Not nearly as harrowing as many of these stories, but I learned several lessons in a short period of time on our second trip bareboating. My wife and I were proud of ourselves as we hosted a large crew and the week had been flawless – this was our last day. On our way from Jost to Norman, the typical rougher sail picked up as we entered the SFD. The dinghy was raised on our Moorings Cat, but I had not tightly secured it and it was swinging a decent amount. It nailed the corner of the grill and deflated – while stupid of me, no big deal, the Moorings folks met us at the Caves and quickly swapped it out for us.

We were then all excited to go for a swim and visit the caves. After jumping in and swimming halfway to the caves, we all got attached by sea lice, so immediately went back to the boat, feeling a little uncomfortable. We decided we need to head straight to Pirates Bight for drinks.

We got everyone aboard and started the engines, and I went back to raise the dinghy. I did a poor job of communicating and found that we were off the mooring ball before I could raise the dinghy fully. My wife was at the helm and the boat was moving slowly, but started to drift closer to the reefs near the end of Treasure Point. So then I communicated clearly and told her to give it throttle and get away from the reef. As she did the dinghy flipped a little, losing its contents, including our gas container that is holding on by the line. She stops as best she can and I dive in to save the fuel container. But of course with the momentum of the boat and me swimming with one hand and one on the fuel, it took me a while to get it in and I looked like an idiot. To make matters worse, my 13 year old daughter filmed me, which gave everyone else a laugh later, but I made her swear not to post on social media.

We recovered most of the lost contents in the dinghy and proceeded to a mooring ball. As we were slowing down, my wife was having issues controlling it and told me to take a look. We had failed to start the starboard engine which is what cause the “drifting” issues to begin with. Started it, grabbed a ball, repaired the torn fuel line, and on to happy hour a little more humble than I felt 2 hours before.