Larry and I left Washington the 18th of November '08 after having an early Thanksgiving with our family and a surprise goodbye party from our staff. We arrived at Sea Love Boat Works in Ponct Inlet FL. the next day. After being in storage for months our new boat needed a good cleaning and we found more problems with her than the assessor reported. We changed the name from Cats Paw to Dana Jean and after lots of hard work and many trips to West Marine and Bob's Marine store on December 9th we were finally able to put her in the water. The next evening we christened her with our new friends Chris and Linda with a bottle of cheap wine. We hope to see them again on the "high seas" in their beautiful boat the Troubadour . We also hope to see Kevin and Sandy again, they own Bob's Marine and they were so helpful - full of good information and stuff for new boat owners.
December 12, we left Sea Love Boat Works to sail south on the inter coastal waterway. The highlight of this trip was when the space shuttle, the Challenger, flew directly overhead turned and landed. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. We mostly motor sailed in the inter coastal but were able to get about 4 hours of just sailing and could do 6.5 knots. It was tricky keeping her in the channel but we did and had lots of good practice sailing. We anchored out each evening and had no problems. One evening we could see someone's outdoor Christmas tree they place on their roof. It was beautiful and as long as I could see it out of the bedroom window I knew we were still in the right place. It took us three days to get to the West Palm Beach Area were Larry's brother, Leonard, lives. Leonard drove us around and on December 16th we found mooring at Singer Island Yacht Club and rented a car. We stayed over 5 weeks enjoying the holidays, family, making shelves and stuff for our new "home, getting provisions , fishing and getting some sailing experience. It didn't seem that long and we still had stuff to do but we bit the bullet and headed out Lake Worth Inlet for the Bahamas at 2:30 am on December 28th. We expected to motor until the winds changed at 6:00 am. But as luck has it the winds didn't change and we had head winds for 7 hours talk about slow going and rough. We had an engine electrical problem in the middle of the Gulf Stream and lost about 5 miles until Larry could fix it. About 25 miles from West End, Bahamas, the winds did change in our favor and we made up for lost time by doing 6.5-7 knots, the sailing was wonderful still rough seas but wonderful. We got here about 5:00 pm, 14+ hours to cross; we were tired and anchored just outside of West End in the shallows just before dark. In the morning after a swim in the most beautiful waters in the world we checked in with customs, refueled and motored slowly in 4-5 'of water to Harbor Marina just east of West End to wait out the bad weather coming this weekend. For all of you who are trying to keep up with our progress - sorry- our blogging is new to us and we have had very little internet coverage which makes it hard to keep up. Now that we are on our way it may be harder but we will try to keep current and add some pictures. Love to all and keep in touch.