The Boat Search Begins - NautiKel Adventures

As it is with “The 2 Best Day theories”, we flew from Panama to Martinique to set sights on our possible next boat. We were both excited, but still a bit sad.

Remember we have seen many boats in our experiences of both sailing, instruction and casual racing and cruising, so we are not new to this in the least. So we went and checked out the Amel Super Maramu 52.

This Amel, which will remain nameless here, seemed to be what we were looking for in a boat…..

We do a lot of diligence with a boat, and we carefully choose, as this is our home, our life and our security. It had been damaged in Hurricane Maria while it was in Puerto Rico. Minor damage had been disclosed, but upon our careful analysis, we thought there may be more damage substantially than we had been told.

Along with some ongoing maintenance which seemed not kept up with also it was not ready to go as stated. After three days of Sea Trials and testing, we regretfully declined it.

It was a hard decision. Our hearts wanted to say yes, but our gut was telling us NO, and we have very good GUT feelings, in general. Our “feelings” were telling us that something wasn’t right. We needed to pass.

Seriousness aside, the Oracle cards which were given to us before we left Parksville from our very good friend Pat, confirmed our intuition. 🙂

While in Martinique, a tropical storm was hovering in our general direction. TS Dorian was headed directly to Martinique. While we stayed in a BnB just outside the marina, the storm blew through, and was not nearly as bad as we had anticipated. Luckily.

One of the BEST things in Martinique, that we found having just come from Panama, was the CHEESE and Baguette, I was in HEAVEN!!!! The food, being a French colony, was AMAZING! And SO much of it! I thought we had died and gone to heaven. Remember that we have been in Panama Islands for almost two years and have been deprived of delicacies like cheese, chocolate eclairs and croissants, baguettes, … and ,did i say cheese? And the wine and wine and Rum…. It was all such a delight!

Some of the food was absolutely gastronomically exciting, and others, NOT SO MUCH!!!

So, with no other boats that peaked our interest in Martinique, or area, and a few days to spare before we could fly out, we HAD to do a bit of island touring. With our baggage already at its maximum capacity, we couldn’t really buy anything or do any shopping, so we set out and made a plan to visit consumable tourist highlights!

There are 10 different distilleries spread across Martiniques 425 square miles, and we did our best attempt to visit as many as we could.

Each distillery welcomes visitors with insightful information on the islands unique rhum-agricole production methods, Martinique history, the role rhum plays in the islands culture and best of all, free tastings!!!!

Martinique is a beautiful island, and we visited a few places that we had stopped when we were on FMD with Colin. It brought back fond memories.

So where did we decide to go? Well florida of course, we are bound to find a boat in Florida’s boating mecca center of Ft Lauderdale and vicinity.

Of course, having watched Dorians track since it left Martinique, it looked like it was stalling, but as Hurricanes do, the can be quite unpredictable. It was due to arrive into Miami right about the same time we were, on Tuesday afternoon.