Sailing with Renegade

It took four whopping months for us to sit still long enough to put together a movie highlighting our time in the Mamanuca and Yasawa Islands of Fiji.  Click the link  https://youtu.be/faiY1GfBLro .

Well we just had our first real near miss! We came within inches (well maybe feet) of going aground on a reef. How did this happen? What did we learn? Well here is the story from he day before Easter. We had just spent a couple of nights at our favorite anchorage free diving and spearfishing. The anchorage was rolly as a western swell had been building and winds, though light, were coming out of the north. This means that the winds aligned us broadside to the waves which results in the boat rocking. The wind prediction software that we use forecast that the wind was going to pick up to 25-30 knots and change direction which would not be favorable for this anchorage. So we decided to leave, right after one more dive! We like to get our ceviche in the fridge while on passage so we have it to eat when we arrive at our destination. We got our fish, cleaned up the boat, and got underway. We had almost no wind when we started our passage, so we motored. Without wind it was absolutely swe

For a sailing family, we row...a lot! Most sailboats have a dingy that serves as their car to take them from their floating home to their destination on shore. We do not have a dingy, This is partly by circumstance and partly by choice. We knew when we bought Renegade, the dingy "was at the end of its useful life". We used it a couple of times when we first got here and then quickly decided that it was more trouble than it is worth. The inflatable dingy would not hold air and the engine was a total POS. (this could be a post on its own, so trust me when I say the dingy and outboard together were worthless). So we towed the dingy around for the first month or so, all the while talking about what to do with it. One day on our way back to the marina, we finally decided to dump it in the dumpster when we arrived. The day that we made that decision we were having a beautiful day of sailing, 15-20 knots on the beam and booking down the rhumb line back to port. Off in the distan