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.