With SV Sierra Wind safely on the hard in Puerto Escondido, we departed for Florida. After flying from Loreto to Phoenix, a long layover, then a redeye flight from Phoenix to Miami, we finally touched down in the Sunshine State. We arrived at 6 am and had to lug our heavy bags a substantial distance to get to the Tri-Rail, southern Florida’s train system. As you can imagine, living on a boat means any space is valuable and there is no room for hard luggage. For this reason, Eitan and I only had duffel bags instead of suite cases to carry our stuff, since they can fold to a very small size when empty. Unfortunately, this does not make for easy walking and we were both too cheap to shell out the $7 for an airport luggage cart. We traveled about two hours on the Tri-Rail to its northern terminus near West Palm Beach and were picked up by the owners of the yacht.
Motor Yacht (MY) Puffin Quest is a 68-foot Nordhavn and is a trawler-style boat that is designed to explore the world’s most remote destinations and handle a variety of sea conditions. The owners purchased the boat in Europe, sight unseen, at the end of 2020 (they couldn’t travel internationally to see the boat in person because of COVID), and had been busy refitting and customizing the boat since it arrived in Florida. As the refit was coming to an end, they hired Eitan and I to help them get off the dock and transition into full-time life onboard as owner/operators.
After several hours of travel, the red-eye flight, lugging bags to public transit, and the Florida heat, it’s safe to say I was in dire need of a shower and nap. Upon arriving at the boat, we found out there was some work being done on the manual gray water pump, which was unfortunately located in our cabin. Although the marina had showers, Eitan insisted we get straight to work and we began our orientation walk-through of the boat.
From the boat’s Instagram site (@puffinquest), I was pretty familiar with the interior of the boat but was most surprised and blinded by the bright white and florescent glow of the engine room. On SV Sierra Wind, working on the engine, even to just check the oil, normally means crouching in a cramped, dark space in either the kitchen or bathroom and feeling your way around. In contrast, the engine room on this boat was bright and spacious with plenty of room to work around the engine. In general, it was a strange feeling to be on a boat with so much space. We could finally shower standing up and I had plenty of options on where to roll out my yoga mat for a morning stretch.
Our first day was mostly spent getting to know the boat and enjoying the fresh cookies, which the wife was famous for baking on a regular basis. Although we had planned to be on the dock in Jupiter for the first few weeks, we were surprised to find out that there were new fiberglass hard tops scheduled to be installed on the fly bridge and aft deck the next day in Stuart. To get to Stuart we needed to leave the marina in Jupiter at high tide due to the large draft (depth below the water line) of the boat and the shallow marina bottom. To leave at high tide meant that we had to be on deck at 5:30 am and off the dock by 6 am or we could potentially be stranded on a shallow sand bar.
Because the boat is so big, and Eitan is at the helm up in the pilot house, we all have to wear headsets, similar to a fast-food drive through employee, to communicate with each other. It was amazing for me to watch Eitan slowly maneuver the boat off the dock with the bow and stern thrusters and see how much easier it is to drive this large boat compared to SV Sierra Wind. The dock lines and fenders are also twice the size of what I am used to and it took some time to gather them up from various points around the boat’s perimeter.
Once underway, it was a smooth trip up the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW). The ICW is a 3,000 miles inland waterway along the Atlantic coast, running from Boston at the north to the southern tip of Florida. As we casually motored north through the ICW, I was amazed at the giant mansions and extravagant properties of Florida’s elite that border the waterway. By late morning, we anchored the boat in a cove off the main channel and used the hydraulic davit to lower the tender from the foredeck to the water. Eitan and I needed to head off the boat to get our COVID vaccinations, so we hopped in the tender (apply named “Puffling”) and headed to shore. A few hours later we were back at the boat and continuing onto Stuart.
Once we arrived at the boatyard in Stuart, Eitan skillfully maneuvered us into the slip, and I learned one of the differences between docking a large boat versus a small boat. On SV Sierra wind, we have lines (ropes) at each of the four corners of the boat and the slack of the line gets taken up on the dock cleats. On a big boat, the loop of the line gets thrown to shore through a hawsehole and the lines are cleated off on the boat. Also, since no person is physically strong enough to maneuver the boat by pushing off the dock, Eitan must do any shifting of the boat from the controls at the helm. Needless to say, everything is similar, but different, on a boat much bigger than the one I had spent the last 6 months on!
To see more pictures of M/Y Puffin Quest, you can check our their Instagram @puffinquest. To respect the privacy of the owners, I will not be including any details or pictures of the owners or the boat’s interior.
How adventurous!