Mike
01/14/2008, Lake Worth, FL

Jan. 11

We left Vero this morning at 6:45 sharp and motored south in the company of "English Rose." The plan was to go offshore but by the time we got to Fort Pierce, which was only an hour and a half south, the winds were building and our arrival time may have been too late in Lake Worth to fuel up... (which was important) so we stayed inside and dealt with nine bridges. Our anchor was down before dark but the weather seems not to be what was forecast. The winds today were 20kt.s and we need a day to let things lay down so we're sleeping in tomorrow and hoping that Sunday gives us a window for crossing... I'm thinking that in reality it may be a few days more.

It was a long day of driving with shoals at every inlet. We fared well timing the bridges, only waiting on one or two.

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Mike and Kathy
01/10/2008, Vero Beach, Florida

Leaving Vero Beach...

There is a weather window (for crossing the Gulf Stream) forecast for this weekend so we are leaving tomorrow morning for Lake Worth with the plan of heading for the Bahamas on Saturday am. Although we don't know exactly where we'll end up there, there are three or four potential destinations. Our preferred plan would like to sail about 100 miles on Saturday and anchor in Great Sale Cay and then move on to Green Turtle Cay on Monday to check in.

Our general plan is to work our way down the Abacos toward the Exumas by the end of February.

We are going to be traveling with five other boats although there are apt to be about 20 or 30 making the crossing this weekend.

Tonight we had a small get-together with friends here to say good bye....We had great time and played some music. Most of these folks we will see later this winter but there are a couple that we will need to return to see.

Hopefully we will have the Pactor modem up and running soon to remotely add to our blog. Yesterday I was on the phone with the SCS factory rep and from the hardware perspective, everything is fine. We must have a problem with the Winlink or Sail mail software that needs fixing.

Bye

Mike and Kathy

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Mike
01/06/2008, Vero Beach, Florida

Sorry-the Gallery was down when I tried to post the snow pictures, and then I forgot. They're on there now.

Jan. 3rd -Vero Beach

After our radio success of yesterday...both receiving and transmitting, we got a phone call from some folks who are moored here and had heard our transmission. Although we have never met, they invited us over for snacks in the afternoon to share our radio knowledge. Kathy mentioned to them that our radio knowledge was minimal at best, but their invitation stood.

A little later Bob and Deb (we shared a ride back here from the Orlando airport) called this morning to see if we wanted to go with them (they have a car) to finish our provisioning. So we were off at about 10:30 to Sam's Club and Wal-Mart.

After loading up on food and drink, we returned to the marina and transferred everything to the dinghy. The wind had come up and our trip back to the boat was not fun. By the time we reached the boat we were both soaked.

We spent the spent most of the afternoon attempting to find places to stow our newly purchased food stuffs.

Although the weather is still crumby, we did grill a steak for dinner before heading over to Surprise to talk radios

Jan. 4 ...

We didn't really accomplish much today. It was rainy and windy but we did go ashore for showers. Kathy did some sewing with the Speedy Stitcher, cleaned the boat, and I worked on the radio modem. We had Bob and Deb over for dinner and stayed up til midnight.... which is very rare.

Jan. 5

After coffee we headed for shore and caught the bus to West Marine and the Grocery to pick up a few things that we may need in the Bahamas. We had lunch with Corky and Sue from "Surprise" before shopping. Kathy spent the afternoon in the laundry while I hauled water to top off our tank.

Jan 6

I topped off our fuel tank from the jerry cans and then went to the Marina to fill the cans and to fetch 30 more gallons of water. Then we assisted "Surprise" with their SSB and after a few false starts, had Corky transmitting. Kathy spent the entire day sewing up covers for our jerry cans with a few breaks to winch up the outboard and the dinghy itself.

I know that most of you will be surprised to hear that our dinghy has been leaking both air and water .... we hoisted the worthless piece of junk onto the foredeck and searched out the problem areas... again.
I found an old patch that was leaking air... and two spots that may have been leaking water ... I am sure that we have solved the problem once and for all...(not really)

We chat daily with other boaters heading to the Bahamas, trying to decide if the weather window next week is good, or not. Hopefully we will be able to leave soon.

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