Living Aboard Our Second Sailboat: Gemini 1000

Posted on by Jane Iddings
Editor’s Note: The story of our first sailboat, Gone Away, was published on February 29, 2024.
 
Here is Gemini 1000, our beautiful catamaran, shortly after we moved aboard at Eaton’s Boatyard in Castine, Maine on Penobscot Bay. What experiences awaited us? Exciting, terrifying, and more. Hint: the the twin swim ladders on the stern. On a certain stormy night in Alligator River, North Carolina, would alligators climb up these stairs into the cockpit? Could they? But would they?
 
After we sold our first sailboat, Gone Away, many evening meals ended up with us retelling our sailing stories, mesmerizing about the Key West sunrises and sunsets, and wishing we owned another sailboat so we could enjoy the sailing life along the Eastern Seaboard.  Wishes turned into reality when we bought Gemini 1000. We had fallen in love with a similar boat that our dock mates in Key West, Florida owned. 
 
Yes, we were convinced we needed one for ourselves and another sailboat experience. And now was the time to do it. Ken retired from his home inspection business and I retired from my family law/mediation practice. 
 
Gemini 1000 was definitely a step up in living conditions from our monohull. A workable galley with a real half-frig and an almost real bathroom. A huge advantage was the deck between the twin hulls so we could easily see out.
 
Living aboard has two components: the living and the sailing. Ken was all about the sailing. He loves to sail! He loved sailing with the wind directly behind us, the wind pushing us “down the road” with the foresail and the mainsail opposite each other over the port and starboard sides. This is called wing-on-wing.
 
About this time you might be asking why this boat was named Gemini 1000? According to Captain Ken, every boat maker numbers the hulls. Gemini was hull #1000. Perfect name.
 
 
 
Castine was our home for a good part of the summer. It is a beautiful, quintessential New England harbor town. It’s also the location of the Maine Maritime Academy. 
 
We spent June and July getting used to the boat, sailing around Penobscot Bay on day trips, and weekend trips to Bar Harbor and equally scenic Camden. Unfortunately, all too often the infamous Maine rain, fog, and cold accompanied us. But on days when it was beautiful, it was beautiful — the magnificent Maine sailing that all sailors pine for.
 
Just as the summer weather was finally arriving, it was time for us to begin our journey south to Florida waters for the winter to come. We sailed or cruised along the Eastern Seaboard passing by gorgeous New England harbors, century-old classic homes, and the wonderful natural world lived out loud.
 
We arrived in the mid-Atlantic area, staying a month or so at Little Creek Marina in Norfolk, Virginia, the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay. We had spent considerable time there before on our first sailboat so we were familiar with the marina, the sailing, and the surrounding Tidewater area.
 
By September it was time to head down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) that goes through the southeastern states all the way to Miami. It’s a series of natural and man-made canals, rivers, bay, and bayous that allow boaters to have an inside passage a great deal of the time, instead of being exposed to the open ocean. This passage way is alive with birds and sometimes dolphins, as well as close views of the homes along the way. Always interesting!
 
 
Speaking of “alive” — that brings the story to the Alligator River, a swampy, muddy river in North Carolina. We had passed along it several times on Gone Away. Now was Gemini 1000’s turn.
 
It was that proverbial dark and stormy night on the Alligator River, the end of a long day of navigating our way down the ICW. We could have stayed in the relative safety of a small harbor, but instead we chose to push on “just a little further”. We decided to anchor the night in a small cove just off the river. We set the anchor, poured a glass of wine, fixed dinner, and were ready to settle in for the night. 
 
Mother Nature had other plans. Out of seemingly nowhere she blew up a fierce storm that left us in total darkness, the wind howling, the water roiling, and the boat moving moving moving. We dragged anchor until we finally caught something on the bottom to hold the anchor. The worsening weather conditions were terrifying, the total darkness absolutely frightening, but the possibility of what might be in the water scared me out of what few wits I had left. This was, after all, the Alligator River.
 
My previous experience with alligators had been driving along what is called Alligator Alley, a highway spanning across southern Florida from east to west. When I cautiously mentioned “Well, I don’t see any alligators”, Ken replied “Look right there!” In the ditch along the highway was a 100 foot alligator, no maybe it was 12 feet, it just looked like 100 feet. I screamed and locked the door. No alligator was getting into our car!
 
Given my natural affinity for alligators, just imagine how much fun this storm was in Alligator River in total darkness for six or more hours while we awaited sunrise so we could see what the hell was going on. I, of course, was convinced that the alligators could and would climb the swim stairs and charge across the cockpit into the boat. I watched every minute on my watch tick by. Tick tick tick tick tick. I have never known a night could be so long, so terrifying. Finally, the sun rose, daylight returned, we untangled the anchor, and headed once again down Alligator River.  
 
The journey continued to southern Georgia along the beautiful islands, including St. Simons and Jekyll. There we awaited the first of November, the official end of the hurricane season, so we could continue onto Florida. Insurance company rules.
 
While we waited, we started talking about selling the boat. The weather on the East Coast had been horrible much of the summer and fall with rain and damp, moldy conditions. It just wasn’t fun any more.
 
We decided to find a marina in the Florida Keys for the winter, which we found, and then we’d sell the boat the next spring, maybe take the boat back up to Annapolis, Maryland, one of the sailing hot spots on the East Coast. 
 
We informed our Ft. Lauderdale catamaran dealer that we wanted to sell the boat. She suggested that the next weekend we take the boat to a show she was putting on near St. Augustine and Jacksonville, Florida. We did that and guess what? The boat immediately sold!
 
We did not have a Plan B. Now what? While we figured out Plan B, Ken and a friend took the boat to Ft. Lauderdale to go through the selling process, which had its own set of challenges. I headed to a resort at Cocoa Beach to soothe my frayed nerves, enjoy the ocean from the comfort of a cottage on the beach, and celebrate my birthday walking along the beach.  
 
And so ended our sailing days of magnificent sunrises and sunsets, and everything in between, seen from our two beautiful sailboats: Gone Away and Gemini 1000. We consider our sailboat days to have been our best days, for better, for worse. Oh so many memories! Some excruciatingly beautiful and some excruciatingly painful. But for sure two boat loads of memories to last a life time and then some. 
 
                                             
 
Copyright © 2024 by Jane Iddings
 

2 thoughts on “Living Aboard Our Second Sailboat: Gemini 1000”

  2. You make me almost want to go out and buy a sailboat, even though I have never sailed. Almost. Your description of the dark and stormy night on Alligator River, with the “tick, tick, tick and the climbing alligators made me laugh.
    What an exciting story.

    Reply

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