Mark CrockerI was asked to take pictures of my #Sailing vacation, but was so busy and cold that I only took a few at the end after it was all done, so, no action shots ...
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This is the Bénéteau Oceanis Clipper 331 https://www.beneteau.com/en-us/oceanis-1995-2008/oceanis-clipper-331#redirect=beneteau that I spent most of the week living and sailing on. On Monday 2026-02-02, it was very cold in Florida, so it turned out that it was very good thing that I brought my winter coat since, even on shore power, the heat pump could not do much better than 18 degrees above the 35°F ambient temperature . I got a better heater for the next day.
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I also spent the first training day on a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 389 https://www.jeanneau.com/boats/sailboat/2-sun-odyssey/38-sun-odyssey-389and sailed it to a marina with a travel lift to pull it out for maintenance.
It handles a lot differently. It took me a while to get used to the dual helm and corresponding parallax error when trying to steer to a distant target.
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I also spent a night at anchor, so I'm really glad I got the lesson in anchoring that preceded the night right because my safety, literally, depended on it.
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The last lesson was on an Admiral 40 catamaran, which was a LOT different. Crew overboard manouvers under sail took three tries and a lucky catch with a boat hook. Even under power, it was tricky.
There were also lots of dolphins. One did a belly flop close enough to the cat that we could smell it 👃
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Unfortunately, during the week the plumber was supposed to be working on my bathroom when I was away, they were all busy fixing burst pipes, so they only got started when I got back. I had to spend two days, with a flu in an empty apartment while the flooring guy worked in my apartment. 🤒😷
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