I think we’re ready to go in the morning. The car is packed with the things we aren’t taking; the gate remote is turned in. I made arrangements to have the latch parts shipped down to Stuart and went for a last ride in St. Augustine to say good-bye to this lovely little city. While I was biking and taking a few pictures the marine store called, the latch parts had come in. So I biked back over and picked them up and Bud and I installed them.

Bud took the time to fish for one last time. He also went and bought a heavy-duty fishing pole for the trip. He now has four fishing poles and a spear for diving. We’d better be eating some seafood in the Bahamas.

It’s been so long since we went anywhere with the boat that it’s going to take some getting used to, but it will be good to be moving again. It will be a few days before I start to feel comfortable with all the new equipment. We plan to have the Yanmar serviced in Stuart. The valves are supposed to be checked after 50 hours, and that should be pretty close to Stuart. We’ll have to change the transmission fluid about halfway there, as that needs to be changed after the first 25 hours of service. We have the fluid and the new filter on board.

This should be the last sunset we see in St. Augustine until we’re back in the late spring. It was a nice one. I started a new photo album for this season and put my farewell photos in it.