I’m still tucked into Harbor Town Marina in Dania Beach. The weather has been doing its usual South Florida routine—short bursts of rain drifting through, just enough to cool things off without interrupting much. It’s been a good backdrop for boat work. The marine electrician is deep into the lithium installation and making good progress, lately the overcast skies have kept the heat manageable inside the cabin. This would be a different experience in summer’s heat and humidity.

Between the rain, the hum of tools, and the trickle of marina traffic, the week has felt quiet but productive. No deadlines, no rush—just steady progress from one task to the next. At this point, it looks like I’ll stay put through next week as the installation wraps up.

The only real interruption came from the no-see-ums. They drift in at the edges of daylight—dawn and dusk—small enough to overlook, persistent enough that you reach for bug spray almost automatically. It doesn’t take many of them; a few minutes without protection and the calm air suddenly feels like it’s turned on you.

Since not much is happening around here, it feels like a good moment to reach back to the Nova Scotia stretch from July through September and talk about the marina there.

Some of my time in Nova Scotia this past summer was spent at the Armdale Yacht Club tucked up at the far end of the Northwest Arm in Halifax (44°38.119' N 63°36.902' W). I ended up there on the recommendation of my buddy Alex, who I’d met the year before in the Bahamas. He said it was the place to stay if I made it to Halifax, and he was right. The marina was comfortable—welcoming without trying too hard, and populated with just good people.

I worked out a week-to-week rental on a slip owned by one of the permanent residents. He was off cruising, and the Dockmaster told me they’d give me a heads-up if he returned. If I needed to move, there was plenty of room to anchor just outside the marina, and the holding in the mud there was excellent. But it never came to that—I stayed in the slip until the day I left.

Armdale sits on surprisingly historic ground. The stone building near the docks once served as a British prison during the War of 1812, housing American POWs. Before that it held captured French from the Napoleonic War. Deadman’s Island lies just across the water, where many of those prisoners were buried. Each year, the U.S. military still sends a delegation to honor them. Today the prison is used as storage for slipholders, but walking inside, you can still feel that it was built for confinement.

Finn, my 10 year old Weimaraner, loved dock life. The residents—people who lived aboard or spent most of their summers there—took to him immediately. Evenings, they often gathered around a small sitting area on C dock with a few beers, and Finn made himself part of the routine, pulling empties out of the recycle bin under the table and ripping them open to make sure nothing went to waste. He also claimed the calm water off the dock as his personal swimming hole.

Armdale ended up feeling less like a stopover and more like a place I lived for a while— welcoming and layered with history.

After last week’s open mic at Grumpy Gary’s, where Ken Overbay joined me on stage for our version of Paradise by John Prine, I’d heard he played regularly at Riptides Tiki Bar on Hollywood Beach on the weekends. I checked the schedule, saw his name on for Saturday night, and decided to go listen. I’m really glad I did.

Ken has an easy, unforced presence on stage. He’s clearly comfortable there, not performing at the room but working with it. He talks with the crowd between songs, takes requests without hesitation, and makes them feel like part of the set rather than an interruption. Nothing feels rehearsed or stiff—it all comes across as natural, like this is exactly where he’s supposed to be.

There’s a definite Jimmy Buffett thread running through what he does—not imitation, but tone and attitude. South Florida was one of Jimmy’s old stomping grounds, and Ken feels like he fits right into that tradition: coastal, relaxed, and confident enough to let the songs carry the moment.

Ken just belongs in that space. Open air, cold drinks, salt in the air. The kind of musician who settles in, connects with the room, and makes the night feel exactly right.

Have a listen to Ken’s version of Into the Mystic by Van Morrison.

Last month, while making my way south from Fernandina Beach toward St. Augustine, I was hailed on VHF 16 by a boat named Maccabee. The name felt familiar, but I couldn’t place it at first. Where do I know this boat from? We switched to another channel to chat, and within seconds I had my answer. It was Steve and his wife Linda.

Steve trained me after I bought Celtic Cross. Back in 2023, after taking delivery here in Fort Lauderdale, I had enrolled in a training program run by Bill Rouse, a deeply experienced former Amel owner who put me in touch with a another experienced sailor, Steve, who also owns an Amel. Steve came aboard with Todd, one of his crew, and sailed with me from Fort Lauderdale around to Tampa. Those miles weren’t about distance—they were about learning the boat properly.

One night on that passage, on my way to watch I walked past where Steve was sleeping in the sea berth, directly above the battery bank. As my leg brushed the battery box, I felt heat—far more than there should have been. I woke Steve immediately and told him he might be sleeping on top of a bomb. When we opened the compartment, two of the batteries were actively off-gassing hydrogen due to an internal short, pulling an insane amount of current. Yeah, he been sleeping on top of a potentially explosive situation. Steve handled it the way you hope someone will in that moment—calm and methodical. He suggested we disconnected and remove them from the bank. Even then, it took hours for them to cool to a normal temperature.

Steve’s background explains a lot. Army veteran, career in finance, delivery captain. Then, with Linda and their son, he stepped away from that life and spent twelve years circumnavigating aboard Maccabee.

We’ve ended up sharing breakfast a few times at some great diners (like Lester’s) while I’ve been here—conversations about running rigging, motors, or repairs. You start talking about one small system or decision, and an hour later you’ve absorbed a dozen practical insights without realizing it. I’m always learning from him, whether it’s a technical detail or just a better way to do something on the boat.

Linda was just as generous with her knowledge. 3 years ago, as part of my training syllabus, she took me to Publix one afternoon and walked me through how she provisions a boat—what lasts, what doesn’t, and what’s worth carrying even if space is tight. It was practical, hard-earned advice shaped by years of living aboard.

While I was in Paris, they also kept my fiddle and mandolin safe while technicians were moving in and out of the boat. I didn’t expect trouble, but knowing they were with them let me stop thinking about it.

Time spent with someone like Steve and Linda is never wasted. They've lived with boats long enough to know where problems really start and how they usually end. Every visit, every conversation with them added a few more tools to my mental toolbox, and that kind of experience will undoubtedly pay off someday.

The major project aboard Celtic Cross this week is the lithium installation. Having a professional marine electrician onboard doing the job has given me piece of mind, but Thursday was a reminder that even well-run projects can take an unexpected turn.

Earlier in the day, while I was working topside, I could hear drilling coming from inside the boat as the installer worked on mounting components in the battery box area. At one point, I stopped to double-check something that had been on my mind: the relationship between the battery box and the hull. There’s a void—about four inches—between the outer hull and the battery enclosure, and at the level where he was working, everything checked out. He and I agreed there was plenty of separation. No immediate concern.

As the day went on, though, the work moved lower. The shape of the hull curves down, and that void eventually disappears where the hull and the battery box structure become one. One of the brackets he needed to install required a pilot hole, and unfortunately that hole landed just below the end of the void—straight through the hull, below the waterline.

Earlier that same day, almost as a throwaway comment, I’d asked him if he’d ever drilled a hole in a boat by mistake. He said that in ten years of doing this work, he never had. I suppose we forgot to knock on wood.

I didn’t know anything had happened when I heard him mutter “shit”—never a good sign I thought. But I was focused on my work so I ignored it. About forty-five minutes later, the office manager came down and told me he had good news and bad news. I asked for the bad news first.

The hole was small—about two millimeters—but below the waterline, size doesn’t matter. Any hole is an issue. A screw had already been installed to stop ingress, but hearing those words still landed hard.

What followed wasn’t panic so much as a tight, focused anxiety. This was the first time I’d ever had a hole in my boat. Your mind immediately runs through scenarios: water ingress, where it would go, how fast you’d notice it, what you’d do next if something changed. We opened up the area, confirmed there was no water coming in, and verified that the void wasn’t filling. That helped, but it still demanded attention.

The good news was how the situation was handled. They had immediately contacted a fiberglass repairman, and had them come survey the hole and game plan the repair. After looking everything over, it was agreed the right approach was to haul the boat as soon as possible and repair the hull properly from the outside, working in. No shortcuts.

I appreciated the transparency. At one point I had the thought an unscrupulous installer could have easily left that screw in place and say nothing. I would learn about the hole later in the most inconvenient location. Instead, they owned the mistake and moved quickly to fix it. When you’re dealing with things below the waterline, that kind of response matters.

Living on a boat compresses the highs and lows into a narrow space. When I heard about the hole in the hull, my first thought was simple and primal: Is the boat sinking? Often there is no buffer — problems arrive fully formed, and you have to meet them head-on.

We pulled floors, opened compartments, and even drilled a small viewing port into the bunk frame to inspect the void between the hull and the battery enclosure. There’s about a four-inch gap there, and the hole landed just below it. Once we confirmed nothing was leaking, the adrenaline eased, but the edge stayed with me longer than I expected.

That’s the low side of this life, and the lows can get very low. In a storm or heavy seas, when the boat is moving in ways that don’t feel natural to the human body, it’s easy to start questioning everything. I’ve had moments—more than once—where I’ve thought about tying the boat up, selling it, and going back to life on land. A steady floor. A quiet night. Fewer things that can fail all at once.

And then there’s the other side. A calm evening when the light stretches out longer than it should. A sunset that turns the water copper and makes you stop mid-task. A pod of dolphins sliding in along the bow and riding the pressure wave like they’ve been waiting for you to show up.

Writing this newsletter helps me deal with both ends of that spectrum. Putting the lows into words keeps them from rattling around in my head. It doesn’t make the risks disappear, but it makes them manageable.