Taunya has left us too, to go home to Halifax and back to work. We'll miss her enthusiasm and bright presence and have reflected several times that our son is fortunate to have found her. Funny. They knew each other at university but it was only after Chris had graduated and moved out west and she was on work term with her career as a personal care giver that they linked up. Long distance relationships are a real test so we'll see what happens. Suffice to say she is a delight and we are sorry to see her go.

We have been planning our departure with our e-friend Duane, and with his advice we are heading for Burnt Store Marina near Gasparilla on Friday, weather permitting. If we leave here early enough and push the "envelope" al little we should make the trip in daylight if we have suitable winds and calm seas. We'd like to make the trip offshore as I am tired of the shallow water in the GICW. It's deep enough to be navigatable for us, but we have a constant tension of watching the depth sounder and the day marks so the watch can't relax even a bit. At the present the weather forecast looks good 5 knots from the east for both Friday and Saturday so since we are on the west coast that means an offshore wind which should mean that there is no fetch and flat seas. Five knots isn't much for Nelleke so we'll be motor sailing again but we should make good time. Depending on how tired we are and how much daylight we have we may anchor off the mouth of the marina there for Friday night and go in on Saturday morning for that day and night. Then, depending upon Duane's schedule, we'll meet him there either on Saturday or Sunday at lunch. That'll give us the day to visit the area a bit, do a few more chores while plugged into electricity and then head over to Cabbage Cay for at least Sunday night.

Last night was relatively calm albeit a cool on until about 4 in the morning when a front must have come through because the winds piped up to 15-20 knots and Nelleke was groaning and surging against the dock lines in her slip. I had just gotten back to the bunk after checking the dock lines when I though I heard voices, one of them indistinguishable and the other shouting, "Out of the way! Out of the way! Out of the way!" That didn't sound good and I had visions of an out of control boat careening through the marina, smashing into boats left and right including Nelleke. But when I poked my head out of the companionway, the only boats that I could see were two powerboats over by the launch ramp trying to get their boats onto their trailers. Jeeze! On one hand I'm happy there were no collisions but on the other, couldn't they have gotten ashore without the histrionics?

Last night when I tried to install the new water pressure pump we found out that they hadn't included the right fittings to match it with the hose in our water system. Sigh! That means another trip back to West Marine. Oh well, at least we do have a functioning pump in the meantime.

Man, what a crazy day! Today was our last full day with the car plus the day we had to take Taunya to the airport so things were spinning.

I got the parts to hook up the new pressure water system pump as I mentioned yesterday. The West Marine folks were really good about it as there were no spare parts available but they let me cannibalize another pump on the shelf so I could get what I needed. Then, with Taunya's assistance, we installed the pump under the floorboards and hooked up the plumbing. When we turned on the power we had one bad moment when it wouldn't run and visions of taking it back to West Marine flashed through my head, but on closer examination we saw that one of the spade connectors that I had used to connect the pump to the power system had come loose (for that read that wee Mikey hadn't hooked it up right in the first place) and once that was corrected it started up and ran properly. We should have got one of them years ago! It makes almost no noise, no more chuga-chuga-chuga every time that we turn on a water tap. Hurrah! As a side note, I was also able to recce out the car rental agency office to which I will be returning the car tomorrow. Only a 2 mile hike back to the boat.

It was still too early to take Taunya to the airport, even though she was all packed and ready, so the three of us went into Gulfport for coffee and a meander along Beach Blvd one last time for her to window shop and enjoy the ambiance. I found out that she had named her stuffed Rottie "Turney" which was a good plan for, as I pointed out to her, if Chris ever really annoys her she can always go home and kick "Turney" around for a while to work out her frustrations without hurting anyone's feelings or getting herself arrested. Then it was off to the airport for the fifth round trip that the rental car has made. Somehow when we got our good deal on the rental I don't think that they understood that we would be putting 2500 miles on it in the month and a half that we had it. Sadly, we are "empty nesters" again and we are hoping that we'll see Taunya again in the summer, even if Chris won't be there.

On the return trip to the boat we stopped at Michaels to get some last minute art supplies for me and then to Publix to reprovision. With the car weighted down with groceries and our bank account lightened by over $200 we finally got back to the boat, but we weren't done yet. While Barb took in some laundry I took the empty propane cylinder in to a place to get it filled. We started last year with two full tanks and expended part of one on the RHSP race and weekends in Halifax; emptied it in Maine and got it refilled in Norfolk while using the other tank. I guess this is the first time that we have been using the propane steadily and it looks like our consumption rate while aboard is something like a tank every three months or 10 pounds a month. Not too bad and of course it would go up if we were in a colder climate and were using the heaters as well as the stove.

We're going to have pizza tonight and Barb will help me chop of the mane a bit. She came up with the idea of us going over to the marina bathroom to do it for a little more space and ease of clean up so we'll see how that goes.

Tomorrow will be our final art class and return of the car and final preps for Friday departure. I want to get away as early as possible in the morning so we will be arriving at Burnt Shore Marina in the daylight if possible. Our trip out the cut with Chris and Taunya was in the form of a pathfinder recce so I now have a track on the GPS that I know we can travel along without running aground.