We woke early enough for this passage, but the weather had other plans. Conditions were stormier than predicted, and the swells were two to three times what the forecast suggested. We were in the middle of the Bahamas with no land in sight, crossing deep water that commands respect.
Then we approached Hole-in-the-Wall, where the Atlantic meets the southern end of the Abacos, and let’s just say: that stretch is legit. Even in fair weather, the ocean there is ancient and powerful. At thousands of feet deep, the depth finder doesn’t even register. My mind went to all the places sailors’ minds go when you’re in big water: what if something breaks? What if we misread this? What if we should’ve waited?
Conditions weren’t gnarly, just uncomfortable. And for the first time, I cried during a passage. I was tired, unsure, worried. The kids were being their usual low-key, low-energy as they do on a passage. Barrett was holding it together and helping carry the team while also feeling tired, unsure, and ready to get where we were going.
It was July 4th. We were leaving the Berry Islands and heading toward the Abacos. There were hardly any other cruisers around – just a couple tankers and some cruise ships. One tanker actually radioed us and altered their course because of the stormy weather and our speed/direction. I don’t want to know what that maneuver cost them (or do I?), but I’ll forever be grateful. That was our first real weather-passage experience: 16–18 knots of sustained wind, rain, then sudden calm, and then building swell again.
Somewhere in that crossing, I realized a truth we’d been circling for months but had yet to really connect with: we don’t control the schedule. We can plan, but the wind, the weather, and Agora decide the real timeline. Yes, we’re steering this boat, but we’re also surrendering to the pace of the sea. A new definition of “cruising life” settled in on that passage.
Eventually we reached an entrance to The Abacos near Little Harbour, but the swell made it uncomfortable, so we pushed farther north toward Lynyard Cay to meet up with a family boat we’d been in touch with through our cruising-with-kids community. We anchored in a peaceful spot, made dinner, dinghied to the beach for fireworks, and ended the Fourth of July around a fire pit with new friends. Major relaxation after a grueling day.
The next day we decompressed, acclimated back to life on the hook instead of on the move, and explored a new string of islands. We attempted a blue hole (twice) and failed (twice) thanks to the tide changes. But we played in the water, snorkeled in swelly conditions, and connected with some boats who would weave in and out of our Bahamian adventures, eventually meeting again in Great Guana.
Hard, beautiful, humbling. Those two crossings were ones to remember.
We left Key West on Father’s Day – the kind of morning that felt like a channel marker. A quiet “here we go” moment after months of planning, packing, unrooting, and re-rooting ourselves into boat life. Agora pointed east, the twins munching snacks in the cockpit, and the Straits of Florida stretching out like a long blue road. It was a rocky first part of the day with unexpected swells and both kids feeling sick before we moved further toward shore and found comfortable positioning in the Hawk Channel.
Anchored Outside Marathon: Just Us & the Stillness
Our first night after Key West was an anchorage outside Marathon. Quiet and still, it was a pocket of calm where it felt like we were the only people anywhere for miles. No dinghy rides, no shore runs, no errands – just the gentle reminder that this life can be slow when it wants to be.
I don’t think we realized how quickly that stillness would evaporate.
Rodriguez Key: New Friends, a Mackerel, & a Packed Anchorage
The next day brought Rodriguez Key – and our first “race,” if you can call it that, with another sailing family aboard Paradise II. Thank goodness for open radio channels and a growing community of folks sailing with kids.
Somewhere in the friendly chaos, we caught a mackerel. The kind of catch that makes everyone cheer, even if it’s not going to win any size contests.
The anchorage that night was crowded by comparison at that point. Boats sprinkled about like everyone had gotten the same memo and decided Rodriguez Key was the place to be. Or maybe it was just one of a few anchorages along that route.
No Name Harbor: Miami’s Chaos Meets Our Floating Home
Then came No Name Harbor, right outside Miami. Miami boat culture is… an experience. Let’s say we witnessed an educational range of powerboat behavior. Speed limits? Optional. Awareness of anchored boats? Debatable. But the water was warm, the sun was generous, and the current was strong.
We stuck around for a few days. Dinghied into the harbor. Walked the sandy path with iguanas and herons like extras in our private nature documentary. Ordered groceries via Instacart and somehow experienced 50% convenience and 50% comedy and 100% human. Ate at the little harbor restaurant and reveled in the simple magic of not doing dishes.
It felt like a tiny pause before the next push.
Fort Lauderdale: Inlets, Party Boats, & My Hardest Weekend Yet
Leaving Miami meant entering Port Everglades at Fort Lauderdale – our busiest inlet so far. Boats seemed to be everywhere. Party barges weaving between fishing vessels. Vessels that fit under the drawbridge shooting through while we held position and waited for the bridge to raise. I swear Agora held her breath with us. Shoutout to Barrett for his composure, experience, and general calm/cool/collectedness.
We tied up at Bahia Mar, a marina with its own little ecosystem: laundry, showers, a pool, walking distance to the beach, and a sense that maybe we could pause again after being fully on the move for weeks.
And then Barrett left for Dallas to attend a family funeral.
It was my (Susanna) first weekend on the boat alone with the twins in a long time. No emergencies. No disasters. Just the reality that this life – beautiful and freeing and transformative – is also demanding. And doing it solo, even briefly, can wring you out.
I was tense. Tired. Probably annoyed more often than I needed to be. (I’ve learned so much since June about pacing myself emotionally.) When Barrett came back, I think relief hit me in a way I didn’t even know I’d been holding in.
We reset. Regrouped. Did some boat prep we needed to do.
Because next up was the part we’d been dreaming about:
Our first morning in Key West started with phone calls home – catching up with family, showing off the new anchorage. During one call with my parents, we realized our mooring line was chafing badly. Oops. Quick fix: we swapped it for a bridle setup (probably what we should have done from the start).
Barrett changed the oil while I tackled other chores, and then we packed up for an adventure. Dinghying over to Key West Bight, we bought a day pass to leave our wonderful dinghy, Squeasel, at the dock and hopped on a bus to the beach.
There, we met up with friends – Megan, Jon, and their son Thomas. The plan was a beach BBQ, but another group had claimed the grill and fire Jon had started and refused to share. Classic curveball. Instead, the night morphed into sushi appetizers by the ocean, followed by dinner at their house. The kids got to play, the adults caught up, and laughter filled the evening. Sometimes the best memories come from plans gone sideways.
Our week in Key West unfolded in a groovy rhythm – a mix of work, play, and wandering.
Highlights included:
Fresh baked donuts at the docks.
Uniquely cruiser laundry and provisioning experiences.
Shopping, splash pad adventures, and long lunches.
Spotting horseshoe crabs in the marina.
Daily dolphin sightings around the anchorage.
Sunset after sunset that left us in awe.
Making phone calls on a vintage, yet functional, pay phone (for free) at Pepe’s Cafe.
The kids chatting with folks on the wharf, spouting fish facts as tarpon and parrotfish swirled below.
Meeting local artists, enjoying delicious food around town, and exploring Mallory Square.
A slightly rolly but beautiful Father’s Day sail north to Marathon.
Like most of our favorite stops, this one felt like more than just a stopover – it felt like a little chapter of our story. A Key West address, even if only for a week.
Cruising life is testing the limits of my vanity (and teaching me new ones).
When we lived at the marina, water was easy – we could refill our empty tanks with no issue. Agora is a racer-cruiser sailboat that leans toward racer, so we don’t have many of the amenities traditional cruiser boats do, like solar panels, dinghy davits, or a watermaker.
We’re extra conscious of water usage – it means minimal soaping, saltwater rinses when possible, and short showers. Shaving is a luxury, and when it happens, it’s logistical. Still, I’ve joked for years with Barrett that I’m a lady of luxury.
Here’s the truth about life at sea: we do have hot days, salty skin, and limited water. But we don’t go to bed dirty or forsake hygiene for happiness. We live in a constant state of camp clean.
It’s kind of like glamping. It’s not “we have company coming” house clean, but it’s not fully off-the-grid middle-of-nowhere living either. (Though it is closer to the latter.) We’d love to install a watermaker onboard someday, but it’s a pricey project we’re not prioritizing yet. Sometimes Barrett and I have to choose between a full French press of coffee or two bags of tea. And that’s OK.
In the meantime, we get the dishes mostly done every day – and completely done in a big batch the next morning. There’s salt on every surface, but the sun dries things quickly.
This chapter is teaching us to be more connected to our bodies and the earth. To feel less vanity and more freedom. I hope it’s doing the same for the kids – though they don’t have the same societal norms burned into their brains yet.
Messy today looks different than it did eight months ago, but there’s not much in our boat life that looks the same. Most things look better.
One thing Barrett and I reflect on often is how grateful we are for our time living at the marina before heading out to cruise full-time. That’s how we got to know the boat, its systems, Agora’s quirks, and our rhythms. Our priorities haven’t changed much – they’ve just come into better focus.
We arrived in Marco Island on Memorial Day, expecting to stay a few days and find a weather window to make the passage to Key West. When Friday came, we were both pretty worn out from the past week and ready to rest and explore – so we stayed put. Little did we know at the time, we were opting out of a potentially great weather window and ended up having to stick around Marco Island for another six days.
In retrospect, we would have left sooner than we did but our time there was good for a few reasons. It forced us to slow down, literally and figuratively – laws mandate idle speed in the bays and waterways of Marco Island. We observed wildlife and lived in the moment. It helped us settle into this cruising life and cherish the wonder on the kids’ faces, enjoying life on the hook and learning how to adapt when the weather has its plans.
Here are some Marco Island highlights:
A significant current in the wide channel coming in from the Gulf
Beautiful beaches, full of shells worth staring at
The joy of fresh water – washing the boat and our clothes!
A too-shallow slip assignment in which Agora was sitting on the keel for hours when the tide went out (the marina apologized and refunded the stay)
Trouble finding Dolphin Tiki Bar & Grill, only to realize that their tagline is half the fun is finding us
Circling to find an anchorage after option one was too shallow and shifty from the river current
Manatees and natural beauty & a small-town feeling
Dolphin close enough to touch from the dinghy (we didn’t)
Canals for days
Gold Star rating: the public dinghy dock for boat parking while shopping at Winn-Dixie
Leaving Panama City for Port St. Joe somehow felt like a bigger, more meaningful departure than leaving Pensacola for Destin, even though it was a shorter day hop and generally closer to shore. Departing Pensacola marked the first time the family went offshore together, while heading to Port St. Joe marked the reality of a longer crossing to the other side of Florida’s Big Bend.
The trip into Port St. Joe lacked the excitement of our approach to Panama City (Barrett and the Coast Guard chatting on the radio while I was on a work call) or Destin (crashing waves on shallow shoaling plus Spring Break 4.0 boating community under the bridge). In all honesty, it was unremarkable other than being the first place with water clear enough we could see the anchor on the seafloor below. It was our first anchorage where we were the only boat in sight overnight. Also, it was there that we decided to skip Carrabelle and cross straight to Tarpon Springs. The weather looked great, and going up to Carrabelle added 12 hours to the trip, so we consulted our weather expert and prepped for our first overnight.
When we started this adventure, we said we’d mostly travel in day hops and short sails. We knew a longer crossing from the Florida Panhandle to South Florida would be necessary, and in the early days, we even discussed how to pull in additional crew for the passage. Little did we know 1. how much time we’d lose while Agora was on the hard in Alabama, and 2. what we’re capable of as a team when it comes to tackling overnights. When we decided to take the perfect weather window and go to Tarpon Springs, it felt like a big deal.
I took the first 5ish hours from 8 p.m. – 1 a.m. while Barrett wrangled the kids for their first bedtime underway. They knew something big was going on, and I think they reflected our excited but nervous energy. I gathered my goodies for going on watch (hot tea, sour patch kids, resistance bands, and a romance novel… IYKYK), and settled in. I knew if I paused long enough to really think about it, I would feel anxious, scared, or intimidated. Because it was kind of my idea to just go ahead from Port St. Joe, and I knew it had to happen, I went with my gut and leaned into the unknown. And let me tell you, I have always loved the unknown.
The sun slowly set. The temperature cooled. There was no moonlight, but there was starlight. Otto was on Autopilot, so I was the eyes on the water, paying attention to what’s ahead and on the side of us – monitoring the charts and, most importantly, staying awake. In between looking out from the cockpit, I painted my nails, read my book, spotted bioluminescence, and observed a satellite launch and a lightning storm far away. We’d been discussing for days leading up to this what it might mean for our little crew and how to approach it, and also what to do if, at any point, something didn’t seem quite right. So when the steaming light started blinking in the middle of my shift, I knew I had to say something. It needs some more attention to see what is going on, but it was otherwise an uneventful shift.
When Barrett came back on deck again around 1 a.m., it felt like a big win – and I felt proud of myself in a new way. I brushed my teeth, snapped a sleepy selfie for posterity, and read a chapter to settle down for some required rest. I checked in at 4:45 that morning, and when Barrett – in all his morning person glory – told me I could sleep for another hour, I ran with it.
We traded watch shortly after sunrise, and soon I had an under-six morning person in the family join me for some early chatter. Even once everyone was awake and fed, we still had about 5 hours to get to our destination. We knew Clearwater or Tarpon Springs were in the general direction, but because we’d lost service offshore and couldn’t call ahead to marinas the evening before, we didn’t know exactly where we were going.
Turns out the Clearwater marina was closed due to lingering repairs from last year’s hurricanes, and one in Tarpon Springs was closed due to present power outages, we called the Anclote Village Marina. Barrett learned we wouldn’t be able to fit in the marina, but we could anchor three miles away and dinghy in for a fuel refill. So he emptied our onboard diesel cans to be ready upon arrival while we dodged crab traps and fought the current coming into the anchorage.
It was a spot with serious tide changes, and a clear and sudden shift from deep to shallow while dropping the anchor. I’m grateful for whatever intuition told me to stop and drop anchor when we did, because later that evening we realized just how dramatic a shift in tides. What was 13’ became 8’, and in the not-so-distant-distance, there were birds walking on land that used to be underwater.
We paused just long enough outside Tarpon Springs to get fuel and recharge for an overnight before pulling anchor and moving along again. It was yet another morning when we left the anchorage and kind of knew where we might end up for the night.
We thought we were headed toward St. Petersburg, but the best place for us to pause overnight would be a marina located three hours up into the bay, which meant another three out the next day for departure. After weather consultation and co-captain conversation, about two hours into the trip we decided to bypass St. Pete altogether and make another overnight trip to Marco Island in South Florida. Some storms showed up along the shore as the sun set, and some fishing boats popped up on the horizon, but it was a generally quiet trip. Overnights are quite fun when weather isn’t an issue, and technology is on your side.
first solo overnight shiftcalling ahead to marinasemptying diesel cans on the gothe tiki bar next doors to Anclote Village Marinachanging tides in Anclote Key
Oh hey, and ahoy! Whether you’re a sailor, a fellow dreamer, or a family member following along, welcome aboard!!
Let’s start with a little background.
In May 2023, we leveled up in our dream of leading a pirate life and bought Agora in Kemah, Texas. She’s a 2005 Beneteau First 47.7, a racer/cruiser that leans racey and has a history as winning as she is beautiful. We knew she was something special from the moment we stepped aboard but had no idea how perfectly we’d fit – and just how wonderfully our lives would change.
2024 brought natural and man-made disasters that delayed our live-aboard plans, including house projects in April, derecho winds in May, Hurricane Beryl in July, and one broken foot in August. Onward to the fall, when we finally, officially moved aboard. (And Captain T-Bear turned 40 – ‘twas a bash, to say the least.)
In a whirlwind year of downsizing and embracing this new way of life, every day was an adventure. Whether fixing broken parts, adjusting to smaller living spaces, or learning to let go of land-based expectations, we’re grateful for it all and proud of how each one of the four of us have tackled the constant transitions.
There have always been moments of pure magic that make the adjustments worth it – foggy mornings with sunrises above deck, the twins finding their sea legs, and the growing realization that this is what we want for our lives right now.
Sailing Agora 