The life of a professional sailor...

..sort of.
Well, I survived my first cruise aboard "Yankee." Other than cold, dreary weather, it was fun. The scouts were great, they did all the heavy lifting. They raised and lowered the sails, raised and lowered the anchor, did all the cooking and clean-up. All Megan (the second mate) and I had to do was supervise.
The first day, we took the kids to Sombrero Reef for a couple of hours of snorkeling. Then we sailed to Newfound Harbor for the night. The kids kept anchor watch all night, in two hour shifts. The second day, although cold, was a glorious day of sailing. We averaged 8 knots all the way to Key West.
Just of the coast of Key West, the Captain ordered me to take the helm and he ran below shouting "There's 'Pirate's Lady!'" When he came back on deck he had a small cannon. He mounted the cannon on the leeward rail and told me to try to keep the boat to windward of Pirate's Lady, which was sailing right toward us and also trying to get to windward. I won, and we passed with the other boat on our leeward side. The other boat was also a Boy Scout boat and had their cannon ready. We fired our cannon first (thus winning the encounter) and the scouts on 'Lady' all fell down as if hit by our fire. 'Lady' answered our fire, but too late.
We anchored off Key West for the afternoon and were treated to a great view of the Navy Seals conducting a mock invasion of Flemming Key. We saw them drop parachute loads of supplies and several groups of men.
The following day, we docked in Key West Bight and let the kids have a day ashore. I wandered around KW and bought Bev a new pair of sandals and a tee shirt.
All in all, it was a fun time and a great way to earn a few bucks to pay down the credit card.