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This year Mother’s Day was one for the books.
Sailing takes a lot more than just knowing how to put up sails and go. You have to watch the tide schedule to know when it’s going in or out. You need navigational tools that help you know the water depth as you are traveling, wind speeds and directions, and so much more! Thankfully, our boat included all the best navigational tools on it and the seller of the boat told us about some fantastic apps that help you know all these things too. Aquamap is a great app that you can load your area of the map as needed and it will tell you water depth, wind speed and more.
A quick list of basic things you’ll want include a good pair of water shoes ( https://amzn.to/4bq9ld4 ) even our boys love these! They’re great from boat to water to beach. Of course, sunscreen and sunburn care is a must! I really like the spray on sunscreen, then just rub in well. It’s easier to apply to wiggly, run-away kids 😆 and for after-sun aloe we make sure it’s dye free. I really like these ones from Coppertone (https://amzn.to/44RE2oR) and this after sun has cocoa butter in it too (https://amzn.to/3UUu9m1). Something you might not think of right away is bug spray but for reals, the sand fleas, mosquitoes, HORSE flies and many others love the beach as much as I do! My husbands go-to is whatever has the strongest amount of DEET https://amzn.to/44PkKk9 we have yet to find a natural type that works anywhere near as well. Then the obvious-beach towels https://amzn.to/4aubGCw with our kids bright colors are nice, they won’t get lost or forgotten as easy!
Life jackets are not just important-you actually have to have them. At least one fitting life jacket for each person on the boat. Our older boys have these https://amzn.to/3UJJoOs they are really nice. They fit well, soft fabric, doesn’t irritate their skin. Our little boys have this type with the strap underneath https://amzn.to/4bqoxqp. We do have the old school orange bulky ones as extras stored around the boat, and we also have a few of these emergency life jackets https://amzn.to/3UJK1aM. These are nice because they are flat, not bulking, but in case of emergency you just pull the cord and it will inflate.
Another thing, depending on how long you plan to be off shore, you need to pack water. It’s amazing how much water 6 people go through in a day in this hot and humid weather! We each have our own personal water bottles and we store several gallons of drinking water on the boat too. Here’s a few of our favorite water bottles: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTG8DBY8/ref=cm_sw_r_as_gl_api_gl_i_DNP65WNEV50CSY4JWJG8?linkCode=ml2&tag=burnsboys4-20 this is great for anyone who doesn’t like drinking water. Ben loves all the different flavors!
These shorter ones are nice for the younger kids, not so bulky and they won’t break or crack easily and they’re easy to clean https://amzn.to/4bNmWed.
I bought Jason one of these https://amzn.to/3KbaXev for Christmas and it works great; keeps hot things hot and cold things cold! Just a tip-the straw is not good in the dishwasher! Too much heat is not good.
Other than that, just grab your fav beach wear, sunglasses 😎 and sand castle building kit and you’re good to go!
Wassah Island is a couple of hours from our marina by boat and you can only get to it by boat. So we got to go to a private, remote beach for the day! There were other boaters there as well (I’m sure the holiday weekend brought more people than usual) I’d say we knew it recognized about 1/3 of the people there from our marina. The boating community is neat, everyone pulls together, you’re almost instant friends with people and you know if there was any trouble with your boat on shore or at sea you’ve got help anytime. Everyone is happy to share tips about anything from each specific type of boat that they know about or have experience with, to the waters and areas around and how to naviagate with the tides and weather. We have been blessed with some wonderful people at our marina for sure! There’s an older couple here whom the boys have adopted as their new Georgia grandparents, Grandma Linda is sweet as can be! And she adores these kids! They’re happy to have some young life running around the place. Linda has a cat that lives aboard her and her husbands boat too! His name is Little Man!
Carl is another older man that lives here. He seems to have been around the marinas a very long time. He’s worked for different ones, lead tour groups on boats, cooked at places around here. Ben has a new fishing buddy and that seems to have brought out some life in Carl too! They sit in the docks for about an hour in the evening catching sting rays, and usually about a fish each. Carl also sets crab and shrimp traps. Our first week or so here Carl caught several pounds of jumbo shrimp and he brought some to share! Ben has only caught small shrimp from our dock that he uses as bait. Ben has caught many blue crabs in his trap and we’ve had several dinners of crab as the main dish! Ben got a crab trap similar to this one for his birthday this year, it works really well https://amzn.to/3wAIpbv.
He also had one or two of these hoop nets https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZL4SYC9/ref=cm_sw_r_as_gl_api_gl_i_2GERP0H4CVKT9T75VV33?linkCode=ml2&tag=burnsboys4-20 and another man, Tracy, who lives abord with his wife, bought Ben 2 more hoop traps and bait! They are all pretty impressed with his dedication to fishing. Ben would love at the docks from the time he got up til the time he went to bed if we would let him!
We are experiencing life in a whole new way, for sure!
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