Into the Eye: Surviving Hurricane Ian on a DeFever Trawler-Part 1 (The Full Story)

When Hurricane Ian approached Florida, this captain made a decision that nearly cost him his life. 

When the storm was forecast to hit Tampa Bay, this Venice Florida couple was forced to evacuate their DeFever Trawler from their marina. What happened next turned in to a life-or-death fight for survival.

In this episode, we get their backstory, how they got in to boating, what led them to a DeFever 44, and the events leading up to their decision to try to escape Hurricane Ian. Unfortunately, hurricane forecasting is not straightforward, and it is impossible to know what the right thing to do is. Unfortunately, their choice in this 50-50 decision ended up leading to a lost vessel and a rescue during the height of a Category 4 storm. Part 2 we will get in to the thick of it with them on what actually transpired following departure from their marina in Venice. 

We actually owned the exact same make and model vessel named Aqua-Cultured, and we recorded this interview onboard the vessel in St. Petersburg, FL. This was the first time they have stepped aboard a DeFever in 2 years since losing theirs in the hurricane. 

Music by: Mark Patsavas

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

As Hurricane Coat swept into Southwest Florida, David Littlefield had a choice. It was 50-50. Based on the best information I had, I decided to try and outrun the storm by going southbound. That ill-fated move almost cost him his life.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

Welcome aboard. Some stories are too wild not to be true, and this is one of them. As Hurricane Ian tore through Florida, a rescue was already unfolding in conditions no one should have gone into.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

This is a two-part interview with David Littlefield and his wife Rebecca Van Fossen about their lifelong love for boating and their instinct to try and save their defever trawler during one of the worst storms in decades. What started out as a route to escape the storm, David ended up putting himself right into the eye of it. Against all odds, he made it out. I'm Captain Butch.

SPEAKER_04 0:50

And I'm First Mate Jen.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Welcome to Epic Stories. This series is available as a podcast on your favorite streaming platform like Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or you can watch on the Great Epic YouTube channel. Please give us a like, subscribe, share with your friends, and follow us on Instagram at the GreatEpic. This interview was recorded aboard our DeFever 44 trawler named Aquacultured, which was the same make and model of David and Rebecca's vessel, and this was the first time they stepped foot aboard another Defever since Hurricane Ian. Here is their story.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I was born in St. Louis in 1983, left to earn my fame and fortune. Fortunately found both. Ended up retiring in Fort Pierce, met Rebecca, and then took another job as an airline pilot. And ended up consolidating our households. Moved in with Rebecca and Stuart, and I was flying out of Fort Lauderdale, originally Orlando, and then met Rebecca, and then ended up based out of Fort Lauderdale. So I've been boating all my life. So you know, pretty extensive um background as far as basically having fun on the water. And then I don't uh uh well you had a boating background.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Yeah, because uh fishing boats, because I grew up in Miami. Oh raised down there, and um my dad always had a boat, some sort of boat, and we did a lot of out on um deep sea fishing, which wasn't hard down in Miami because you just go right offshore and you're in the Gulf Stream.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

So little boat, big ocean.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

Yeah, yeah, and my mom was just the greatest fisherman ever. She caught huge sail fish. I mean, she just knew how to fish. Big sail fish and um all kinds out mostly you know, just free lining, you know, just catching back in the day. You know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:07

That's I'd love to see some photos of uh your boating experience and also your mom catching the big thing.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

So we've got one one of them that was mounted and it she caught it on Mother's Day and it's hanging in our backyard in our backyard now in the back of the house. But but yeah, it was just you know, my dad was uh flight engineer for National Airlines, so he had uh lots of days off and we would go fishing all the time out of um government cut.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

I don't know if you've heard that area. I've dove government cut.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Yeah, that's where we would go out of. And um, so yeah, Dave had sail sailboat experience. I had um more fishing experience. You really didn't do very much fishing, did you? You did more crabbing.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

I did freshwater fishing.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

Crab pots.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah, I lived I lived in Seattle for for, I guess, nine years, and we would go up into the San Juan, beautiful, beautiful islands. Um, and then if you know cross the border into Canada and you're in the same G geological formation, but they called it the Gulf Islands in Canada, um, San Juan Islands in the U.S. Um, they used to say that they had 700 islands at low tide and less than 400 at high tide. So you had to be really careful as you maneuvered through the waters. We had a I had a buddy um had a 31-foot, I think it was a Fiji, uh sailboat, catch rig, and he was going along. I guess he had the autopilot on, and all of a sudden, five knots to thunk zero. Oh, okay. And he hit one of the 300 islands that was partially submerged between high and low tide. Of course. And um, I guess he had a lead keel, he put a big dent in it, no damage to the hull. Wow. But um very interesting. Um, so and I, it's funny, I had a small sailboat, 22-foot sailboat. I lived in Idaho, trailered it when I moved to Seattle, and that was the boat that I took, you know, in saltwater. And again, small boat, big ocean. Um, it was funny, we would end up anchored out sometimes, marina some other times, and you know, you'd be in a marina and like your neighbor came down and you have a little chat with them and stuff. And so, you know, people are standing around with their hands in their pockets and like, ah, that's my boat over there, the big old, you know, 86 foot, something or other. And then, you know, they this is my boat here and this my boat there, and I'm like, Well, that's my boat right there. And I'm like, Yeah, but don't measure a man by the length of his mask, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05 5:33

You know, so and then we we upgraded, and you never got on the 26-footer, but no, I was wondering, so it was you you were in Idaho as well, and then I I lived in Idaho, that's where I was employed as an air traffic controller, and then it's a high stress job.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, well, I don't know. People say, How stressful is it? And I say, Well, it's not that stressful, I'm 26. So anyway, um my brother and sister-in-law had a boat, and I it was a 22-foot McGregor swing keel. They call them trailer sailors. Oh, yeah, because you can step the mast and it's got a retractable keel, so you can you know tow it to wherever you want it to go. So I was in Idaho, I was driving to work, and I went by a I don't even know what to call it, it was a Mercury dealer. And I was like, oh, look at that blue hull. I said, that looks familiar. It was the identical boat, and the little 22-foot McGregor, beautiful sailor, um, handled very well, you know, the helm responded nicely, no weather helm, no lee helm. Um, and so I was like, okay, had and we were in Idaho for Christ's sake, they sell fishing boats. Right? Here's a sailboat. So I'm like, what do you want for it? The guy said 4,500 bucks. I said, I'll give you three grand. He goes, I went back the next week, he goes, sold. So I ended up with that early. Then we trailered it to Seattle, put it in you know, Puget Sound, and um sailed all around. I can remember up in the uh in the San Juans, you know, there's more than one way to get from one island to another. And I'm not gonna say the mantra, but the mo was if any way to avoid it, you would come back a different way than you went out, and then you'd see twice as much.

SPEAKER_06 7:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

So I can remember you've you've heard of the Straits of Juan de Fuca? Yep.

SPEAKER_06 7:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Okay, so we were in the San Juan's and we were here, and we're gonna go to this island, and then over here, and so we were like, well, we can go this way like that, or we can go the big way. So we got on, I guess the you know, weather channel two, and they said, you know, six foot seas, and I'm like, uh, pushing it. Um, but they they were calling for a decent, you know, whatever they call that, the height between waves, the period. Yeah, and um, so I thought, ah, we can handle six-foot waves. So we went the long way, and I can remember um not a whole lot of boats out there, but the one boat we did see was about the size of the cargo container ships that come and go here. We came to a dead stop and the boat went through their wake, and probably you had to go through two or three of them because it, you know, the way they they um come out in multiple, and then it's kind of like this boat is you've sold this one. Um, we I sold that one for more than I paid for it, which ended up being.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

That doesn't happen very often, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

No, it doesn't. And then, of course, the next boat was a 26-foot McGregor, same thing, trailer sailor, retractable keel. You could one person step the mast. Um and that had um yeah, the big draw, I guess, was the extra four foot. They had a queen berth that was all the time available, as opposed to the 22, where you had to drop the galley table and put the cushions down and whatnot. So basically it was boat camping, um, you know, it on a budget.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Um, so we didn't have marina fees because of the boat sat on a trailer. Um, you could have it out of the water, you didn't have to worry about bottom paint. Um, and it was a great little boat, the both the 22 and the 26. I will say this uh for you McGregor fans, the 22-foot sailed a lot better than the 26. It's amazing how that can work. Yeah. Um, and just in terms of you know how easy it was to man the tiller and the weather helm and the lee helm, um, I can remember when I ended up, I got transferred as an aerotraffic controller, and I towed that 26-foot boat from Seattle to Fort Pierce to Jacksonville, where I was stationed for a while. And I took a friend of mine out and we were under motor, and then I said, Okay, you take the helm and I'll work the deck, I'll set the sails. And then when I got the sails up, cut off the motor, and I'm like, okay, he's at the helm, let him continue. And he's like, really struggling. And I'm like, What the hell, man? So I let it go for probably half an hour, 45 minutes. We were on the St. John's River, so there's a little current wind. Um, and I finally said, It's look this, and he's like, you know, and I'm like, let me let me take the helm. And sure enough, it was I mean, you just had to, it was you were struggling with it. So they there's a couple of fixes. They had a redesigned rudder that moved the center of something, you know, talk to the marine engineers, you know, um, moved the center of whatever pressure back, or and it helped. I never got that far um in terms of replacing the the rudder. But anyway, both of them good boats, and again, sailing on the cheap. Yeah, trailer sailors.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah, trailers. It's a great way to get it, it's a great way to get experience. Yeah, absolutely. And then so you guys moved up to power vessels after some time.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Um we met. I ended up sailing, selling the 26-foot McGregor.

SPEAKER_03 10:47

I don't know what made you start looking for um another boat.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Well, I mean, we so we're living in Stewart on the Atlantic coast.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

But then COVID, COVID hits, and he would when you're an airline pilot, commercial airline pilot, you have to you have to retire when you're 65.

SPEAKER_06 11:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

So he was nearing that, and it that just so happened to have happened while he well, COVID.

SPEAKER_06 11:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

Wow. So that was that. And he bought the home in um Nekomas, where we currently live, as just an investment. So it sat there for a long time with nothing, nothing in it. I don't think maybe I bought a couple of couches and maybe a bed or something so that we could stay once in a while when we came to visit the grandchildren. And then COVID hit, and we thought, well, we don't have a pool in Stewart, we'll move over to Darien to no Nokomas, and that way it'll be a lot easier to be outside and use the pool during COVID. You couldn't leave your home. And um, anyway, so that's how that's how we ended up ended up being in on the the left coast versus the right coast.

SPEAKER_05 11:50

And so when did you actually move over to the west coast? What year?

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Um 2019.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

No well, that's when you bought the house, but we didn't permanently move until 2021, I think is when I sold my house.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

Yeah, it was when we when I finally sold my house and stewart. We were going back and forth trying to take care of both houses.

SPEAKER_05 12:05

Did you sell it at the right time or did you sell it? I sold it at a good time.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

There's been better times.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

He tried to talk me out of it, and I we just had it. It was one thing, you know, when you have a home, or especially two homes, there's so much to manage.

SPEAKER_05 12:19

There's a lot to manage. You have I mean, you have to worry about everything. We're in a demo right now that was unexpected.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Three hours driving time between the two. Yeah, and I mean that's a full day to go back and forth.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

Well, that wasn't even as bad, you know, at that time as it is now, but on and hurricane insurance or or you know, what's what yeah, we just we were just dealing with that ourselves because we had to get a new insurance policy. But um since Ian, you know, that's just changed everything. Ever all everybody's rates are just uh so even now, if if I still own that house, I I would have either had to pay it off and not have hurricane. Right. And it was it was just how many houses? Five houses from the intercoastal. I had our street had a boat ramp at the very end. Little marina at the end of the day, private marina. Oh, it was just great, it was a great house. But we just were tired of going back and forth, and we had the grandchildren, two little grandchildren that were growing up so fast, and um we just decided, well, we'll just you know, I don't know. We I wish I'd kept it. So I sold and made I did make money off. Sellers remorse, but not nearly. The lady that bought my house, she ended up selling it two years later and made more than I did in 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Yeah, of course. But getting back to your um question, which was power versus sale. Um, so Rebecca and I met, we consolidated our house, and then um I was flying, and so you could get space available, and we flew to the Bahamas. That's where the the airline that was our predominant destination, the the Southeast United States and the Bahamas. So Rebecca's like, well, I don't know anything about sailing, and I'm like, Well, let's go to the Bahamas and we'll get ourselves a sailboat. So we went up to Green Turtle Key, and um we're hanging out, went down to the dive master, and we were like, Sailboats? And he goes, Well, I got one. And I'm like, Well, let's take it out tomorrow. So, and again, Rebecca's got a fishing background. So this guy, a native Bahamian.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

What's his name? Brendan? Brandon?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Brandon. The best. No, no, no. No, Brendel, Brendel. He's so good. He's a name. Yeah. I mean, if if you if you go to Green Turtle Key and you say, Brendel, they're like, that guy's perfect. There he is, right there. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

And his name's his wife's name's Mary, right? Isn't it Mary?

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

Mary works the office, but he he's just an all-around funny.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah, he's a dive master, he's a sailor, he's a powerboater. Um, probably if you want ganja, he could probably go. You know, he's well connected, local guy.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

He is he's a he does diving trips, he does fishing, he does.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

You can go see the pigs, the swimming pigs, you know. Yeah, so he's basically it's a it's a um uh multi-dimensional place where tourists can spend money.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

Not even sure if he does the pig thing, but he but he definitely so he used the sailboat.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Well, I forgot all about this one.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

I thought you were talking about the next one.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Yeah, and I will, I will. Okay, so so anyway, anyway, so Brendel shows up and he's it's him and the sailboat is like 32-foot cow, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

But he has moved.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

And yeah, and then he had his first mate, which is uh a young woman, probably your age, who was who was his first mate, but she didn't know anything about anything, right?

SPEAKER_06 15:32

So now she gotta make rum pies.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So, well, yeah. Oh, there you go. That's valuable right there.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

She was he was training her, in all fairness. He was he was working out the wrinkles.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

So so Rebecca's like, well, you can't fish off a sailboat. I'm like, the fish don't know the difference. Yeah. So Brendel shows up, he's got four fishing rods.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

Yeah, his first mate, anything about our conversation.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

A cooler full of ice, yeah, some rum drinks, right? So we plop the thing down, off we go. And um I guess just as soon as we got out of the breakwater, put the sails up, we're going tacking back and forth. And um he's like, Okay, let's bait, let's bait a hook and put it out there. So we threw out a couple of lines. And I told Brendell, I said, I'm you know, I can I've I'm if you need a helmsman, I can do it. Right? So it didn't take long at all. I forget what the bait was, but we had a couple 200 yards of lineup.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

It wasn't even fresh bait. Okay, it was just lores.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

So anyway, and I'm gonna say I'm gonna say 10 minutes into this. And we were in the Sea of Abaco, yeah, and I guess he knew the the fishing grounds pretty well. Ten minutes, boom, fish on. So we bring the fish in, and Rebecca's doing it, yeah, and get bring the fish on board, and of course the sailboats going five knots, and then he's like, okay, you know, um, turn into the wind, knock off some of the speed. So I turn up and we're the sails are luffing, and we pull the fish on board. Now he and the first mate take the fish below, and they don't they're not big on like an ice chest with fresh fish, right? They just throw them in the freaking bottom, yeah. You know, yeah, right. So they're down below, the fish fish is flopping around. Sacrifice the ice because the ice is for the wrong drinks. All right, and I'm all I'm all over that. You gotta prioritize. And you know, if you run out of ice, that's that's a certified maritime emergency. Absolutely. So, you know, you gotta close down the cocktails. So, anyway, um now I'm I'm sailing the boat, we bring in one line, and there's still another line out there, and they're down below messing with the fish, and all of a sudden, fish on. And so I tell Rebecca, grab the pole, right? And so I luff again and we turn upwind, and you know, she's bringing in the second fish, and I tell them it's a fish on, you know, and so they're down below, they do they come back on board. So, anyway, we caught 44 pounds of mutton snapper.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

I thought it was lame, but it's one of the snappers that's anyway. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

We've got pictures of it somewhere. I would love to. Yeah, we gotta see those. And so we're staying at a little, I don't know, like a one-bedroom bungalow thing right there on the water. And um, we get back.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

I helped him clean the fish.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, we get back ashore, and they're cleaning, you know, and fish since I was a little kid. Right, so chop, chop, chop, and he's um I'm like, Well, that's pretty good looking filet there. And he goes, Yeah, and he flops two of them in our direction. He's gonna take the rest of them home, and that's what they're gonna have for dinner, right? So, and like I said, this guy's got it going on. It doesn't matter what you need or what you want, Brendel's the guy to go to. So he was he yeah, he he he was making money on the charter. Yep, he caught dinner for free, plus uh plenty for the free. He really does. Yeah, and um, so he had his bases well covered, and then we so we took the fish, we took the fish to the restaurant that serviced the little encampment there, yeah. Which was that his encampment or somebody else's?

SPEAKER_03 19:00

No, no, it belonged to I guess, but they they cook it for you, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Yeah, so they'll prepare the fish. Sure, sure. It's funny because nothing, no big deal. Yeah, definitely Rebecca knows her way around the kitchen. I wish that she would have cooked it, and then as it turns out, because it came out and it was fine, but it was there was nothing, it wasn't it wasn't like wow. Right now, we're talking fresh snapper, sure. You know, there should be a little wow factor. So as it turns out, we're staying at this little one-bedroom bungalow place, and it was the way the the arrangement was for the living was they had two living quarters and then a common kitchen. Well, you gotta pay for the kitchen. Oh, we didn't. Yeah, so I'm out there on the deck, must have been late at night. I was stargazing or whatever, and I went over and I tried I turned it up, it's unlocked. The one from inside to the kitchen was locked, yeah. But the one on the porch, what you know, go in there, unlock the door, and just we we found that out on the last day. So anyway, no help.

SPEAKER_05 20:01

Yeah, well now we know, so we'll there you go.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Yeah, check check the check the doors. So um and again, this this was this was sail versus power. Sure. So now Rebecca realizes, yeah, well, I guess you can fish for from a sailboat, yeah. And really, it's a perfect trolling speed. Yeah, it is, you know, the whole speed on a 30-foot sailboat. So um I I think you came back and you enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Yeah, yeah, we had a good time.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

And so I was looking for another boat and I was leaning towards sail, but Rebecca's like, well, I don't know anything about sailing. And I'm like, okay, well then let's expand the search a little bit and we'll look at sail and power. And you know, if you have a sailboat, you can power it, just turn on the engine.

SPEAKER_06 20:44

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

But if you have a trawler, you can't raise the sails. Um, I guess some people on the DeFever family have proven that wrong. I've seen tri-sails and goofy crap hanging off the uh hanging off the yard arm. Yeah. So anyway, um, I guess your 60th birthday was.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

I started looking online and I knew he kind of wanted a boat. Everything had, you know, he he had had to retire during COVID. So he didn't see the end of his career the way he had envisioned it to be, you know, flying that last time and landing and all the hoopla, you know, going into the sunset with his career flying. Because he you had been flying since what, your 20 something?

SPEAKER_00 21:26

23.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

He'd had his pilot's license. So this was just, you know, a cool thing that he had done all his life, even though he'd been an air traffic controller, he always had he had had an interest in a plane at one time, didn't you? You kind of co owned a plane for a while. Um, he'd always flown, and then here comes COVID and his 65th birthday at the same time. So he was down on the dumps and he talked about getting another boat. So I kind of asked you a couple times, you know, what kind of boat, you know, steer me in the direction. I'll I'll join all these little Facebook groups and try to see, you know, what's out there.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

And I'm let me interrupt for just a sec.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

All right. So if you're if you're looking to buy a boat, the choices are endless. Oh yeah. Sail versus power. Monohole versus catamaran. Both sail and power. So again, the the question of what vessel we might want to be on, our next boat, um, was way wide open. Right. Right. And so I didn't want to limit it. And so I said, well, I don't know, sail power. And Rebecca said, you know, I I I don't have any sailing experience. So for her 60th birthday?

SPEAKER_03 22:42

I think it was 60th. We went down to the birthday.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

We went, yeah, we went back to um No, I yeah, no, 59. Marsh Harbor. Oh yeah. And got a 41-foot fountain Peugeot. Hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, for all you French folks. And um, so we're gonna take the boat out. And she's like, Well, I don't I don't know anything about and I'm like, okay, you know, and it it's again, you know, every particular hobby has its own vernacular or lingo. Right. And she's like, Well, that's a rope. I said, No, that's a line.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

Oh, he does this to me all the time. And because it's attached to it, I know, I finally got it, and then the and because it's attached to the dinghy, it's called a painter.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Right. Right? That's a rope right there on the mast, but that's called a halyard because it's attached to the sail.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Sometimes I'll say, just say that.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

She's like, You mean the pointy end or the one in back? I did not say that.

SPEAKER_05 23:39

I do that though. I called the sun deck the fly bridge yesterday, and he was like, uh, no, it's a sand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

So yeah, after the right. So anyway, I in an attempt to kind of figure out what our next boat might be, we went and did a bear boat charter with this 41-foot cat and uh in the Sea of Abaco. Uh, and so Rebecca's like, well, it's it's it's just the two of us. She said, What happens if like you're incapacitated? And I'm like, Well, that's a really good point, right?

SPEAKER_03 24:10

You got to do this or that. I had no sailing experience, and this was you know, a pretty it was a brand new boat, so it was top of the line, all of the bells and whistles.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

I don't know what you you know and a good looking crew. I'm here to tell you.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Bring in family, family members.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Yeah, so so basically the idea of both of us bare boating this with only one person with the knowledge.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Um his brother had some sailing experience, and then he had a friend who had some sailing experience.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Coast Guard licensed captain, and and then he had a girlfriend, and she had some sailing experience. So I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_06 24:45

So we ended up with a crew of six, had all the bunks filled, and then five time, I guess um we had one person had to sleep on the couch.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Sete for all you boat folks.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Yeah. Um the the the only thing that ended up happening is there were too many people with sailing experience.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

So it was kind of yeah, it doesn't give you the opportunity to learn.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

Who's well no, nothing? That was part of it.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

That was part of it.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

I didn't care about that. It was just that everyone was fighting over no button. No, I was the one who had to listen. Dave, Dave is Dave is letting Doug do too many things because like Doug doesn't know what he was doing. Blah, blah, blah. You know, it was just people they I I don't know why they did it that way.

SPEAKER_05 25:27

Everyone has different training, right? So you have a Coast Guard certified, you know, captain on board, but then you have you who's had experience his whole life. So you're probably not doing it to the book, you're doing it to the experience.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Oh, I've read books, so yeah, I'm sure you read it.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

Yeah, it was just it was fine.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

I got my own copy of Chapman's.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

I became the person that everybody came to than when they were distraught about you know someone doing it a different way than they did. I'm like a lot of earlier.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

And she said she said talk to the captain. So that put me in the spot where I'm like, I'm not gonna be able to do that. I'm uh I have to come down on a side. Am I gonna come down on Rebecca's side or am I gonna come down on my brother's side?

SPEAKER_03 26:02

It was that what was her name? Carrie's Carrie Seven. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

But anyway, so yeah, it was it was uh, but it was despite all that the shortcomings or drawbacks, or what would you call it? It was wonderful. We had beautiful, yeah. We had a seven-day barboat charter and the Sea of Abaco. How can you not like that?

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I know. We we need to get away to the Caribbean.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

Yeah, you know, we should go down there and you know, rent the boat. Yeah, exactly. Well, you still have a lot of food.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

And that was the other thing. When we were on the Atlantic side, I mean it was as simple as getting to the airplane, and then Silver Airways would take us to they had 11 Bahamian destinations, so you could pretty much pick your island.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Um, and we would go there for nothing. You know, airfare was part of my perk.

SPEAKER_03 26:48

That's a good thing. Yeah, it was a but anyway. I don't know how you ended up. Um we we started looking for a boat, and um I were looking at I joined the Facebook groups to try boats for sale or trawlers for sale because you're the one who mentioned a trawler. I had never heard of a trawler.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Well, because she said power, and I'm like, well, if you want power, and again, you know, when you when you think power boat, you can think sports fishermen. You're doing 30 knots burning 300 gallons an hour. Yeah. Or you can do a trawler with twin diesels, 135 horsepower aside, and you're burning three gallons an hour, but you're only going seven knots. And I'm like, that's the same speed that I'm used to on a sailboat, you know, even you know, uh I you know about theoretical health speed on sailboats? Yes, it's the square root of the length of the water line. Right. I don't know. Okay, well, that's gonna be on the test. That will be on the test.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Please don't ask me a question.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

So the it's simple, the answer is B. All right, square square root of the length of the water boat. So basically, basically, if if you get if you have a if you have a 25-foot boat, the square root of 25 is seven. Five. Right. So five times five, five times five is twenty-five. So that's that's the fastest boat can go. So if you put a 10 horsepower motor on there and you wide open throttle, you can go five knots. You can double the horsepower, you're still gonna only go five knots. Right. So, anyway, that's just a little that's fun fact to know and tell. It will be on the test.

SPEAKER_03 28:17

So I think I uh we so I'm looking at the internet. This went on for months. Sure. And I think I one day you got up and I had been outside, you know, just sitting on the patio looking at boats, and um, I saw the defever, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:32

And I think I asked you Well, let's go back just a little bit because we had been looking at it.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

That's fine. I love all the backstory.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

And and as far as looking, I'm like trawlers, okay. So I was looking at what I knew Grand Banks, Marine Trader, oh yeah, I forgot about that, um, a monk. Oh yeah. Um, you know, it's some some of the brands that I knew people had and liked.

SPEAKER_06 28:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Um, you know, livability, uh, birth arrangements, flybridge, engines, you know, it's a you don't just buy the boat, you buy the total package. Right. Warts, um, faults, the good stuff, the bad stuff. Um, and it's all a compromise. It really doesn't matter what's a boat, a plane, a house. You know, you want a house, you want it bigger, but yeah, then you have to heat it and cool it.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

Um, so anyway, we were looking at various boats, and so we still had the home in Stewart, and I come upon a Grand Banks. The guy is just up the road, wasn't he? Just a little north.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Yeah, and the boat was out of the water. So we were like, whoa, how about that?

SPEAKER_03 29:34

That's really good. How about that?

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Basically the guy's in the neighborhood kind of, you know, yeah, it was just a marina just down the street. So we were like, okay, because you you might find the boat you want and it's in hell uh Hayward, California. Yeah, you know, or or Guatemala. Right. Right?

SPEAKER_03 29:48

And you're like, well, we don't mean there were old there were boats out in Washington. We're like, how are we gonna get them back here?

SPEAKER_00 29:53

So we're looking at this Grand Banks. I think it was a 42.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

Yeah, that was.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

And basically, this guy, no con no concept of maintenance or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 30:03

It was he bought it for a chick magnet. He had that's it.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Um like if you if you look at his if you look at his web presence, yeah, he'd have pictures of you know women in Brazilian bathing suits. Yeah, with with um the the um what do you call it? A thong bikini, uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:21

What's his website?

SPEAKER_03 30:22

I just want to make sure that it's a good idea. Yeah, no, I think it's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think yeah. Well, no, but and he had it, he used it a lot for paddle boarding. So it was a party boat.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

So we're gonna pay for a survey. And we're like, okay, um air conditioning. And he like, well, uh, it's not on. And I'm like, I I knew that, I knew that part. So let's turn, and then so he's like, Well, you know, and they and they were like, Okay, generator, and we're on shore power, and he's like, Well, generator's like and nothing's happening, and what he didn't do was he didn't do the the um glow plug for free heat, yeah. So um, and and I I kind of knew that, but I'm like, let's just see how ignorant this guy really is. And so refrigeration, no, not working either. We use a cooler and ice, and I'm like, Well, we're talking about the great loop or live aboard, you know, we want we want functioning, you know.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

So anyway, the survey and it was a fiasco, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

So we went to look at the boat, it was out of the water, it was on the hard, it was up on Jack's, and so we could look at the bottom. Yeah, he was doing the bottom paint, among other things, and so we could go back because it was there from day after day after day, we could kind of like see what was he doing. So we get there one day, and here's a freaking port engine sitting there on uh railroad ties. Oh no, and uh exactly I'm like, well, this if this is you know, I I kind of get an idea of this guy's idea of maintenance, right? And so now he's he's replacing the freaking engine, you know, like floorboards up, out the cabin door, and you know, just think about doing that. You need a forklift. Oh yeah, you need to come through the door, you need to get uh hoist.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

So anyway, I'm like that's why they call it a major overhaul, it's a major ordeal.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

So, you know, as opposed to rebuilding a place. It went on for months for a while. So so now we're trying to give him an offer that takes into account the condition of the boat and the condition we would want it in.

SPEAKER_03 32:15

Was that prior to the survey?

SPEAKER_00 32:17

No, that was after the survey.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Because the survey, when we left the survey, it was just horrible. I mean, Dave said if even one of the heads worked, it would be better, you know. Neither bathroom worked, right? The toilets didn't work, nothing worked.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

And there was a lot of stuff that needed fixing. And again, his idea of maintenance was put some ice in the cooler, throw in some beers, and off we go. You know, if you hit the starter and the engine's turned over, we're good. His priorities. Exactly. Yeah. So, and of course, I'm not saying his were wrong. It was very fucking we're talking buck some babes with some thong bikinis, you know. And and a paddle board. So anyway, we spent all the money on the survey and whatnot, and then we I'm not gonna say we lowballed him, we gave him an accurate figure that was probably half of what he was asking for. But, you know, I said, you know, you just did the port engine. I'm not sure how good a job you did on that, but if the starboard engine is the same thing, now we got that one. We got refrigeration, we got two heads, we got there's a whole lot of stuff. The electronics were shit.

SPEAKER_03 33:19

Um but we we've ended up, you know, so that we finally like uh walked away from that. Yeah, we had to walk away from it after all this time.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

So we're still looking. I wake up one morning and Rebecca goes, Hey, look what I thought.

SPEAKER_03 33:31

Yeah, and it was a defever, and it was in Brading, Bradington, is that where they live? Palmeadow, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Just right up the road.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

Bradington, Anna Maria. And real nice couple. We went out, it was behind their home. Um, they had lived off the river? I is it the off the Manatee River, yeah. I bet I know who that's it, but the time.

SPEAKER_05 33:51

They had actually lived on Ant on Anna Maria Island for years and years.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Phil and Candace Shields.

SPEAKER_05 33:56

Shield, the Shield family. Yeah, I went to school with some of their children, I believe.

SPEAKER_03 34:00

So nice, really, really nice people. And um, we went to see the boat, you know, they it was behind the house, and we left, right? And you were like, Well, I don't know, I really like that boat. Should I make an offer?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

And I So just backing up just a little bit. Okay. So we had gotten there, the boat had been on the market, they had an offer, and the guy put down Ernest money, and then he he did his survey, which we took his survey and had the name changed to protect the innocent. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

Yeah, um but it had just been done and he was upset that it could add.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Well, he had he had the same kind of thing that with any boat, you know, you you take the asking price, and then you deduct the cost of what the survey came up with to bring it back up to snuff or where you want it, or closer to where you want it. And so I guess there were blisters. And I'm like, blisters on a frickin' fiberglass boat are like zits on a teenage.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

Everybody's got them. If you don't, you're lucky. So anyway, this guy, um so so this guy, this guy took offense to the blisters, and he was just like, Well, you know, the blisters, and so he said, Well, I'll I'll fix them. I'll fix the blisters. So I I forget exactly what transpired, but the guy wanted off of it or something like that. The guy wanted his deposit back, I guess, while they while they sorted out the blister problem. So we looked at it, and the captain, Phil Shields, um had said, you know, the blisters came up in the survey, and I'm gonna have them done tomorrow. And so I was like, Well, how much is that gonna cost? He goes, Well, they quoted 15 grand. And he wanted, I think, 165. So, and I'm like, okay, blisters, I can live with the blisters. We'll deal with next haul out or two haul outs or three haul outs for Christ's sake, it's the blisters. Sure. So we get in the car and we're we're we're driving down the block, and I ask Rebecca, what do you think? She goes, Well, I like it. I'm like, I it's got a lot of stuff that we've been looking for, and not a lot of stuff that we don't like.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

Um you could tell it had been meticulously taken.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Not meticulous, but well maintained.

SPEAKER_03 36:15

Yeah, well maintained. They they love the boat, they have really good times on.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

You could tell that they had put that's who you want to buy the boat. That's yeah, we're well cared for, like this guy, and not yeah, you know, and again, and again, we don't have unlimited budgets, so it's not like you're gonna do everything on your punch list and you're not tomorrow. No, you're gonna prioritize and figure out which one you're gonna do. We understand that exactly. Okay, so anyway, um we get to the end of the block, and I said, What do you think? And when we both like, well, you know, you you don't want to like, oh yeah, we gotta have it. No, but we we like we like what we saw. We like the couple, and so we turned the car around, we went back and we and I sat down with Phil. It was his wife's boat, and it was named after her grandmother, the Elizabeth Pearl.

SPEAKER_06 36:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Um, and so but Phil was the captain, he was the engineer, he was the chief maintenance, you know, the mechanic, and one thing and the other. Um, and I had asked him about it because two-man crew with he and his wife, and I'm looking at it, me and Rebecca and I, and he was like, that's not a problem. Two two people we can do it. And so we took the boat out, we did a little shakedown, you know, checked the windlass and did this and that one thing. And then he let me have a crack at the helm. So I was, you know, checking the maneuverability of the boat. We pulled up on some crab pots or lobster pots or whatever, and I'm like, like it's a moor, like it's a mooring buoy. Yeah, I'm up there in the flybraz. I'm like, well, this boat handles really, really well. It's making me look good, and I've never driven it before. So anyway, we get back, we drive down, end the block, we turn and we come back and sit down with Phil, we kind of have a glass of tea. And um, I said, you know, we're interested. Uh, and he told me about the guy that made the down payment, and then he wanted his money back, and so he said, I gave him his money back, and I said, So the boat's back on the market. He said, Yeah, and that's where Rebecca found it. We had no idea about the previous offer. So I said, How much are you gonna spend on the blisters? And he goes, 15 grand. And I said, if you take that off the asking price, you don't have to worry about the blisters, you don't have to put out the money, and that's my offer. So he wanted 175, sold it to us for 160. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 38:26

So I was like, And didn't have to do any of the work, you he just.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

That's it. I mean, yeah, and so and so at that point we got the thing rolling. Now we're looking for insurance, we're looking for moorage, we're looking for all the um things that could derail, you know, this. And again, you know, I've got I've been boating since I was a kid, used to work for a guy, he had a 40-foot-ON Zeruba, beautiful cabin cruiser, double cray marine, twin gas engines. So, and that was on the Mississippi. And again, you know, you're talking current and whatnot. I can remember going out on the boss's boat, and um, he was a smoker, so his night vision was really bad. Okay, and so of course we ended up on the Mississippi at night, you know, and so I find myself driving the boat. So um, there's an interesting story there. I'm not gonna bore you with it. But when when you you look at insuring a 44-foot the fever, they're gonna ask you, the insurance company, when they vet you, they're gonna say, Well, what's your booting experience? So I listed this and that, and I talked about the catamaran and you know the 44-foot Fountain Pajot. Um uh I owned a 32-foot luger way back when, um, the two sailboats, um, and then my boss's 40-footer in Zarubah. And um, so they said, Okay, you're we're gonna you're insurable. And I'm like, okay, that that's out of the way. So the place where we found for moorage, they wanted a million dollar liability, of course. And I can get that. You're sitting next to two boats between the two of them, they probably cost two mil. If your boat catches fire, the very first place we took it. So, anyway, we got the insurance squared away, we got the moorage squared away.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

That took a while, though. The insurance was easy, we got through that, but then we needed a place to put the boat. Yeah, and I found that through Facebook too, just by posting just a lucky fire. I can't remember how I did it and a real estate agent called operations manager. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Oh, yeah, she's the go-to gal. You want to get her done? Call Rebecca.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

I did that, and and this lady from real estate reached out to me and said that she knew someone who was looking to sublet a uh morage or a dock space, and he lived in a private condo, and it was an osprey. And I thought, oh my gosh, osprey would be a dream. Yeah, we were ten minutes away. No, and you know, she gave me the phone number, and I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

We took up the whole space.

SPEAKER_03 40:53

I would say so. His father was a real estate agent that she knew. So the fellow who owned the condo was uh a surgeon in Maryland. And so she gave me his his dad's phone number. And I mean, I had been searching, we had been calling every marina of every everywhere. Um, and oh, we haven't seen Doc's face come up in ten years.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

For a 44 foot no way.

SPEAKER_03 41:18

No way. If these docks are we have a waiting list.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

Yeah, you're on a four-year waiting list.

SPEAKER_03 41:22

And most of the people wouldn't even put us on a anchor out for four years. We they won't even put us on a waiting list. Um, we even got to the point where we called the SHIELDS and said, can we leave the boat there? I mean, they were looking to buy it. He was actually a captain, um, or a what would you call it, a fishing captain.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Coast car captain.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

So they had yeah, so they had the 44 foot to fever, but they also had a smaller boat that he took out people fishing on. I don't know if he had retired from that officially because he's one of the guys I think that had um a barracuda come up and said that's Mr. Shield.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

No kidding.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

One of his clients. Yeah, that's one of his clients.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

That that actually happened when I was a little bit. That's terrifying. Yeah, but it didn't bite anyone's arm up.

SPEAKER_05 42:06

I knew that they were aggressive, but to bite an entire arm up, I didn't know that they were that strong.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

You know, when you go to a restaurant and you order chicken fingers, it happened. This was a Barracuda restaurant, and he wanted fisherman arms. Yeah.

unknown 42:19

Anyway, not funny.

SPEAKER_05 42:21

I think she survived. Yeah. I think I'm I was thinking in my head, what there's I think they have a son named Patrick Shields, who I I know of.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

So I don't know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

I know they have grandchildren. I know they have grandchildren that they that these grew up on the world. Sharing pictures of our grandchildren. So yeah. But anyway, my daughter's four, I'm I have a long way to go, but I'm like, I can't wait. But they grow up so fast. But the Shields, so we actually talked to them about couldn't we leave it at your house? Because we didn't know what to do. You know, we're looking everywhere. Well, the same stock fees. This wonderful thing comes up, you know, and so I can't get on that fast enough to try to find out. And it was so close to the house and it was perfect. But you know, and I think the boat was there for what, a year?

SPEAKER_00 43:06

I don't know. There was an HOA major, major pain in the ass. Yeah, she was. And I mean, they they were in your your shit all the time. Of course.

SPEAKER_03 43:14

Yeah, they were like, you know, she wasn't happy about it being sublet in the first place. The surgeon didn't live there, and um, she didn't. Of course, Dave was on the boat, and she didn't, she was always asking him, you can't sleep on the boat, you know, not that you're no live awards.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Yeah, and I'm like, a hurricane was coming through, and I I said I'm gonna spend the night on the boat. I told the realtor who was the agent for the owner, and um I said, I'm gonna be on the boat uh Thursday night because there's a hurricane. I'm watching if I need to adjust the lines or the fenders or whatever. So that they hit us. They took umbrage at that. Um, no, and it was a non-event.

SPEAKER_03 43:49

Yeah, but anyway, so she was working behind the scenes to make sure that you couldn't sublet um at a a document.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

The the idea was that slip was free. You and your boat because you lived in that apartment or that condo.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

Yeah. So and even though he didn't even have a boat, it didn't matter. So we we had to start looking for another place. And the the surgeon was just like I really am sorry because you know we had him on auto pay. He was he always got his money, it was perfection.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

Right.

SPEAKER_03 44:17

And he was good with that. Never in town anymore.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Who wouldn't be? Well, you know, he was in town, he came on board. He's like, Oh, this is really nice. He says, I got some experience, you know, as a crew member back in college on a sailboat, you know, and and I'm like, well, okay. So he was he was like, This this is fabulous. And I'm like, Yeah, it really is. We're we're liking it, everything's good.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

So we have to find another place, and we and we're running out of time because I think they gave you a month, you know, this is when your lease is gonna be over, and we had to find another place, so we were looking everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

And in the meantime, we had taken the boat out and had some alarms go off from the engine room.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

Oh, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

And your mechanic came and took care of the problem because right in the midst of overheating on the left hand on the port engine. Yeah, and we did a top end overhaul. Um, three three grand later, I was like, pfft, freaking top end overhaul. That's that's a partial rebuild right in place.

SPEAKER_03 45:14

Um we had to use what's it what's his place up in Tennessee? What the diesel place?

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Oh, American Diesel. American Diesel, Brian. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 45:23

Um great about shout out to Brian.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yeah, Brian, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_03 45:28

I don't know you, but we could not have done it without. I mean, he was just the nicest guy.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

He's the layman expert. Yeah, yeah. Man, I mean you you say I got a 135 layman. He goes, Is that the e-model with the uh you know the the green alternator with the two red wires coming in? Yeah, no, that's not it. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

Well, they but they so we're running out of time and we gotta get the boat out of there, and we can't use oars.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

So then we we invoke we invoked the safe harbor. Yeah, we're not seaworthy, someone we're not leaving, right? And and basically, you know, flipped them the bird, um, the hoa. Yeah, and said, you know, you can do whatever you want. You can call the cops, you can, you know, call the Coast Guard, you can get an attorney. But I said, We're not leaving until the boat's fixed. So we were there an extra month, month and a half, so what's that?

SPEAKER_03 46:12

Something like that. We couldn't get out of there fast enough because we we're not rule breakers. Um speak for yourself. Yeah, but so we can it wasn't written in the bylaws, they can chill out. Well, and you know, anyway, it sat there for the five years.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

They were the bylaws. I know they just made it up as they went. Yeah, it's awful.

SPEAKER_03 46:29

But so we ended up finding this Royal Palm Marina in Englewood, and Dave Dave motored the boat down there with your son. Yeah, with my son, and they they put it in the new. I don't remember how long the boat was at Royal Palm before, not very long. Would you say a month of maybe a two months? No, no more than that.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

But anyway, we were there for for some time.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

It was a difficult slip to get in and out of, kind of. A little bit run down. Yeah, run down, a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Nowhere near as nice as this one.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Yeah. Oh, you mean the boat or the marina, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

No, the the marina was, but you know, but yeah, and so we're talking about Elizabeth Pearl is a 44-foot defever offshore cruiser, which we're sitting on, a 44-foot defever right now. This is aquacultured, obviously, and we had come in contact uh when you were having the engine issues, right? And so I don't know if you guys were following me on the YouTube channel or Instagram and reached out to me and helped you get in contact with the mechanic for the boat.

SPEAKER_03 47:32

Networking through the using social media, yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

You can you can do that. It is.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

I think I the couple out in San Diego, I think they're oh uh seal.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:44

And I followed you, and um, you know, I just tried to find out any information, especially when it came to problems, because it was difficult to find people to work on the boat. So many people, I mean, don't come out. You can't bring the boat to them most of the time. We even looked into that. Can we can we bring the boat to you? Oh, the marina's too small, you know, a 44-foot boat. Right. So you were so great in helping us find the right people. I think you may have even turned us on to the guy that brought the gas, the diesel.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Yeah, my my yeah, my boss Phil. That was Phil.

SPEAKER_03 48:18

Oh, Phil did? Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

I don't know what you do for fuel. Yeah, but if you get a shore-based fuel provider and the guy comes in a 5,000-gallon truck with 200 feet of hose, yeah, he just wheels that thing out, pulls it on your boat. Yeah, and he's parked out on the street. Right now, you couldn't get it from here. But behind the Shields house, you know, he he pulled up with the curb, and then and Phil even did the fueling for me. He said, I'll pay for it. Um, yeah, we filled it up before we took possession of the boat, we we topped off the tanks. And good golly, $1.78 a gallon.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Yeah, that was right around the time that I fueled this boat up, and I had a fuel truck come, and I think it was jet age fuel or something like that, and they came and fueled up. I got a dollar eighty a gallon at that time. Yeah, topped it off. It was great. Amazing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:03

That changed, but um anyway, we and then we used that same fuel fuel guy when we were in Osprey, didn't we? No. No, oh we didn't.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

We never had to top off again. Yeah. No, you're talking, you're talking over 900 gallons of fuel.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

And that's the and and you know, that's the the funny thing about trawlers is you know, it's kind of a natural transition too. I I know a lot of people in aviation end up being boaters first and foremost, and then a lot of the sailors who have experience on sailboats end up moving on to a trawler because there's a lot of similarities in efficiency, speed, and there's a lot of space, it's stable, it's fuel efficient, so it's a natural natural transition to go onto a trawler. And a DeFever 44 is just such a great living platform and cruising platform. It's seaworthy, it's comfortable, you have twin staterooms, ton of deck space, it's good to handle, and so it's just a a great vessel to have and and do the cruising that you you potentially want to do or living aboard.

SPEAKER_06 49:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

You know, speaking of which, we were racking our brains over what to name the boat, and we we we went we re-documented the boat with Coast Guard and gave them the new name.

SPEAKER_03 50:11

But we've got her to get all that paperwork done.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:13

Well, by that time the boat had been through the hurricane after the hurricane.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

But anyway, um, we were, you know, you're speaking of the aviation angle, if you will. Um and so shirts made we we were talking about boat names and um you know disco fever. Yeah, because it's a defever boat.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

So we were doing a play on words, we were doing like my sailboat, one of my sailboats' names was between the sheets. Oh nice. And for those and you know, but you maybe you don't know. We talked about the lines and the ropes and the painter and you know the halyard and whatnot. The lines or ropes that you control the sails with on a sailboat are called sheets. Don't ask me why. Yeah, I guess maybe because they control something that looks like a big sheet that's up there. So you have a starboard jib sheet, you have a port jib sheet, so if you're on the boat, you're between the sheets. And of course, it's uh you know, it's a double entente. I love it, a play on words, yeah, between the sheets. And of course, I was a chick magnet. That's the whole idea behind boats.

SPEAKER_05 51:18

Um that's how this guy got me.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um, you know, the uh so we're looking for a new name, and I think we're we put it out to the family. We said, you know, everybody we're gonna give you a real expensive bottle of champagne if you're the winner. And so we were trying to develop some ideas, and I had just retired from the airlines, and um, I don't even know who came up with it.

SPEAKER_03 51:42

No, you got a shirt. Didn't you have a shirt?

SPEAKER_00 51:44

Oh, I did, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:45

So he's sitting there at the at the at the bar at our breakfast bar or whatever. It was a t-shirt, and it was an old shirt.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

He has nothing to do, nothing to do with boating, it was an aviation shirt, yeah, it was from an expo, an aviation expo. I believe it was in Tampa at the time, years ago.

SPEAKER_03 52:02

I thought it was up north anyway.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

But anyway, the shirt said, Oh, the shirt was advertising, and I had a baseball cap too. It was advertising for a fly-in community in Missouri. Oh. And it was called Perfect Landing. And so Rebecca looks at my shirt and she's all faded out.

SPEAKER_03 52:21

Perfect landing. Does that have a logo on it? He said, Yeah, and I looked at the back and I'm like, what does it say? It said perfect landing. And I said he said, I said, Where'd you get this? He said, Oh, I worked the tower. Didn't you work the tower?

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Yeah, but it was it wasn't not from the tower, it was from the expo.

SPEAKER_03 52:34

Right, but I mean you didn't anyway, but he's got the t-shirt eventually. So he that's what we're gonna name it.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

Yeah, perfect landing. I love that name.

SPEAKER_05 52:42

Did you get your expensive bottle of champagne for coming up at the end of the day? Yes, she did.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

She owns all the bottles of champagne.

SPEAKER_03 52:49

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, it's not amazing. We always were well stocked with champagne on the on the pearl.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

Had my older sister out on the boat, and um, she's five years older than I am. Uh, we're anchored out, beautiful sunset going down, and I said, Hey, let's uh let's go up on the flybridge, and uh you we get some of that champagne on ice, don't we? And so it was uh an expensive bottle of French champagne. And so we're up there and everybody's got a glass of champagne. The sun's going down beautiful, sea's calm. Um, we're just sitting there bobbing a danker, and my sister goes, she takes a sip, and she sets her glass down. She goes, I never would have thought I'd be on a yacht drinking French champagne, watching the sun go down. That's the way we roll. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

I'm so glad that they got to and you know, see it. Your family, a couple members of his family came down and were able to see and experience. So we were, you know, we got to get through some of these things that happened with the boat, you know. Just yeah, it took time to try to get these things. Dave was working on all new electronical equipment, right? You had put in everything except the auto-Faruno, AIS, radar, autopilot, rudder indicator.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

There's a little story there. So we're with her daughter and her new husband. I guess they were married at the time. Yeah. And so I was like, Luke, why don't you take the helm? So I put them behind the wheel and we're on the intercoastal. So you gotta stay between the buoys, right? I'm waiting for the bridge. Right. And so there's there's a bridge and it's on a schedule. And so I'm like, okay, we'll just hang out here.

SPEAKER_03 54:25

And so um I forget what we didn't have a rudder indicator at that time.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

We yeah, because so anyway. I was showing them um hard over from port to starboard on the wheel, and so you know, I went over and went back, and then I put it where I thought it should be, and then I'm letting him steer, but I'm doing the throttles because you can maneuver the boat. And I mean, we're probably from here to that cat, that's the bridge and the bulkhead, and you know, the stuff where you don't want to hit it. It's good solid, good solid stuff. You want to leave that keep that away from the boat.

SPEAKER_03 55:00

Luke's not a boat captain.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

Yeah, he's got no experience, but he's doing a good job. Yeah, you know, if we had just kept going and they'd open the bridge, we'd have been through, he'd have been fine. Sure. But so now we're dead in the water, and you know, I'm you know, I'm maneuvering the boat using the throttles. And um, so now it's time to go. And so I'm like, okay, Luke's at the helm, and I'm working the throttles, and I put them in forward and I give it a little gas, and the boat starts going but beeline for the bridge. The rudder was hard over, of course, yeah. So I'm like, I got it, I got it, I got it. It takes over. I got it, I got it, I got it. I'm panicking. Yeah, and yeah, we've already taken out the bridge at Hermite. Right. So I I back down, and you know, and I'm sure the bridge tender is sitting there with big old, you know, silver dollar size eyeballs. Yeah. Um, big old 44-footer.

SPEAKER_03 55:50

What did you end up doing? Putting tape around the the steering wheel?

SPEAKER_00 55:53

Oh, I just put uh a nice little piece, a nice little piece of rope work at the 12 o'clock position with the rudder neutral. Now it'll give you false indications six times because three right and three left. Exactly. So you could still have the rudder not be in amidships, but if you were close, you could center it, you know, use at least you'll know something is off if that is not close to being up and down.

SPEAKER_03 56:15

And if you're after that, our our logo, our our saying was it's the rudder, it's the rudder stupid. Check the rudder, didn't you?

SPEAKER_05 56:22

I don't think I would have t-shirts made for that too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

So anyway.

SPEAKER_05 56:26

What's your initial plan for the boat then? What was your plan? Was your plan to do the loop eventually?

SPEAKER_00 56:31

Or that was part of it. But I mean, you know, we wanted a live aboard boat, take it down to Key West, take it over to the Bahamas.

SPEAKER_03 56:38

We wanted to go through the Okeechobee, Okeechobee, what whatever that is.

SPEAKER_00 56:42

You almost have to if you're gonna get to the Okeechobee waterway. Yeah, either that or around Key West.

SPEAKER_03 56:46

I joined all the Facebook groups.

SPEAKER_05 56:47

And so have you ever done that? Did you ever get a chance to do EndNote?

SPEAKER_00 56:51

I got this close to the Calusa Hatchie before Ian interrupted my little sojourn.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

Yeah. And and so here we are. Today is September 21st, 2024.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

Approaching the second year anniversary.

SPEAKER_01 57:04

Exactly. So September 28th, I believe, 2022. Hurricane Ian had.

SPEAKER_03 57:10

September 29th.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

29th, okay.

SPEAKER_03 57:11

And maybe that's when you were rescued.

SPEAKER_01 57:14

Yeah, the 29th. And and so Hurricane Ian forms, and here in Tampa Bay, we've been extremely fortunate. And it's been over a hundred years since we've had a major hurricane make landfall in the immediate Tampa Bay area. And here we have a potential bullseye hit in the Tampa Bay area with a major hurricane Ian. And so we're all thinking up here in Tampa Bay, I've got this the fever, uh, motor vessel aquaculture in downtown St. Petersburg, and I'm thinking this is not good. I'm thinking about potentially taking the boat south, maybe try to get across the state. And, you know, I kind of had an inkling in the back of my mind because I was here during Hurricane Charlie as well, and that kind of had a similar trajectory. It was making a B line for Tampa Bay and then made it a last-minute turn into Pontagorda. And so, you know, I said, you know what, maybe I'll I'll stay here in St. Petersburg because what if I take the boat down to Fort Myers or whatever, and I have a mechanical problem and I can't get into safe harbor, and then the storm decides to go a different direction. I'm screwed. So, you know, you get the age-old question from people who have no experience on boats, what do you do when a hurricane is coming? And you either stay put, secure it, go out to sea, get away from the storm. But here on the west coast of Florida, it's not so cut and dry on clear cut and dry on what to do because you don't have that many escape strategies. You can head south, which is really where the storm is coming from, or what, you go to Mexico and expose yourself out in the Gulf of Mexico or go to Texas or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 58:48

You have two, maybe three choices. Do you go north, you you come out of the marina and you make a left or you make a right?

SPEAKER_01 58:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 58:53

Because you don't, that's it. You're there's two choices coming out of the marina.

SPEAKER_01 58:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

You go right, you go left. Um, and then in hindsight, maybe now is not the time, but what occurred to me in hindsight with 2020 vision, I should have gone out the Venice Inlet and pointed the boat westbound and just left the throttles and get, you know, three days was all I had. Right. So three days west of here at eight knots um would have put me a couple hundred miles out into the gulf. And in hindsight, that would have been the choice I would make now. He talks about that all the time.

SPEAKER_03 59:25

But that's that's a scary idea.

SPEAKER_00 59:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:28

To go out in the Gulf of Mexico with a storm pending, but really if it turned that way. Well, that's fine. That's fine. You can't even get rescued out there. I mean, what in the world? That would have been that I couldn't even imagine that.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Well, I can tell you this a hurricane coming up anywhere over the island of Cuba is not gonna go into the Western Gulf.

SPEAKER_05 59:48

No, it usually breaks up over Cuba.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

No, it's not that it breaks up, it's that when it turns, it's gonna turn to the east.

SPEAKER_06 59:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:54

And that has to do with global high and low pressure systems, you know, at 30 degrees north, predominant westerlies. So as soon as that thing, you know, gets into that jet stream is what it boils down to. It's the turn's gonna be to the east.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Always. Yeah. It's not gonna have any choice. Now, if something's gonna hit Galveston, it's gonna come up the Bay of Campeche and up the coast of Mexico. Um, but that's still gonna end up, you know, if you look at the historical tracks, even after it makes landfall, the thing's not gonna hit South Carolina because it turns to the east. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

So anyway, yeah, and that's all that's always the you know, the the guess is where these storms are going. You have the Bermuda High that's controlling the storm for being able to make that north and northeast turn, and then you have these cold fronts that come down and pull the storm up towards it. So in this time of the year, we're in the we're in the thick of hurricane season for us in this region here, and they form relatively quick in uh you know off of uh uh off of Mexico or um just south of Cuba or in the Western Caribbean essentially, and then they enter into the Gulf of Mexico and have rapid intensification. And then it's like, all right, is it gonna hook uh more southerly or is it gonna hook more northward or go straight north? And that's always a guessing game. And it's a huge, it's not an easy thing to say, I'm just gonna go out to sea and deal with it out there or try to get around the storm or go away from it because these things kind of do what they want to do. Yeah, there's a general trajectory on what they're going to do, but a little bit of movement left or right makes a huge difference. Uncertainty. Yeah.

unknown 1:01:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:30

Yeah, and we heard all we heard at that time was that it was coming north, that it was clear water.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:37

It was coming to you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:38

Right. Clearwater, Tampa Bay, the Coast Guard Clear Clearwater Station was evacuated. They went to Palm Beach. Um, so we just, you know, day I remember we were trying to, well, I was working the phones trying to find slips. Um, but where could we go? Because what happened was we didn't realize that we had to evacuate the marina. And we get a call from the dock master, and it was a couple of days prior to them calling us.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

The Monday prior to the Thursday.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:07

And this is still in Englewood. This is in Englewood.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

Royal Palm Marina.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:11

And they and they called and they said, if we have a name storm that's headed towards this way, and it becomes a name storm, wasn't that it? Then you we were we we will We're ordering you to evacuate. We're gonna have to evacuate 72 hours as soon as it becomes a name storm or something like that, or it becomes a storm that's coming.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

They said if we if we call you, you gotta get out.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

Yeah, basically.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

And so they called us on Monday.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:38

Yeah, and I and Dave just happened to mention it, and I said, What are you talking about? Because we hadn't fine read the fine print that we would have to evacuate. We'd only been there a very short time. And so um I might mention into I've got to find a place to pick the boat. Like, what am I gonna do? I gotta get it on the water. I reached out to you, I called everywhere. I mean, I had a list of places he was supposed to call. We were calling, calling. Where can we go? What can we do? And um, our choices were just not there. And um now, you know, I'm still thinking it's gonna it's gonna be okay. The storm's gonna stay on the track, it's not gonna head this way, they're not gonna force us to evacuate. It's all gonna be fine. You know, it'll it's all gonna be fine. I was optimistic, and then we got Unusual. That's a change, right? Unusual. Unusual. Because I'd grown up with hurricanes, I'm from Miami, you know. We're all from the three of us are from Florida, so I've never evacuated in the 36 years I've been here. So with you know, thinking, oh, there's gonna we're gonna have a party because Paul Barty. You know, when I was in high school, David was gonna hit us or whatever. Didn't they always fear, they always went somewhere, so I just kept thinking, oh, it's gonna be all right. And then we get that dreaded call that we have to evacuate, and we start just trying to not only do we have to evacuate, but we have to get our house buttoned down. We have a room, yeah, we have things that we have to take care of, you know, and what are we gonna do? We're both, you know, seniors, and like, oh my god, there's only so much we can do. Um, and so that's where we are. So you we start trying, and luckily the boat was in working order at that time, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

You had boats are never in working order. There's always something sometimes they sometimes they agree to start when you ask them to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

So were there any known issues at that time with the boat that you're aware of?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:25

I I have been, you know, spent the last year and two months and you know, lavishing um money and elbow grease, um, you know, all the um heat exchangers. I was putting in the nickel copper.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:41

Um, and they're life limited products. I had no idea when the last time that they were changed out. They're eventually disposable. Yeah. So and I'd been doing that.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:49

We'd had generator issues the last time we had gone out. The last, and he he was in the midst of trying to, you know, change all the electronics and just finished the um the moving map, whatever that is. What what do you call it? GPS. Well, it was called something else.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

Chart water.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:05

Yeah, yeah. It was a really nice one, like a big TV.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:08

Yeah, it was half that size. Oh wow for uno. And of course, when you get old, you need reading glasses. And I wanted to be able to um I wore them outlaw, so I wanted to be able to uh get the data, so I got I got the big screen and um mounted that.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:25

And so the generator is the only thing that I know of had that had been giving us the generator was working fine when I left. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, it was. It's just we had had trouble with it. I think we tried to stay overnight um one one time like be right before that, and we hadn't been able to because we couldn't get it. Didn't it have to power the air conditioner or something?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

The air conditioner was the problem, not the generator.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:48

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:49

All right. Well I knew 'cause when you unplug from shore power, we had probably a thousand dollars worth of food on the the big freezer on the floor. So basically, um You know, going back to the ini initial place where we birthed it, um, we had a continual problem with shore power. And I mean, almost to the point where uh fire hazard. You know, I could I could show you like the power cords where you pull it out, it's like looks like a charcoal grill. Yeah. So um at the previous we finally that worked out. Well, but at one point the the shore power wasn't available because there were problems. And um so I had to run the generator for like seven days while we got an electrician, came out, troubleshot the problem. Is it on the boat? Is it on the the pier? You know, where's the actual problem and how are we gonna fix it? What are we gonna do? And it turns out that um I guess they had 220 volt legs, and they combined them to one 240-volt leg 50 amp, which is what we needed. And we were using Y connectors and all kind of monkey motion.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:54

So anyway, um known issues were probably he said the air conditioner, I say the generator, but so that that's it. I mean, you so nothing significant as far as like engineering.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:04

Well, it it was it was seaworthy. Okay, uh you know, the engines were in probably the best shape that they'd ever been when we had the boat. We hadn't used it a whole lot because we'd have after your mechanic got us back on the water.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:17

Yeah, yeah. We had we had other issues, but so and we'd had to we had just had to move it, so we've gone through all of that trying to find a new place and all she she she was in the best condition when whenever I was the owner, she was in the best condition that I had experienced. Sure, it's again you know, it fixed all these different issues that yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:38

I mean, if you go back, I I don't know if you keep a running total of the the money.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:42

Oh god, but I mean I try not to.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:44

Yeah, it's the boat bug me. I'm like, all right, well, let's get a list here. And you've heard it's a thousand dollars. You've heard it, maybe you haven't. Boat is an acronym, B-O-A-T, break out another thousand. Yes. So how many boat units do you need today? Well, probably four or five. Yep. Um anyway, yes, but the boat was a good shape.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:03

Well, you got the call on Monday.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:04

Yeah, Monday.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:05

So they said 72 hours to evaluate.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:07

No, no, no. They said by close of business, you're out of here.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:10

Yeah, wow. Okay, so what did you two do to prepare?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:14

I think they were gonna turn off the electric and turn off the water.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:17

Which they did before we even got out of there.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:19

Yeah, before that we even got out. I was trying to fill the tanks with water when when they shut it off. I'm like, oh my god, they're shutting.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:27

Right while you were filling it?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:29

So I mean you didn't have a lot of time to prepare then for this trip.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

We didn't.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:32

No. Um, and I had just gotten out of the hospital. I have a heart, bad heart, and I had gotten COVID. So I had been hospitalized. In fact, the first place we went when soon when he picked me up at the hospital was go see the boat. This is prior to the storm, but just the week before.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:49

Man's got to have his priorities straight.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:50

Right. The week before. And um, so the possibility of me going on that boat with him wasn't gonna happen. Right. It couldn't happen.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:00

I mean, and you had to take care of the house as well. I mean your home transit. And that was it.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:04

I mean, my my son in Tampa at the time. Um, and he worked, you know, has a job at KPMG and his own, you know, things to do with. My daughter and her husband have their own home, and they've got two little girls. And so it Dave was just, I I don't think that we really thought. I mean, we really I Dave just wanted to get on the water and get the boat out of Palm's way. Right. He knew he could only go so fast, and he just needed to get there as fast as he could. I mean, I think he thought this is gonna be great. You know, I'm gonna have the boat down and you know, as far as I can get, and everything's gonna be fine, and then I'm gonna either all draw it down there and come back with him after the storm, yeah, or um, you know, it's all gonna be good. Right. And so it and then it wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:51

So that's the thing, is you you had short notice to get the boat out of there, first of all.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:56

Yeah, and so not a lot of time to think about all right, what's our next step? Not what do we need on the boat?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:02

No option. I mean, I exhausted every single thing. Well, let me just mention there, my son is saying the statute says you can have to evacuate.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:11

For those of you interested in maritime law, there's uh a law, state of Florida, that says people are more important than property. And so the marina owner wanted to protect his marina.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:26

But it's the state of Florida Statute 32 327.59 prohibits marinas from forcing vessels to be removed after a hurricane watch or warning is issued. The statute protects the safety of the vehicle owners over property interest. But if you read on down here, it there's it's it's legal ease. It kind of double speaks as to marinas being allowed to force you to evacuate.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:53

Yeah, there's a little bit of gray area.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:56

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:57

Of course. Now, whether that paperwork would stand the test of a legal challenge is a whole nother question. Right. But you signed the lease, and so I felt as though I I had to do something.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:08

Um, you know, like he he just said, I gotta, they were telling me to get out of here, I gotta go.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:12

Usually in cases like this, the Florida statute takes precedence over the rules of a marina. Same thing with HOA's economy's and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:20

That would be up to the judge.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:21

Right, but typically in a situation like that, the Florida statute is above all. It is higher than the bylaws uh within these smaller units.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:29

You know, but if you look this one up, if you keep reading, it it kind of allows for them to do exactly what they did.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:36

Yeah, there's a little gray area in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:38

There is, there is, because even after this all happened, I was so outraged, you know so enraged.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:44

I can't imagine.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:44

I can't even imagine how just thought we, you know, we're gonna take them to court, whatever. And if you the more and more that I spoke to people and people start reading, really reading it, it it double speaks.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:56

Yeah. I mean, some of the folks in the same spot that we were in just took their boat out and they went 200 yards, dropped the hook, and they came out with a little damage from wind, but the boat was still floating. Hindsight. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:10

Um yeah, because the boat two two slips over from us wasn't even seaworthy. This old boat, I mean, these this really um, what would you call them?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:18

Like an um I would call them a cute couple.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:22

They were a cute couple, but they were they they lived there like hippies almost. And they her husband did he would go and do the cleaning underneath the boats.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:32

We like to call them boat nicks.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:35

But they they just lived like a um I I there's the the name is a spirit. They're a free spirit. Yeah, yeah, like they were they were bohemian. Oh, that's the word. They were bohemian, you know, they dried their laundry there, you know, they lived there, and um, and they that boat wasn't seaworthy.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:53

I mean, they I think they might have had someone tow them out and just they just kind of put an anchor, and they were they were fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:01

Yeah, and that's the thing is with when these storms were coming, there's no right choice until the outcome of the event occurs. Until after the fact, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:13:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:11

So you you you'll just kill yourself thinking about you know what if and I tried to kill myself without thinking. And so, you know, these old trawlers are not very quick. We uh you have short notice getting out of the marina, we don't have that much time before it's almost the point in overturn. You make your decision, you stick with it. Yeah. Because you're not turning that thing around and outrunning it once you you figure out otherwise. So you guys, so you uh Dave ends up taking the boat himself.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:40

First time single-handing.

unknown 1:13:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:43

Which was, you know, that's another little thing to think about. Well, I felt like I had no choice. I felt like I had to do something, and so I something is what I did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:52

I I I would have never made it. I would not be sitting here right now had I been with him.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:57

Stay tuned for part two, where David finds himself helplessly alone in the worst possible spot as a powerful category four hurricane Ian barrels down upon him. You don't want to miss it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:08

A little after 10 o'clock, I'm sitting in the cabin, I'm sitting right there where you are. The boat, due to Hurricane Force wind and waves, rolls 90 degrees. I'm thrown across the cabin. I hit what ends up being this well, the starboard side.