Although, then the shackle of our main halyard popped off and part of it landed right by Josh and I at the helm. So I grabbed it before it bounced into the ocean, it but the pin was missing entirely. 

After some newbie difficulty getting our boat to the dock at the marina (the current was way stronger than we thought), we finally got tied off and settled for the next few days. Safe Harbor Marathon Marina is awesome. I did an insane amount of laundry and was able to organize our water/anchor lockers out on the front deck. And good news – I miraculously found the missing pin from our halyard shackle. Josh dove right into working on the projects we planned and fixed the bilge pump in Raegan’s room that stopped working a few days ago. It’s so wild to be docked at a marina, instead of at anchor, and part of the reason we chose to do this for a few days is so that Josh and I didn’t have to worry about the anchor or the weather or tide or current, etc. and we could just focus on projects we were having trouble working on at anchor. We are at the very end of the dock called the T-head, so every day we walk by very fancy boats and we wonder what all these people do for a living. They are all very kind and almost every boat has a dog, we’ve made a few friends. But once again, no kids. There’s an awesome pool here the kids are taking full advantage of. Josh has been riding his bike all over Marathon city getting parts and supplies as he plans to replace our water maker and get our battery bank fully installed. 

More good news! Today we also went to church in person! There’s a branch here in Marathon. So we snagged an uber and went to church in person for the first time since we left Port Canaveral. It was so nice. And this branch is way cool. Half of the membership are repeat visitors and even the speakers today were visitors. The newly called RS President said “I just love our little twig and that’s why we kept coming back to this ward every time we visited and ultimately chose to stay here for a while.” Everyone was so kind and we talked to many people. They host a linger longer after every Sunday so we also participated in this. We will probably bring a dish next week as well, if we are around. A member of the branch presidency gave us a ride back to our boat. He is an experienced sailor and offered to help Josh with the projects we have. He was incredibly kind and gave us lots of reassurance and advice. 

We have ended up extending our time at the marina thru most of this coming week. There are some gnarly thunderstorms anticipated for this week and we couldn’t find an anchorage that was protected enough to move the boat to. Our big ole boat is too tall to move over to the gulf side to protect us from the southern winds and we have strong winds coming from the S and SW with lightning. I went and spoke with the dockmaster today, and an answer to prayer, they had a boat reschedule so we could extend to ride out these storms. Paying for peace of mind this week in addition to boat stuff – and to give us a lil more breathing room on projects. We have a pretty solid plan to attack things this week and grateful as always to Heavenly Father for continuing to protect us on this boat. 

We love you all and are so grateful for you. Please know that. 

Ride the t, 

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

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Excerpt from email sent home to family & friends v. 01.24.2026

Well hello Nobad Fam!

We survived the two big blows that came through last week and we saw up to 30 knots of wind on anchor, and our anchor held super well. Thank you for the prayers and support. Lots of boats turned up in the anchorage to get some shelter from the storm. It was wild and I didn’t sleep much. The vibrations of the standing rigging under that much wind and all the other noises make it hard for me to relax. Josh and the kids seemed to sleep just fine and Josh had a plan in case our anchor did drag. 

On Monday we had a break in the gusts so we threw everyone in the dinghy and went to explore a beach nearby called Sombrero beach. It was awesome! Beautiful sandy beach, large area, and crystal clear water. We all loved it, and just getting off the boat. We couldn’t stay super long because the winds started to pick back up. Everyone was soaked when we got back to the boat from the dingy ride. But that’s boat life. 

We rode out another blow through the night and then headed for Safe Harbor’s t-head again Tuesday morning. There was another catamaran on the t-head as well and it happened to be another family that’s part of BWC (BWC = bluewater cruising, the sailing group we are part of). It was fun to meet them and their kids played with ours most of the afternoon. 

Wednesday evening was the first day of the Bluewater Summit event. There was a mixer where we all had the chance to meet each other in person. Part of this summit was designed like a boat show, but the boats were all members of BWC and the idea was for people to see boats actually being lived on by full time cruisers and get to talk to them. It was incredibly neat for us to finally get to meet all these people in person. Our boat was not part of the show, which was fine by us. 

We’ve made several new friends and so have our kids. Our buddy boat was one of the boats chosen to be in the show, and they had 4-5 boats rafted up side by side in 3 rows. So there were a good amount of boats of all sizes and price ranges for people to see. Each night after the event everyone in the boat show would retire onto their boats and we would join our buddy boat on theirs. Everyone would be out on their back decks visiting with each other for hours. We are pretty much all new to sailing and this life. Although everyone is shocked we do not drink (or smoke weed). We’ve all had crappy things happen on our boats. Everyone has at least two things broken on their boat…and we just felt way less alone and isolated on this journey. These are such kind, adventurous, and genuine people. 

Today was the last day of the summit and there was a regatta type excursion. We did not participate as we had to get our boat off the dock and check out. The original plan was to go to another anchorage on the east side of the island, however, our friends who were sailing down from Duck Key (where the event was) arrived first and said it was really rough water with these southern winds. At the same time we had just exited the Boot Key harbor channel and were entering into Boot Key anchorage (where we rode out the aforementioned blows).  The waves and swell were a lot more mild. So we told our friends to come over by us and we would spend one night here. Tomorrow the winds are super calm in the morning, so we will move over to that other anchorage because by tomorrow afternoon the winds shift to westerlies and another big blow is ripping through. Our current anchorage has no protection from western winds. The new place is also a lot closer to Sombrero beach, which we are stoked about. We’ve got another week or so of sucky weather and nasty winds so we won’t be going too far.  

After we set our anchor, Josh and I felt gross from the dense humidity the last couple days, so before we did home church we threw on our swimsuits and jumped into the water. It felt so good! Josh jumped off the front of the boat, so then of course all the kiddos had to try. And they did! There were waves and a current, so Josh showed the kids how to hold onto the bridle off the bow of the boat and then ride the current under the boat to the back sugar scoops to get back on. Finn and Raegan did it a few times. Then we were good and hopped on to home church and did our little Sunday school onboard. Josh also grabbed one of our hammocks and set it up off the bow of the boat underneath the trampolines. He was living his best life, swinging away right above the water, occasionally getting splashed. 

Several of the new boats we met at the show may also join us here, as they were not brave enough to hit the “good” weather window that was today to make the jump to the Bahamas. There are a few who went, but the weather window is so short most of us are more patient to wait for a better one. 

We are hoping Josh can wrap up his final project with the bad weather rolling in so we can also be ready to make the jump with all our new friends. Although, a more seasoned couple we talked with a lot this week at the summit gave us some good advice. Just finish the project here (in the US) and then go. The Bahamas is less than 2 days of sailing to any island. So we could catch up with everyone in not too long. Super helpful advice. So we shall see how the next 2 weeks play out. We also need to reprovision before we go to the Bahamas, because I now have a much better understanding of how much food we go through and we’ve been on the boat for over a month, so we’ve burned thru a good amount of food. 

The craziest thing now is, with the summit over, we have nowhere we have to be by a certain date. So we are really diving into the cruiser lifestyle that is totally ruled by weather. 

We love you and are so grateful for support, prayers, love, all of it. Stay safe all those who are getting hit by these storms. We are watching them closely and reading what type of weather they are pushing down our way. 

Ride the t, 

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