Well as some of you might know when we came back in March we decided to put Snow Shoo up for sale in Stuart, Florida. We were truly uncertain whether the cruising life was for us or not. The boat still had a number of issues that hadn't been resolved and we were not enthralled with the weather fronts that kept moving through the Bahamas causing us to have to look for shelter every five to ten days.

We had made the decision to head back to Florida in order to find a safe place to keep the boat, put it up for sale and if we changed our minds to easily find the things needed to resolve our power and refrigeration issues. On the way back up along the Exumas we lost an upper shroud while sailing in 20 knot winds. Luckily, this was a minor shroud that when it snapped it did not result in the mast coming down. We were able to jury rig a fix in Nassau and then cross over to Florida without further incident. We saw this break as a warning and we have contracted Mack Sails in Stuart to replace the complete rigging.

Snow Shoo is sitting on the hard in the American Custom Yachts yard in Stuart. We have rented a town house in Stuart for the month of November in order to get the boat ready for cruising this winter. We bought solar panels to help with the power management and we bought a cold plate refrigeration system that is supposed to use less than 40 A per day in power consumption.

Our plans are to get started in late November and sail down to Georgetown as quickly as possible and continue heading south and east as weather permits. As we get closer to departure time we'll give you an update as to where we stand and a better idea of our schedule for heading into the Caribbean.