It’s just been two weeks and it feels like forever, but also like yesterday. I’m kind of caught and feel much like the proverbial dog who finally caught the car. What do I do now?
I’m caught because the ridiculously corporate dental office I’d been using (I was too lazy to change) could not get me in for a procedure before I left town. This wasn’t last minute. It was over a month of wrangling. They’d sent me to an endodontist, but could not schedule doing what he recommended for months. So I did what any good vagabond sailor would do: I left town for a boat.
Luckily, I found a great dentist right here in Wilmington. I’m getting my tooth fixed next week, but that means I can’t go too far too soon.
I wanted to tell the whole story of the odyssey of acquiring sv Mollynogger. It’s a long story so I’ll serialize it here. Here being Substack! I’ve moved the blog from Blogger and Patreon because I think Substack will be a better fit for this project. Thanks for being here.
It all began when my friends Allison and Gaylen, dear friends and the Trop Rock duo Sail Bums, began talking about their hunt for a bigger boat. I watched for some time and then finally asked “Just for insanity’s sake, let me know what you’re going to ask for Mollynogger.” They made me such a bargain, I could not resist. That means that sv Ruth Ann was for sale in Florida and I was headed to North Carolina to meet Molly.
The irony, as I’ve told some of my sailing friends, is that I knew Molly very well, I’d been aboard her for suppers and even cockpit concerts, but I had never been on her while she was moving. Molly is an Endeavor 37 with the Plan B interior and has about three times Ruth Ann’s interior space. My sailing life was about to change for the better; more comfortable and arguably more safe as well.
I was about to quit my job and rejoin Ruth Ann, so many of the pieces were already in place. I just changed my destination. So here’s the beginning of that story:
After a rough start when Uber’s app first lead my driver to the former location of Budget Truck Rental, I got home Friday afternoon to load my Michigan possessions into a Sprinter van. The first thing in was the Nutshell Pram, a dinghy that I had bought in 2024 almost as soon as I got back to Michigan. Then it was a few boxes that I had staged in the breezeway and everything else that was still in the basement. Saturday morning I packed the last of my things and hit the road.
I had been missing the sunsets and palm trees, but I grew up there in Michigan. The Midwest scenery is what I grew up with. Mid Michigan is not quite far enough north for lots of pines, but the decidedly deciduous forests are majestic. I drove past familiar farms and towns as I crossed the state. I drove a truck to support my boat habit and had passed that way many times.
I used to deliver groceries in Ohio for a Michigan based trucking company, so my route was nearly a habit - I-96 across the state and under Lansing, over to US23, down to Toledo, I-75 south to OH68 which connects with US23, and down through Delaware, just north of Columbus. I stopped there at a Meijer Store where I used to deliver. I gassed up and grabbed some lunch. From there on into Columbus was a stretch of stoplights and traffic, until I jumped on the bypass and went around the east side of town to get to US33 which took me down to Athens and then over to Ravenswood, WV.
That last stretch had been one of my favorite drives when I was trucking; remote and quiet. The road wound its way through the Hocking Hills, through river valleys and over lushly forested hills; the foothills, in fact, of the Appalachians. Sadly, on this trip heavy equipment was in the process of rending the landscape, deep on each side of the road. I was jarred by the massive construction project. Ohio DOT was ripping up the forest and widening my favorite little two lane U.S. highway into a mundane limited access highway split by a median. It was heartbreaking.
US33 crosses the Ohio River to Ravenswood, WV on my favorite bridge. I can’t explain it. The bridge is beautiful but not spectacular and tugs at my weird heart whenever I cross it. The beautiful cantilever bridge is just the right shade of light blue against the verdant forested river banks. It seems majestically out of place, yet perfectly at home. In a panic, I looked up online and to my dismay found that the bridge is scheduled to be replaced as the highway is expanded. More heartbreak.
Just outside Ravenswood is I-77, my route south. It was getting late but I enjoyed the lushly green mountains for the first half of West Virginia. After Charleston, I grabbed a bite at Kanawha City and made my way down to the Beckley Travel Plaza. I often made it this far on a first day delivering truckloads of office furniture to Charlotte or other points Southeast. The plaza had been transformed since I had been there last. The new iteration seemed to have been modeled after a chain gas station; like a Sheetz or, heaven forbid, a Bucees. I had brought a sleeping bag and a pad and I thought I would just boondock on my way, but it was cold! It got down into the 40s that night and I was trying to sleep in a big metal box that basically became a cold plate refrigerator. Sleep did not come easy and my old joints were stiff in the morning. I did not boondock again the rest of the week.
My last days in Michigan were filled with planning and packing; and especially catching up with old friends to say goodbye. Actually, they’ve all been invited to sail, so it was more “see you later” than “goodbye.” In the chaos, I hadn’t really done the math about my drive time. Even after, leaving late, I was much closer to the Sail Bums and Molly that second day than I had planned. We were set to meet in Wrightsville Beach to do the deal so that I could take the paperwork with me to Florida. That way, I could most easily register the boat on my trip to pick up my tools and other things from Ruth Ann where she sat in Fort Pierce, Florida.
I called Gaylen and Allison to see if I could meet them a day early. On Sunday, rather than Monday, we did the deal and Mollynogger was mine. I’m still getting used to all that. Nevertheless, the reason to meet early was so that I could get down to Florida, clean up Ruth Ann, get my stuff, and possibly meet with some potential buyers. After lunch with the Sail Bums, we made a video to commemorate and announce the transition, had a shot, and then I hit the road.
I really thought that I could get past Savannah, Georgia, but the chaos, the driving, and the sudden reality of getting myself back on the water began soaking the energy right out of me. Florence, South Carolina was coming up. I’d spent many nights there driving a semi in the south. At a rest stop, I made a reservation and ended my day in Florence.
The next morning, I bought some gas at a truck stop where I had slept many times and headed across the road to grab a coffee and a bagel. It would be an easy stretch to get all the way to Fort Pierce and set up for my projects there.