Colby's mantra: "Been there, sniffed that"

We left Stuart last Tuesday, April 13, with sad farewells to some good friends. On to Vero Beach, this time on a mooring. With a good breeze, we rolled out some jib and picked up about 1.5 miles per hour. We stayed there 2 nights, and enjoyed the peacefulness of this lovely anchorage, after 6 weeks at a dock. We walked to the beach, and watched some big waves crashing on the shore. No sails or other boats in sight that day!

Then on to Eau Gallie, where we had stayed before. Again, a good breeze and help from the jib. Just as Karen was falling asleep, after a long day, a furry creature landed on her head, entering through the hatch overhead!! It was a cat, off one of the other boats at the marina. A few screams were emitted when the cat landed!

Next stop Titusville. Our dinghy davits had arrived, so Dick had his next day planned. The installation went quite smoothly, and we are pleased with the quality of the davits. Now our dinghy rides out of the water, no longer available to barnacles looking for a home. With our enclosure and the davits, we are really looking like a true cruising boat now. Speaking of enclosure, we are already pleased with its effectivenss. It is very versatile, and we can have 1, 2, 3 or all 4 panels in place. We have had several rainy periods already, and it is wonderful to stay dry during a rainstorm. And Dick has found that he is much less fatigued at the end of a travel day, with the protection from the wind. It was a lot of work, but is already very useful.

While in Titusville, we visited Cliff and Judy again in their comfortable Florida home. Love that screen porch! We had a great dinner and enjoyed an evening with them. We won't tell who cooked the burgers, but they were excellent! Also while in Titusville, we spent an afternoon with Dawn and Rob Zimmerman. Dawn is the sister of Karen's best friend from high school, and it has been 43 years since they have seen each other!!! Dawn and Rob cruised and lived aboard a Tartan 34 for 9 years, spending time in the Bahamas and the Keys, so it was a lot of fun to chat with them.

In Titusville, we had our first manatee sighting! We saw several swimming in the marina, and one swam by and under the boat. We think it may have cleaned off the knotmeter, as it is now working again!

Then on to Daytona Beach. Tide was against us, and so was the wind, so we powered all the way. It was a long day. The engine was running a bit warm all day, so the morning after we arrived in Daytona, Dick cleaned the heat exchanger and replaced the anode. It was definitely time to do this. Our friends Linda and Ed invited us to their house for dinner. Again, another great meal and an enjoyable evening with friends.

Today the engine temperature was back in the "comfort zone" again, so Dick's work yesterday seems to have solved the overheating problem. Tonight we are at Palm Coast Marina. This is a new spot for us, but a good place to be. And there is free Wifi!! This is the first time we have had a good Wifi connection since leaving Stuart. Hopefully we'll be able to post more often now to the blog, as our experience moving south was that Wifi availability was better north of Florida.

Next stop: St. Augustine, then Jacksonville Beach, and we'll be saying farewell to Florida for this year!

Movin' on north!

We finished what we wanted to accomplish on our enclosure on Tuesday!!! What a wonderful improvement to our traveling comfort this will be. Just sitting at the dock, we have great protection from the wind and rain. Underway, on those nasty days, we will be so much more comfortable. At least two other couples around us have decided that "we too can do this" after seeing what we have accomplished! And many folks and dog lovers have commented on Colby's new "Super Dog" jacket....made of the almost white Sunbrella that matches our dodger, bimini, and new enclosure, this light colored jacket really helps keep a black dog cool in the bright sunlight! Colby continues to make new friends wherevever we go.

Since then it has been preparations to leave Stuart: provisioning, laundry, clean the decks and the dodger, open the coconuts we have been collecting, etc. We had planned to head to Key Biscayne before turning around to head back to Lake Champlain, but 2 major items have changed this plan. First, the weather: although we are now having beautiful, sunny, warm Florida weather, the wind is out of the East. To go south, it would be best to "go out" along the coast, rather than go through the 29 bridges between Palm Beach and Miami. With the wind direction and no centerboard, we decided that this would not be the best plan. And then yesterday, Dick pulled the dinghy out of the water, and the bottom was totally covered with barnacles!!!! We have talked about getting dinghy davits, but hadn't done that, because of our narrow stern and the expense. After a quick trip to the hardware store, and a muriatic acid bath (in an absolute downpour) for the dingy bottom, we researched dinghy davits and placed an order today!! The davits will be shipped to Titusville, to the DIY yard where we stayed a few weeks ago, and by the time we get there (3 days from here), the davits will also arrive. We will install them there, and then continue north. Cliff and Judy are still in Titusville, so we look forward to seeing them again.

This has been a great place to work on our enclosure, and we have made some wonderful new friends here. We had planned to be here a month, and it will be six weeks ago tomorrow that we arrived here. Although we will really miss our friends here, we do look forward to getting underway again. And while it would have been fun to go farther south, there are some spots along the route north that we look forward to visiting and re-visiting. So the plan is to leave here Monday, stop and visit our friends Neil and Deanne from Newfoundland, who have moved their boat to a different location nearby, and then head for Vero Beach.

Almost finished!

We hope none of our good friends and readers have been holding their breath waiting for this enclosure to be finished! This is very different from all of the other boat projects we have done, and it has not been easy. But barring any earthquakes, natural disasters or major health problems, we may actually be finished tomorrow. The last panel should be in place tomorrow. There is still one more panel, the one to go across the aft end of the cockpit, but we will do that at a later date.

Folks are starting to leave; people who have been here several weeks or even several months are leaving to move their boats to storage, north for the summer, or across to the Bahamas. We are still not sure what our next move will be, whether we will go further south or start heading back north from here.

We had a lovely Easter yesterday; Dick sang in the choir at First Presbyterian Church in Port St. Lucie, and Karen and friend Claudia attended the 10:00 service. Our friend David spent some time with us, sorting out some computer problems, and then 8 of us went out to dinner! We had a great time, and enjoyed the company of some fine new friends.

We have been enjoying some beautiful weather, finally. Temps in the high 70's, occasionally 80, and 60's at night. Sunny skies, and light breezes. It feels like Florida!