The truth of when we ran AGROUND! We move onto the boat and sail into rocks. And we burn art work

Running Aground Episode They say there are three types of sailors - Those who have run aground, those that will run aground, and liars. Well, in this episode, we finally tell our story of the first time we ran HARD aground in our Jeanneau Sun Fizz Sailboat. We had just bought our boat on Lake Champlain in Vermont. Lake Champlain borders Canada, Vermont and New York, so it was a great location for us to start our journey, since it was only a 6 hour drive from our home in the Finger Lakes of New York. The northern part of the lake connects to the St Lawrence Seaway and the Southern end of the lake connects to the Hudson river via the Champlain Canal. The Green Mountains, Taconic Mountains and Adirondack Mountains surround the lake with beautiful high peaks but also makes it very difficult to navigate. This dramatic landscape means the lake can have very deep water that suddenly rises abruptly with underwater mountains. Even though we had paid for the boat, we were waiting for some of our paperwork to be processed. We were importing the boat from Canada to the United States and the process can be quite complicated. (For those of you interested in the importation process, let us know in the comments below if you would like us to break down the process in a separate episode). So we had not officially registered our boat yet since we needed a cancellation confirmation from the Canadian government before we could submit our paperwork to the United States Coast Guard for documentation. We took a risk, and decided, despite all that, we should test out our new boat and take her out for our first sail as new owners! We had a sea trial with the previous owners before we closed on the boat, during which we were told there are buoys to watch out for in certain areas. There was no chart plotter on the boat, and we were planning to use Navionics on our phone, but as we were preparing to sail off the mooring, we got distracted and forgot to pay attention to the depth. In our minds, we knew which areas to avoid. Our boat has a 6.8ft draft and a bolt on fin keel made of iron. I don't think I can put into words how loud the sound is when that much iron hits hard rock at 5 knots. Andrea tells the story, that she got into a car accident a month later, hit a deer and totaled her car. The sound of us hitting aground was about 5 times as loud as that car crash. It is terrifying. As if running around wasn't enough to deal with, it also was our first time having the dogs on board and we were in the process of moving. We had brought our first van load of items to unpack on the boat to start our liveaboard life. More drama ensued when the Marina owner in North Hero Vermont gave us a hard time for leaving our dogs in the car for a few minutes. It was a cold brisk morning, and we had to dingy back and forth from shore with all of the stuff we were unpacking onto the boat. The previous owner had paid for the mooring ball for the entire season upfront, and it transferred to us during the sale. We were planning to speak with someone in the Marina office our first morning there but wanted to unload a few things from the car first, including our morning coffee. Since the dogs had never been on the boat alone, we knew they would feel more comfortable in the car waiting for us. We certainly didn't want them to panic, jump overboard, or bark and disrupt all of the other boaters. So it seemed like the best solution. Downsizing your living space is a huge undertaking, let alone when your new home is a 40 ft boat! In this episode, we also discover we still have a lot of items we will need to part ways with The final chapter of the episode Logan had several large boxes of art some of it was great some of it not so much so he had a eccentric art burning ceremony letting go of the old to allow something new to take its place. PLease Like, Subscribe and leave comments! It really gives the algs an octane boost and gives Logan personal dopamine hits!