I have started today's blog at 0345 in the morning. That is one of the small curses of a combination of the cruising lifestyle and a career in the military - you tend to go to bed when the sun sets and you are used to only 5 or 6 hours sleep per day. So you hit the rack at sometime shortly after 2030 and wake up in the middle of the night. I am going to have to break myself of this vile habit. We are retired after all. At least it isn't nearly as cold this morning as it was for the last couple. Still, we broke open the small propane heater and I'll fire that up in another couple of hours.

We saw a couple of trick-or-treaters out last night. Not many and they were more teenage than small children. I think the little ones are more fun. They are so excited. The teens are just in it for the candies. In fact, as I recall a couple of them were heading into a bistro across the street. Hmmmm!?

One of the other reasons that I couldn't sleep this morning was that I got to worrying about getting to Tampa by Christmas. Silly, eh? However I just couldn't shake it so I had to get up and make out a rough chart from Moorehead City to Tampa by way of Marathon. We also have several cruising guides for the distances from here to Key West and I used those to determine which was the shorter distance - inside on the ICW or offshore. Of course, in some areas such as Georgia, we won't have any choice but the offshore route. At any rate I was able to get back to sleep. The distance that we will need to travel is approximately 1000 miles and we will have 15+24=39 days to do it in and if the weather on the 13 and 14 of November looks good we are going to push it so we will have say 40 days to make that trip. That means we have to do 25 miles a day. This means that if we do our normal 50, we should be able to have some weather time too.

Barb has been off to do the wash and I have walked up to the Radio Shack and bought a couple of electronic things for the boat. First, I did a dumb. I bought a set of those GRS Walki Talkis and two headsets without checking if they were compatible. Guess what? They aren't! Oh well. Something else to have aboard for when we have visitors and one couple is going ashore and we need to stay in touch. I also bought a small speaker for the ship board computer and some coaxial connectors for the SSB antennas. Can't mess those up too much either.

We visited the small farm market here this morning and bought some stuff to put away for Christmas and some other stuff as produce. There were some additional non-purchasing sort of displays including a fellow doing Bonsai and explaining what he was doing - all very interesting, but best of all there were two different bakers, one specializing in deserts and the other in breads. We made purchases from both, plus from a jewellery maker, from a fellow selling free range beef and eggs, and another table selling herb plants.

The weather must be breaking as staring from just after lunch, more and more boats have been arriving from the canal. I expect that there will be a full house again by the wine and cheese party tonight, and that tomorrow morning there will be a major exodus towards the rest of the ICW south, ourselves among them. We have been reminded that the clocks get set back an hour tonight which will let us start the day a half an hour earlier, but on the negative side sunset will come an hour earlier. If we depart by say 0730 tomorrow we will be well past the bridge and at the north end of the Alligator River - Pungo Canal by the time to call it quits for the day. Our intent will be anchor there for the night and then head through the canal to stop at Dowry Creek Marina for that night and to continue to Oriental the next day. Between Dowry Creek and Oriental we will decide if we are going to make a side trip up the river to Washington. The decision will be based on whether we want to spend the time motoring the 30 miles up the river and then 30 miles back. I am leaning towards "another time" myself. At least in Oriental I know that there are yacht supply places where we can spend the time to get the last of the stuff done on Nelleke before the push south. We would be in Oriental by the 4th or 5th which means that weather dependant we could be underway down the coast with only a week's layover or at least as far as Moorehead City.

We have met another couple from Canada, aboard an Ontario 32 and just moments ago another couple on a Niagara, also Canadian. We have planned a BBQ aboard Nelleke tonight to which we have invited all. Hopefully we will be able to stay up late enough tonight to sleep through until at leant 0600 tomorrow,

Getting a little happy right now. Time to sign off.