“Kinda My Worst Nightmare” – Ep. 49

What makes your palms go clammy? Gives you a cold sweat? For both of us, swimming in murky water under a boat is one of our worst nightmares. Time to face our fears! We dive in to clean the hull, in preparation for our sail to Key West.

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Lauren & Kirk

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It’s kinda my worst nightmare. Scuba Steve, damn you!

Neither of us wanna get in the water at the marina.

It’s not clear at all. It’s a part of the boat that fell off, so . Yew!

[Lauren] It’s our last night in Fort Myers beach. We’re going for a sail! Tomorrow we leave for the Keys. We’ve been in the marina for the last two weeks. We’ve got just a few days to go before we leave for Key West. The bottom is scuzzy. Neither of us wanna get in the water at the marina so we’re gonna take it out around, out of the pass and around on the gulf side, and drop anchor there and scrub the bottom.

We have a little more wind than we hoped we would have. So we’re hoping the gulf isn’t too choppy ’cause it’s really nice when you don’t have the boat bucking around on top of you when you are climbing around underneath it. We’re gonna go get the goatee off the bow of the boat.

So we’ve motored around to the gulf side of Fort Myers beach to clean the bottom of the hull of the boat. It’s kinda my worst nightmare. I don’t really like being in water that I can’t see very much. And this water is not very clear. And then scraping off all the gooey gunk on the bottom of the hull, there’s gonna be little shrimps crawling all over. They try and get inside of your ears and in your everything. And I just don’t like being in water that I can’t see the bottom of so we’ve anchored in, what, seven foot of water?

[Lauren] Seven and a half.

And we barely could see the anchor when it hit the bottom. So I’m hoping we’ll have some decent visibility, but today we’ve got a whole hookah setup. Our next door neighbor loaned us his kit for cleaning the hull. So I’ve got suction cups, and brushes, and–

[Lauren] Scrapers?

[Kirk] Scrapers. And a weight belt. Now I’m gonna hook this bad boy up and face my fears. Jump in the water. Hope there’s nothing with teeth around.

[Lauren] I actually might be less afraid than you.

Why’s that?

[Lauren] I dunno, ’cause I don’t mind being out in the open more. If I was doing it in the marina, that would be my absolute worst nightmare.

Yeah, well that was pretty close to my worst nightmare. This is a close second. Will you hand me this stuff when I get in, too? Make sure that that hose comes with me.

[Lauren] I got you, babe.

[Kirk] Okay. Scuba Steve, damn you! It’s not clear at all.

[Lauren] Really?

I’m gonna give you this.

[Lauren] Okay.

[Kirk] I’m gonna clean the top first.

[Lauren] The blue brush?

[Kirk] Yeah.

[Lauren] Yeah. Yup! I just dove under the boat for the first time and Kirk was talking about how it’s like one of his biggest fears. And you can’t really see anything, and it’s actually not really that clear today. Just like Kirk, worst fear in the entire world is being underneath the boat. Actually, it’s pylons. It’s in a marina. But he was working at this for like, a half hour, and I’m just up here, like, holding his line, and I felt bad that I wasn’t in at all. One, because I wanted to help him more, but I’m probably not helping him anymore. I’m just carrying the tools now under the water instead of above. But, two, I need to face my fear and holy crap! I got in the water and I was like hyperventilating through this thing. I was like, And then, after like five minutes, I finally started to relax, so. This is good. I might not be really helping, but this is good. Okay, let’s get in. You scared the shit outta me!

I’m sorry! What’d you think it was? A shark?

[Kirk] I dunno what I thought it was. We’re getting pretty close to the bottom.

Really?

Yeah.

Is the tide coming out?

Yeah. Man, that was really nice when the sun was out for a while.

I know you could actually see everything. Do you want to me to drop the keel like, six inches or something?

Sure.

Just to see what it looks like? Or the center board.

Yeah, but I wanna go to the other side of the boat, too. Why don’t you drop the keel first?

Okay. The center board?

The center board, yeah. The itty bitty one’s starting. Incredibly hard to see all those little dots right there. This came out of our center board trunk. It was right on the edge where the center board goes up into the trunk, and it was just loose. So I just went and it just fell out. Not good, is what that means.

[Lauren] ‘Cause what do you think it is?

[Kirk] Well, it’s a part of the boat that fell off, so that’s never good, but I think it’s some sort of epoxy that was used to smooth over something, and now something is exposed that shouldn’t be. So, I don’t know. I have no idea. We’re gonna have to look into that when we haul the boat out. I am here at the Revolution Cable Park to do something I have not done in a lot of years. And that is ride a cable. Yew! I’m totally stoked to go wakeboarding. Pulled into Fort Myers and met Randy and Cory who are big wakeboarders. Go get ’em, Cory! And they invited me to come out, hang out with ’em for a day at the Cable Park. Hi, where are you headed? The last time I rode at a Cable Park was over fifteen years ago in 2003 at the National Collegiate Water Ski Tournament. Yew! Wakeboarding was all-consuming for me in my teenage years. It took over every part of my life and shaped everything I did. We’d stay out late all summer long until it was too dark to see. We built crazy contraptions to slide on or jump off. Narrowly avoiding disaster most of the time. And it was wakeboarding that led me to video production. I began filming all the crazy stuff we were doing so we could watch it, critique it, and learn how to do it all better. So running into Randy and Cory, who are living the same stoke that I had so many years ago, was completely unexpected. But it brought it all back to me, and I was super excited to get back out on the water. Woohoo! Even though I was pretty rusty, and paid for it dearly with three days of back and knee pain, being able to film and wakeboard with Cory was a blast. You better not fall, or I’ll run you over! He’s quite a ripper. And far surpasses my talents at his age. Thanks again to Cory and his dad Randy for inviting me out. I had an awesome day.

We’ve been in Fort Myers for a couple weeks now, and we’re actually getting ready to leave for the Keys on Friday. What have you done this whole time that we’ve been here?

[Kirk] I’ve replaced the water pump, and flushed all the fluids in the boat, changed the oil, changed the fuel filters.

[Lauren] And bought a wrench set for the elves that we’re hiring to work on our engine from now on. Kirk, these are the tiniest wrenches ever!

Cleaned the boat.

[Lauren] Besides a general clean-up of the cabin, and scrubbing the top side, we discovered Mother’s Polish, and wow, it worked wonders on our mast. We walked up and over this bridge almost every day. A three-mile round trip from the marina into Fort Myers beach, and then we’d take the trolley to the public library to work in the A/C.

I’ve dealt with a lot of real estate stuff. I am about to make a call to potential new tenants for one of our properties in Chicago. All of our tenant leases renew every summer, and one of the tenants is moving out. Hello, this is Kirk. So that all works out well. The only thing I really wanted to ask you a question about was your bird. I have no experience with birds, whatsoever. It seems pretty cool. I looked up a Quaker parrot on YouTube. Does it talk? Yeah. What else did we do?

[Lauren] Well, we positively drooled over another boat. So much so, that we went over to its slip unannounced, hoping to get a tour. Love, are you super excited?

I’m super excited.

[Lauren] What are we doing?

We are going to go see Bazinga, a 48 foot Wharram Ariki that I watched the builder build from day one. For years, I have been wanting to see this boat. We pulled into Fort Myers and drove right past it, and today, we saw the owner cleaning the decks. So we’re gonna go tour it, I hope, I dunno. We’re gonna ask him if we can. If you’ve seen our first few episodes chronicling our boat search, you know the boats we looked at in the beginning were all Catamarans. Our budget wasn’t quite there to afford one, and, in the end, we lucked out finding our beautiful Tartan.

[Lauren] Bazinga was for sale, though there was no way we could afford her, and even if we could, there was one big issue we couldn’t get over: she didn’t have enough standing headroom for Kirk. It’s our last night in Fort Myers beach. Tomorrow we leave for the Keys. ♪ Looking for a blue jean baby queen ♪ ♪ prettiest girl I ever seen ♪

[Lauren] We missed the boat.

Lookit, there’s a bunch of opening up.

[Lauren] Are you ready to go to Key West?

I’m so ready.

[Lauren] Check and see if Mister Beak’s ready?

[Kirk] Mister Beak, are you ready? ♪ Mister Beak, you may have a tiny bit too much oil ♪ ♪ But when we start things up, ’cause it’s been a few days ♪ ♪ then everything will be A-Ok ♪ ♪ Mister Beak, Mister Beak, Mister Beak ♪ ♪ you are our engine ♪ ♪ Mister Beak, Mister Beak, Mister Beak ♪ ♪ you take us to the ocean ♪ ♪ Mister Beak, Mister Beak, Mister Beak ♪ ♪ you provide the forward motion ♪ ♪ Mister Beak, Mister Beak, Mister Beak ♪ Alrighty, I think we do this.

We’re going for a sail! We’re going for a good, long sail. Probably an eighteen-hour sail, give or take. Give or take two hours?

[Kirk] I think four.

Give or take four. But, this will be the first time we put up the sails in three weeks, actually, exactly. And three weeks ago, the sail that we did was kind of a–

Hey, that’s right, we pulled in here literally three weeks ago, today, Friday.

Yeah. We were just sailing down the channel, down the ICW, so, I mean, we were sailing, but it wasn’t like a passage, so. Yeah. 120 miles?

[Kirk] 120.

120 miles. It’s about three p.m. right now. We think we’ll arrive tomorrow, midday-ish. Let’s go!

[Kirk] All right, are you ready?

Yeah! Suppose we want our mat.

[Man In Blue Shirt] Oh yeah, that. Alright, guys, good luck to you!

Thank you!

[Kirk] All right, let’s hop on.

[Lauren] Okay.

[Man In Blue Shirt] I’ll watch you.

[Kirk] Thank you!

[Man In Blue Shirt] Yep, you guys take care! Good luck to you!

[Kirk] And away we go! See ya, Bazinga! Maybe one day! Maybe one day we’ll have a Wharram.

[Lauren] How many times did we walk over that bridge?

I dunno, Fifteen? Well, no, ’cause we went there and back, I dunno. Probably thirty. A lot of times.

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Where you picking my nose?

Key West! Cheeseburgers! Naps!