Haven't blogged for awhile. Here are the really good reasons:

- After 5 years of cruising and taking the voluntary furlough, I decided to go back to work. I had to go through the same stuff as new hires - fingerprinting, homeland security clearance, 11 days of training, etc. , etc., etc.
- Our renters left and we have to get the house in Seattle ready for sale
- Our boat is still in the hurricane area and MUST be north of 30 degrees for insurance purposes by July 1st.

Sooo, I fly to Seattle to get contractors for remodeling and moving out my renters, and then I fly to DC to work, and finally fly to Florida to transit the boat.

The sail from Isla Mujeres to Marathon Florida was beautiful. The weather was perfect and no one got seasick. We were boarded by a few birds (one sea burial for one bird that died) but all in all, uneventful. We traveled with our friends from SV Panache (Jacque & Anet) but they ended up in Key West because Anet got really seasick. We rented a car from Marathon because customs and immigration is in Key West. No big deal, we love the drive over and lo' and behold, we see our friends from SV Panache. They love Key West and will stay there for awhile.

I worked the first week of March for 3 days! It was very painful but I survived. So this is how work feels... why did I come back to work again? I have to keep reminding myself why. After the 3 day job, my buddy Jeanine reminded me that I have training scheduled for 2 days in Chicago. It's like the 11 day training was not enough. Finally, after training, I flew back to Marathon to transit Saben.

The weather was funky so we had to wait 6 days before we finally left. The original plan was to do day hops to Rodriguez key, then Ft. Lauderdale but since we were running out of time, we went offshore to catch the 3 knot gulf stream to push us north. We were sometimes going over 10 knots and it put us into Ft. Lauderdale at 2 am so we kept going north. There was lightning and thunder and a few squalls but that was okay until we heard on the weather channel that northerlies are moving in to create chaos. We decided to go into West Palm Beach by Lake Worth.

When we talked to cruisers in Marathon, they all advised us to get tow insurance. They said that, "It's not a matter of IF but it's WHEN you'll need them." Sure enough, we anchored by Parker Bridge and by 1 pm, we hear a thud. We ran aground and as hard as we tried, we couldn't get out. We called SeaTow and they pulled us off. We then decided to anchor across the bay but before we got in the anchorage, we ran aground again! So, we got towed out of the mess and motored into the Riviera Beach Marina and stayed there for 2 nights.

Yesterday, we left at 0830 hrs, opened about 5 bridges and went through 2 fixed ones. We ended up anchoring in this hectic area where cigarette boats raced each other until dark. This is also where Steve found out that our depth finder was not calibrated correctly, and this just happened within a week or so before we left Marathon. It was reading 4 ft too shallow - this is the reason why we ran aground. He immediately fixed the problem and then moved the boat into a deeper anchorage.

This morning we left the anchorage early before the power boat racers came back to life. This time, we only had to go through 5 fixed bridges and only had to open one. The whole ICW is shallow. We had to keep the boat centered at all times. It only took us 6 hours to get to Vero Beach Marina where we fueled up and tied up to a mooring ball ($13.00/day).

Tomorrow, we scope out the town.

Everyone's safe in SABEN,
Angel, Marie and Steve