We have finally gotten out of Cocoa and are heading north again. This week featured several days of less-than-great weather including a couple of unabashedly stormy days so we took advantage of already being in a nice marina to stay put until the front was past us.

Today was April Fool's, which is a major holiday in our family: Anne and I have to be sure that Evelyn and Leslie are awake before we get up so that they can enjoy watching us discover their various pranks....some of which we don't find for hours. Today, after dodging the large plastic caterpillar crawling out of a pair of sneakers that dangled from the overhead hand rail, we found the sink filled with demoniacally grinning grapefruits that said they were disturbing! I also discovered that my occasional rantings about the various ways in which having an all-female crew diminishes the manliness of my manly boat have not gone unnoticed: I found "The Man Cave" written with feminine hygiene products taped to the ceiling.

After the discovery hour, I spent the morning working while final provisions were procured and loaded, tanks were drained and filled, and the boat prepared for departure. At lunchtime we spun up the electronics, fired the engine, and finally got underway.

It was more long, straight lines in the wide, open so-called rivers between the mainland and the barrier islands today, but the weather was glorious, the dolphins were active and we finally saw real, live flamingos on some of the islands we passed.