The Maureen Ann is a 40 foot Cutter Rigged Warrior Sailboat constructed by the Trident Company and owned by Ken & Maureen Anderson from St. John's, NF. Ken is Wendy's dad and originally had the boat custom built in England and eventually sailed it to Florida where it has been for 14 years.

A decision was made to move it from Ft Myers to Cheasapeake Bay to avoid the ongoing hurricanes in Florida and receive a more favourable insurance rate.

Wendy Anderson and Richard Paquette were enlisted to help Ken crew the boat with a timeframe of May 16 to June 2, 2007...plenty of time to leave Ft Myers, round the Keys and travel up the Atlantic side of the US coast...a trip of around 1100 miles.

We joined Ken and Maureen in Ft Myers and readied the boat with stores and rations and did some minor repairs. Maureen bid us farewell and we sailed from Ft Myers on Saturday, May 19th with a favorable weather report. The original plan was to sail down the Gulf coast to Marathon and cross over to the Atlantic side at the 7 Mile Bridge. Everything was progressing well and we had a fine day's sail in emerald waters accompanied by countless dolphins guiding our way. In the late evening the weather suddenly changed for the worst and a safe anchorage could not be found. We decided to reef the main sail and continue on our way and sail through the night. Clear skies prevailed but swelling seas and 25-35 knot winds made for a long journey down the coast in search of better weather.

After an arduous night of crashing through the waves, sharing the helm while each of us took turns trying to catch a wink or two between watches, we eventually sailed past Marathon and decided to not navigate the shallow waters in swelling seas because of hidden sandbars that we would not be able to detect in this weather. The decision was made to make a run for Key West with following wind and seas. Daybreak finally came and although our weary bodies had survived the night we did lose our jyb sail to the relentless wind which had it in tatters.

By mid afternoon we were approaching the entrance to to Key West harbour at the southern most tip of the Keys. The swelling seas made finding the main entrance buoy difficult and we did have a slight altercation with a jetty wall which slightly damaged our rudder. We were assisted to an anchorage by the some locals and secured ourselves after a weary journey. The weather continued to deteriorate with high winds, swelling seas and small craft alerts.

Ken finally succumbed to his exhaustion of only sleeping in small respites while always considering our safety as our esteemed "Captain". Our maiden voyage on the "Maureen Ann' was anything but a restful cruise towards our destination. Richard and Wendy went into the colourful town of Key West to for some 'real' food as cooking was impossible during the trip down.

Over the next few days we hunkered down on our anchorage waiting for the weather to lift, doing some general maintenance on the boat and 'suffered' through frequent visits to what was becoming our favourite 'watering hole', Dante's....it featured not only gourmet dining and drinks...but an enormous pool and waterfall in this tropical paradise.