Sept. 7 – The Pearl is Waiting

Indiantown Marina

As blog followers know, The Pearl is on the hard in Indiantown and she’s patiently waiting our return. We left her in April and don’t plan to cruise on her again until the end of the year. Leaving her alone for so long has been hard, it’s the longest we’ve left her unattended since we bought her 5 1/2 years ago. A fellow cruiser and blogger (The Cynical Sailor & His Salty Sidekick) is spending the hurricane season on their boat in Indiantown, so she went to check on her the other day and sent us a few pictures. Besides looking a little lonely, I think she is weathering our absence pretty well. The tarp we used to cover the flybridge has come apart and the grass is taller, but otherwise she looks like she is doing well (see update). It’s hard to tell from the picture how the bright work is fairing and I’m sure she is in need of a good bath...nothing we won’t be able to take care of when we return.

In October we are taking a road trip to the west coast for a few weeks and then we plan to go back to Indiantown in November. We’ll spend a couple of weeks painting the bottom, waxing the haul and doing a few other maintenance jobs. She’ll spend December in the water and we will return after Christmas for another winter trip to the Keys and the Bahamas. But for now we are truly enjoying our family and getting in all the time we can with our grandwonders.

Update: After I wrote this blog entry I started looking closer and comparing the photos of The Pearl that we took last spring to the ones we received this week, I noticed something very different in the pictures...can you see it? Our Rocna anchor is missing! Someone has taken our wonderful anchor...unbelievable! I guess we've learned a good lesson...don't leave anything on the outside of your boat that you wouldn't mind losing. We knew the marina wouldn't take responsibility, but I would have thought they'd at least say they were sorry. No apology was made and we had to fax them a signed permission slip to even have them go check if the boat had been broken into. It definitely changes our comfort level on the security of our boat at Indiantown Marina.

Here's a picture of The Pearl when we left in April

And here's the pictures we received this past week. Can you see what is missing?

Before the anchor was taken...

After the anchor was taken.