We left Myrtle Beach Yacht Club on November 19th, a rainy and cloudy morning ahead of a storm. When David poured a cup of coffee at sunrise, he noticed the wind was calm, so he cranked the engine and slipped the lines and off Abundance went, headed for St. Augustine, FL to get to the Oasis Boat Yard, recommended by Tom Morton, the yacht broker who worked with us to find and purchase Abundance back in 2011.

The first day, we motored down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) to Georgetown, SC and anchored for the night near the Historic Waterfront area. On the way there, we were texting with Don and Cindi aboard Sun Storm - friends from Las Vegas who were also headed south. Sunstorm motors faster than Abundance so we didn't actually meet up with them!

We arrived in thick fog and used GPS and radar to find the anchorage and set the hook. We calculated our arrival in St. Augustine so as to arrive in daylight which meant we should leave Georgetown around 1500 the next day, which we did.

We went out of the Winyah Bay inlet and sailed offshore for the two-day trip to Jacksonville. We elected to go in at JAX instead of St. Augustine since the weather forecast was for bigger seas and winds. We had never been into the St. Augustine inlet so we chose JAX and actually arrived in the early morning darkness.

We had been sailing with the headsail deployed on port with our whisker pole. I went off watch and upon getting into the bunk for a nap noticed the wind picking up over 22 knots or so. I went on deck with the intention of rolling up some of the genoa. Some miscommunication occurred and as the genoa sheet was eased, the pole folded in half! So we went forward in rolling seas and took it down. It was so far gone I hurled it into the sea to keep it from bashing around on deck. We really missed it for the rest of the trip!

We now have a new Forespar line control pole - the old one had those infernal buttons on it and it took two of us to manage it. Good riddance!

We arrived here on November 21st and celebrated Thanksgiving at my dear cousin John's home in Sarasota. We went back for Christmas too and enjoyed all the family life with a grand dinner at Liz and Kate's home in Sarasota.

As of February 23rd we are still on the hard and expect to be here another month while we paint the topsides and bottom. It's taking much longer than we thought, of course. We love it here at Oasis - they are a great family run operation and go out of their way to help us.