Watch out Tampa Bay - newbies on the water!

[pmpcc]

Hi! This is such great site. I've been an avid reader for many months now as my husband and I shopped around for our 1st sailboat. While my husband grew up on powerboats on the river, we're both new to sailing. It's been a daydream of ours for several years to liveaboard and sail between our family here in the Tampa Bay area and the Florida Keys. This summer we made the first step, sold our landlocked house and got a condo on the bay with a dock as our backyard. Baby steps!

We brought our 1978 25' Lancer home from Madeira Beach on Halloween. Just about everything that could go wrong did - shear pin on propeller broke (we hope that's all - will check out this weekend), 5 drawbridges down the ICW to navigate at only 1-2 knots at top speed, very light wind, a sandbar in the Bay, no running lights.... Thankfully we had the foresight to get the premium SeaTow membership because we never would have found our way to Big Bayou on our own the 1st time in the dark. We had a GREAT time and figured if that day didn't dampen our spirits then we're sailors for sure!

Drop a line if you're in the St. Pete area, we're going to have ALOT of questions...


Christy and Daniel Carlton

[smackdaddy]

Hey pmp - sounds like that first trip was a true adventure. Welcome to SN. You'll like it here.