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Salty Podcast Sailor Shirts: https://saltypodcast.myshopify.com

The wind doesn’t just move a boat; it moves a life. Captain Tinsley sits down with her longtime friend Mark to chart the real story behind her voyages—from Atlanta freeways to the Gulf’s passes, from small-boat frustrations to bluewater confidence, and from a hurricane’s chaos to the quiet, stubborn act of healing after losing Salty Scotty. What unfolds is a clear-eyed look at seamanship and the inner weather that shapes it.

We get specific about the money and mechanics of cruising: why smaller, tougher boats keep budgets sane, how anchoring versus marinas changes monthly costs, and which upgrades actually matter offshore. Tinsley walks through ASA training, a game-changing Key Largo refresher, and the Catalina 25 that taught her the value of autopilot and a wheel. She opens the logbook on a night when an alternator belt failed, electronics died, and she and a crewmate lined up on stars until the Coast Guard guided them to safety at dawn—proof that redundancy, calm, and paper backup are not optional.

Then the storm hits. Hurricane Sally’s last-minute turn brought surge that snapped lines and wrecked a marina. Tinsley lost her Island Packet 27 and came away with hard insurance lessons: document every upgrade, update coverage, and triple-line for real surge, not the forecast you want. The rebuild led to a new boat and a sharper standard for “yacht quality” installs—tight through-hulls, clean wiring, and maintenance that pays dividends when the Gulf turns mean.

The most vulnerable chapter is also the bravest. After Scott’s unexpected passing, the sea felt different. She kept moving anyway—Miami slips, Bahamas weather windows, two cats learning the rhythm of passages—leaning on cruisers’ communities from Women Who Sail to the Georgetown anchorage where skills and spare parts circulate like tide. We also get candid about safety as a solo woman, reading water and people, ICW etiquette, rental-pontoon chaos, and the moment a shadowing boat peeled off when boundaries were made unmistakable.

If you love real-world sailing—budgeting, training, storm prep, solo tactics, and the quiet holiness when the engine clicks off—this story will meet you where you are. Subscribe, share with a salty friend, and leave a review with your biggest sailing lesson or question. Your voice helps keep this voyage going.

Support the show

SALTY ABANDON: Cap'n Tinsley, Orange Beach, AL:
Oct 2020 to Present - 1998 Island Packet 320;
Nov 2015-Oct 2020; 1988 Island Packet 27
Feb-Oct 2015 - 1982 Catalina 25

SALTY PODCAST is LIVE every Wed at 6pm Central and is all about the love of sailing!

SALTY PODCAST SAILOR SHIRTS: https://saltypodcast.myshopify.com/
YOUTUBE PLAYLIST: https://saltyabandon/SaltyPodcastPlaylist
Wanna create a Livestream?: Https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5430067749060608

GEAR FEATURED IN MY UPCOMING VIDEOS:
🛟 Boat Fenders → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08S1PXKKR
⚓ Dock Lines → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BS4BNYR9
🧽 Exterior Cleaning Kit → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BL533KR7

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Forty-knot gusts, nine-foot swell, and a mooring field packed with boats waiting out yet another front—welcome to a real-time snapshot of Georgetown, Exumas. We bring on Curt from Sailing Jeep, currently anchored in the thick of it, to share hard-earned lessons on reading models, picking safe anchorages for relentless north winds, and staying sane when the forecast keeps slipping. If you’re staging a Florida–Bahamas crossing or planning the Exumas, this is your field guide to timing, local geography, and the kind of redundancy that pays off when systems pile up.

Curt walks us through his Prout 46 setup—an ocean-capable catamaran optimized for comfort and safety—then opens the toolbox on what really breaks under pressure. A windlass solenoid fails, both engines develop different issues, water systems gulp air, and an autopilot turns useless when compasses disagree. We unpack the diagnostic steps, electrical gremlins that mimic fuel problems, and how to source parts in the Bahamas when brokers, taxes, and delays complicate simple fixes. You’ll also get a cruiser’s map to Georgetown: the dinghy cut to the grocery dock, where to fill water and fuel, and which side offers better shelter when fronts clock from north to south overnight.

And then there’s the night no one aboard will forget. After reported missile launches in the Gulf, the crew films fast-moving objects on night vision while GPS and compasses diverge—later aligning with widespread reports of a major solar flare scrambling anchor alarms across the southern Bahamas. Whether training ops or something stranger, the seamanship takeaways are clear: cross-check references, trust your eyes, and hand-steer with purpose when electronics spin.

If you value practical cruising advice with honest talk about breakdowns, fatigue, and the mindset to keep going, hit play. Subscribe, share with a sailing friend, and leave a review to help more cruisers find the show.

Support the show

SALTY ABANDON: Cap'n Tinsley, Orange Beach, AL:
Oct 2020 to Present - 1998 Island Packet 320;
Nov 2015-Oct 2020; 1988 Island Packet 27
Feb-Oct 2015 - 1982 Catalina 25

SALTY PODCAST is LIVE every Wed at 6pm Central and is all about the love of sailing!

SALTY PODCAST SAILOR SHIRTS: https://saltypodcast.myshopify.com/
YOUTUBE PLAYLIST: https://saltyabandon/SaltyPodcastPlaylist
Wanna create a Livestream?: Https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5430067749060608

GEAR FEATURED IN MY UPCOMING VIDEOS:
🛟 Boat Fenders → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08S1PXKKR
⚓ Dock Lines → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BS4BNYR9
🧽 Exterior Cleaning Kit → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BL533KR7

Send us a text

A quiet dinner at anchor turned into the kind of emergency every cruiser dreads. Within hours, pain escalated into a misdiagnosed crisis, a midnight dash to a small clinic, and a fight to secure an air ambulance before pilots timed out and the airport closed at dark. What followed was necrotizing pancreatitis, weeks in U.S. ICUs, and a hard lesson in how evacuation insurance really works when you’re far from home and the paperwork clock is ticking.

We walk through the chain of failures and fixes: why “get me home” coverage matters, what documents medevac teams demand before dispatch, and how to build a grab-and-go packet that lives both on paper and in your phone. We talk costs and realities—$48,000 flights, FAA crew limits, and the bottleneck no one warns you about: securing a receiving hospital bed before wheels up. Then we share the counterweight to crisis—the cruising community that moved the boat across islands, decommissioned her for hurricane season, coordinated vendors, and welcomed us back with open arms and spare parts. If you sail offshore, this is the blueprint for readiness and the proof that people keep you afloat.

Balancing grit with wonder, Renee also shares her Pacific crew passage: the rhythm of a modern catamaran, the Galapagos logistics machine of agents and inspections, and the payoff underwater—hammerheads, sea lions, and reef mantas barrel-feeding beneath the keel. We dig into real numbers for the canal and Galapagos fees, how biosecurity shapes cruising plans, and why meticulous prep unlocks world-class anchorages. Recovery, resilience, and route planning all collide here, from Bequia and Grenada to the Marquesas and back to the yard in Trinidad.

If you care about bluewater safety, medevac realities, community support, and the raw joy that keeps us chasing horizons, this story is for you. Subscribe, share with a cruising friend, and leave a review with your top takeaway or your own emergency-prep tip—we’ll feature the best on a future show.

Support the show

SALTY ABANDON: Cap'n Tinsley, Orange Beach, AL:
Oct 2020 to Present - 1998 Island Packet 320;
Nov 2015-Oct 2020; 1988 Island Packet 27
Feb-Oct 2015 - 1982 Catalina 25

SALTY PODCAST is LIVE every Wed at 6pm Central and is all about the love of sailing!

SALTY PODCAST SAILOR SHIRTS: https://saltypodcast.myshopify.com/
YOUTUBE PLAYLIST: https://saltyabandon/SaltyPodcastPlaylist
Wanna create a Livestream?: Https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5430067749060608

GEAR FEATURED IN MY UPCOMING VIDEOS:
🛟 Boat Fenders → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08S1PXKKR
⚓ Dock Lines → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BS4BNYR9
🧽 Exterior Cleaning Kit → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BL533KR7