January 7th, I headed down with Thor and a truck load of gear. Had a nice stop south of Nashville and then drove to St Augustine in a 32 degree rain through much of Georgia. Little did I know at the time, but I had put Thor's dish on top of the truck as I was loading things in the rain, and I forgot it there. It rode the whole way down to St Augustine, a healthy 750 miles or more! Saw two massive wrecks on the way down, lucky both were for Northbound traffic. One 30 miles North of Atlanta, blocking all three lanes of 75, and one 40 miles south of Atlanta blocking all 4 lanes of northbound 75. The backups were huge and it would have added a day to my trip for sure if I was going the other way.

Jan 8th, Made the rest of the drive down, racing the clock at the end as I arrived in St Augustine at 4:50, right before the yard closed so I was able to get in and unload the truck before spending a not so nice night at the local Days Inn. Not a great smelling room, not very clean, and with some nasty bugs but they allowed Thor.

January 9th through the 15th were spent working full time on getting the boat ready. The first few days it was just Thor and I and he hung out in the car, after deciding my ramp was not going to work for him.
Got a good deal done on the 9th, cleaned the cockpit, and decks, put out cockpit cushions, helm shade, got mainsail up on top deck and out of cabin, and dingy engine on dingy and out of cabin, fix two spots on stern rub rail that were bulging, ran engines, filled the water tanks and generally got things rolling. Rain held off all day which was nice, but it did rain over night.

January 10th I move the truck under the boat so Thor could use the back with the hatch open. This was handy as it rained hard all day. I spent the entire day working on the instrument wiring and ended the day with the new B&G display mounted, the AIS installed and the radar wires pulled to the display, so everything was now working. At 2am that night I heard some noise in the cockpit and I knew someone was on the boat. I bravely looked out to see what was going on and I scared a cat or a raccoon out of the cockpit. It had been going after the garbage bag I left in the cockpit. I also helped out a neighbors boat when they asked me to check if their fridge was still on and if the solar was keeping up. It was not, and the job of emptying the fridges and freezer was a stinky one! We met them when they were  working on the boat in November getting ready, but home issues and engine issues changed their launch date. The still had not launched Feb 15th after numerous repairs had not fixed one engine and so they had ordered a new one and new saildrive. Such is the cruising life I guess... The new engine arrived on Feb 15th so hopefully they are off an running in a few weeks.

I Spent most of the day on the 11th cleaning the hulls and then picking things up and trying to reduce the clutter so it would look OK when I picked up Cheryl, but the clutter was still fairly overwhelming when she arrived as there was still a good deal of gear to install, and the boat needed serious cleaning. It is hard to describe the effects of 9 months of humidity, a hurricane, and the Florida sun can have on a boat. It makes everything dirty and the next 4 days were spent bringing the boat back to a very nice state of clean, virtually all this work done by Cheryl.
We launched around 3PM with a makeshift "crawler", they used the large fork lift instead. It was an interesting process, and it went smoothly except for rubbing against the pilings which caused some grime stains I had to wax out. It was nice to be floating, and I fired up the dingy and gave Thor what would be the first of many, many dingy rides over the next three months (we seem to consume about 5 gallons of outboard fuel a week on the trip, which shows the dingy usage to get Thor to shore). That night I got Cheryl at the airport. The number of still uninstalled systems was a little more than she hoped for, but, as always, she took it in stride.

On the 12th, Cheryl started cleaning in earnest and I worked on the AIS antenna mount and also attacked the non-working main AC unit. I switched out the control units and it worked, so I ordered a new control. After I did that, the unit failed again. Some more debugging and a call to the regional dealer lead me to a corroded connection which was fine after some cleaning. Now I have a spare controller... Also filled the propane tanks, sorted out the long term parking Garage for the truck, and got more supplies. We bought supplies each day, keeping the local economy running well! The boat looked nice on the dock. It was a nice way to spend my birthday, hanging out with Cheryl, on a boat, in the water. Plus the cooler temps made for good working conditions compared to the heat I saw over the summer visits.

On the 13th we mounted the 3 new 100Watt solar panels on the top of the helm station (this shot shows it a few weeks later), mounted the controller in the nav station, and put the SSB gear in place, but not mounted, washed all sheets and towels, aired the boat out as it was a nice sunny day, and did lots more cleaning.

Starting to make a real dent, on the 14th I got the solar and SSB power wired to the main ships power with a stand alone fuse box, replaced the starboard engine starter, fuel filters on both engines and did some more cleaning. I also figured out why the port aft head motor seemed hit or miss... They had spliced the power line with a few wraps, no physical connectors, just corroded wires.. I fixed this and it was back to running well.

We were going to leave on the 15th, but having power for the cold nights and water for cleaning was nice so we decided to sit one more day. This worked out as I decided to put the new mainsail cover on and discovered the bolt rope holding it into the boom was too small and would not work. Some quick thinking and we had the new and old covers at the Irish Sail Lady for a fix. Hope to pick it up late on the 16th.
With the mainsail work on hold, I took the fuel level sender out of the port tank and after taking it entirely apart, I managed to get it back working, so now we have functioning fuel gauges on both tanks. Also took the opportunity to do some test runs in the dingy. It seems to have managed the summer just fine and my "stabil" gas from the BVI still seems to be doing the trick. Next storage period I think I will go with full fuel and water tanks as it is handy to have water when you visit. We get the guest cabin ready for the first visitor of 2018...

One the 16th we headed out..... On the road to adventure.
Kathy comes and we grab a can to meet her in St Augustine. Fuel 1/4 Star, 3/8 Port. Star head is locked up, motor is frozen, and I could not get the parts out of the base. I gave it a good try though, and the base broke. Need to get a new base which we ordered for delivery in Cape Canaveral in a few days..
Picked up the mainsail cover (thanks to Kathy), and moved the truck to the garage. Cold night of 40 degrees.

17th worked on both engine belts, tightened them, but they do not stay tight. This was to turn out to be a multi week issue, finally traced to the Yanmar belts and rust on the pulleys for the belt. Wire brushed and clean fuel bowl so it would not loose pressure on port engine. Seemed to solve issues. Also put on mainsail cover and main, without the battens. Pretty tough job. But got it off the deck. Met up with Tony and Mary and had a very nice visit. Saw lots of Dolphin in the harbor and around the dingy docks which was nice. Very cold temps with lows of 28 degrees at night. Thor's dish had ice over the top of it. The fresh water pump runs on occasion, and we are not sure where the issue is. We later trace it down to a cracked filter bowl. My guess is it cracked in the freeze we had a couple of weeks before launching the boat. Fun to be out of the Wisconsin cold !

18th  Drop Kathy off at 7:30am. She got to the airport early, but her flight was messed up. Had 6 hours of delays. Windy day. We work on the heads some and more cleaning.  Based on weather, we decide punching down is a good plan, so we skip Daytona beach.

19th After 7 days on the holding tanks, we are off to the ocean. We fill tanks. 57 gals in port tank, (was 1/4 full) and 45 gals in Star tank (also showing 1/4 full). This replaces the Fuel John and I used bringing the boat back from Puerto Rico in April last year. We carry 180 gallons of fuel, 90 in each tank. We also got 4 gallons of gas to add to the 5 gallons we bought in St Augustine gas stations). We ran down on Star engine roughly 19 hours of run time. We left around 3:30, after smooth docking at the gas dock (I was compared to Capt Ron, which is something of a docking compliment if you ever saw the movie). It was a calm and cool night, Thor was a little nervous about the whole thing.

20th We arrive in Cape Canaveral around 10am and go through the locks and the bridge. Anchor just past the locks and play on a couple of tiny little islands. Thor got to play and swim. did not drink too much water, which was good.
Spent afternoon mounting Starboard hatch over the aft bunk. A real pain.

21st took a long dingy ride and a modest break from cleaning and work. Ran 3.5 miles down the canal between the rivers. The other big project was wiring up the glass solar panels and cleaning up the wiring. We jury rigged a tv antenna and watched the Vikes get killed by the Eagles in the NFC championship game.

Monday Jan 22, we moved over to Ocean Club Marina in Cape Canaveral. A very nice spot, where we met up with James and Jill. I took the new base and rebuilt the star aft head while the rest of the gang got groceries and sorted out parking the camper. We enjoyed a nice dinner ashore courtesy of Jill and James.

Jan 23, we spent most of the day at the Space museum, it was a very interesting tour and a fun place to check out. Tasty burger at the Orbit Cafe.

Jan 24 we head out around 1PM, and sailed the rest of the day and that night in a building North breeze. It ends up blowing around 20-25 from the North, and we run down under just the Genoa (knocking the mainsail before dark). Very pleasant sail, and with a full crew, the watches were easy.

25th, we got there a little too early and we looped for 30 minutes to get a little more sunrise going. The Star engine gave up a water alarm in the sail drive, so we just used the port engine. Turned out the alarm was false, but did give us some practice maneuvering under one engine. This was the start of a series of engine issues with the sail drives...
We anchor in the "north anchorage" of lake worth, and enjoy pretty good protection from the windy days that follow. John is holed up in Bimini with a slip for a month waiting out the weather. Blowing steady 20-25, but Mantus holds like a champ, and Anchor hook rope works great. Thor enjoys the first of many trips to Peanut Island, where we can dump trash and generally get him off the boat.

26th The generator was slow starting so we took new battery from port engine and gave it to the generator. The Generator has glow plugs so it has the toughest start loads. Also wire brushed the negative leads. Found a broken hose clamp on the generator exhaust line as well.

27th, James and Jill head out in the morning and we replace the port aft hatch. Always a pain as the nuts are very hard to get at, and the hatch takes 2 hours of wedging and cutting and prying to get off once the crews are out. Not something I hope to do again, but the new hatch looks great, and a critical leak is gone from the boat.
We ran Thor some, and left the lease on. He tripped on the leash and took a nasty fall on the road at Peanut Island. Cut up his feet some and broke a toe nail, but looked worse. He is a trooper, so we hate to see this happen. He recovers smoothly from this spill, and as always, takes the whole thing in stride.
There are four Cats anchored nearby, and they invited us over for happy hour tonight. It is interesting to hear everyone’s plans and they are also looking for a weather window to either head to the Bahamas or in one case, head down towards south America.

28th discovered AIS not transmitting, not getting a GPS signal apparently. I ordered an antenna for the kids to bring down hopefully this will fix it. Paul visited the boat and checked things out. It was nice to see him and get him on the boat. Made an effort to organize and pick up tools and half way install the inverter. Spend time each day on Peanut Island walking Thor (3 times a day). It is a fairly sloppy dingy ride over, but good for the dog and easy access. We sometimes see manatees and Dolphins which is cool. The Manatees hang out in a little basin where we could dock the dingy if we did not like the beach that day.

1/29 saw Steve Jobs boat drift by, he had commissioned it, but it was not finished before he died. I also worked on PSP taxes as they need to be filed by March 15th and we will not be home yet... Running a business from the boat is always tricky :-). We upped anchor, headed out into the Ocean and pumped the heads, and tested the new alternator belts I had installed on each engine. The belts were very hard to get on, needed a screw driver to wedge them over the pulleys, but they loosen up when running. I need to find  a way to get more tension on the alternator arm bolts. Still mainly working on the boat and troubleshooting things every day. We also noticed the port sail drive was very full with oil, which indicates a prop seal leak and water getting into the drive... More fun! I drain out 1 quart of oil and add fresh oil. After a few tests, it seems we may have a slow leak, so this will be something to keep an eye on.

1/30 Replaced the bow port side hatch screen. Tried to replace the starboard aft screen as well, but discovered the headliner boards needed to be epoxied up to the deck before the screen could be installed correctly. Set the Epoxy and will install the screen tomorrow. Very windy 25-30 knots all day. One more day of working all day on the engines and sorting out other items. We lose the board that closes off the battery box overboard as it takes a flying leap off the tramp in the bow during a gust. Cheryl and I are too lazy or whatever to dive in and get it... Lucky our boys are tougher.

1/31 Wed, we upped anchor and motored a few miles south on the ICW, stopping at Palm Harbor Marina (a real super yacht marina,with many large and cool boats.) We filled the water tanks (down about 120 gals I would say), and put 13.6 gals of fuel in Star tank, gauge read 3/4. Also picked up 9 gallons of gas. anchored between the bridges and went ashore to get some food supplies.  Later went in and had a nice dinner. Had a small mistake anchoring as there was current and I thought the boat was not moving, but we were dropping back at 2knots with the current. Put a lot of strain on the windlass when we pulled tight. I will feather out the bridal retrieval line from now on... Did get the hatch screen installed, overall a good day.
Pretty night in a pretty spot.

2/1 Thurs  We continue to fix things here and there on the boat, and a few of them are interesting (code for a less pleasant phrase :-)
One such issue I have been fighting the last week has been alternator belts getting chewed to bits over a few hours of engine run time. I had decided this was because I could not keep tension in the belts, and I came up with a number of clever and drastic ways to keep the belt from loosing tension. Over a few days, and some internet research (since my tension ideas all seemed to fail miserably), I discovered the cause was rust on the engine and alternator pulleys. This rust was eating the belt, causing it to get thinner, hence ride lower in the groves and become looser. I will work on this theory once I can get new belts.

We motored back to our old spot to pick up the boys and Diana tonight late.
Poked around and bought them a parking pass, as they do not let cars in the lot overnight here. Hung a couple of the blinds Cheryl made and discovered the star sail drive water sensor was broken (so had to disconnect it), and also discovered the Port engine heater hose was cut at the pipe right above the alternator. It would leak if I lifted it up, the hatch latch over the alternator also leaked.. No wonder the pulleys were rusting. I cut the hose shorter and re-attached it, and had earlier rebedded the latch fitting. Should be much drier now. Need to get new hoses run as the old ones show some wear. Much calmer night wind wise, which will make picking up the kids easier.

2/2 Friday
Picked up the kids at 1:30am. Smooth dingy ride out to the boat, although it was Diana's first dingy ride, which had to be fun in the middle of the night. In the morning, Cheryl got some groceries and when I was restocking the beer, I discovered where the leak was in the water system. The filter bowl was leaking, likely cracked in the hard freeze a few weeks before we launched. After some futzing, I resealed the bowl with boat life caulk, which helped a lot, but there was still a small leak. After this fun, we had a great sail with a nice 12-15 knot wind and pretty smooth ocean. Also mounted the AIS GPS antenna Matthew brought down and this all seemed to work, so now the AIS is back in business.

2/3 We anchored right where we had a few days earlier when the wind blew the battery door over the side. We saw the door in the water next to the boat, and Matthew kindly agreed to dive in and grab it, which he managed on the first dive. Since it was still windy, after a walk on peanut island, we moved the boat a few miles so we could have a nice dinner without getting wet. The boys treated and it was great!

2/4 The kids had to leave around 12:30 so we moved back to the old spot and had a smooth drop off, without anyone getting wet, despite the strong breeze. It was behind us going in, Cheryl and I got wet coming back out!

2/5 Monday, headed out to Ft Lauderdale, leaving around 4:30am. It is a real zoo in Ft Lauderdale, and we have a few problem boats as we wait for the bridge. We get in smoothly and dock into a tight spot with surprising smoothness and skill (surprising to me anyway). We did 6 loads of laundry, got a car, called in a prescription and washed down the boat before meeting up with a long time work colleague Bob VanValzah and his wife Eileen for drinks and dinner around 4.

2/6 Tuesday was our re provision day and we used it fully. From food to parts to fix the water system, to new alternator belts, we got it all, and returned the car on time. I spent the morning while Cheryl got food sanding all the pulleys on the port engine (the rust was shredding the belts). I put on the new NAPA belt, which was so tight I had to pull the water pump pulley off and reassemble it with the belt on, and things seem solid. This seemed to fix the problem, so I will need to do it on the Starboard engine as well. I cleaned up the belt dust and fragments, and also checked the sail drive oil. The sail drive does not seem to be letting much water in which is great. Also swapped out the water strainer for the fresh water pump which was cracked with a straight pipe solution of my own design... This seemed to fix the fresh water leak. I have a new strainer on order and should be able to go back to the original design without too much trouble. Now I also have a way to plumb in a replacement pump if this one ever fails.
A hard work day was capped off by a nice dinner at Paul and Lori's wonderful house.

2/7 We head out around 9:30 and have a sloppy and windy sail down the coast to Biscayne bay. ESE winds over 20 knots and 6 foot head on then beam on seas make Thor and Cheryl unhappy. Thor seems to struggle and is very low energy when we get to no name harbor. I think he got sea sick or at least stressed out. He uses these moments to shake and look pitifully so we let him hide in the cabin instead of outside.

2/8 Thursday we hang around No Name harbor and as Cheryl walks Thor, I take the windlass motor cover off to see why it is balking lowering the chain. No obvious issue, so more work is needed. I also sand the Star engine pulleys and tighten the belt that is on it now (new a few weeks ago). If this belt does not hold, I will put a NAPA belt on as that is rocking on the Port engine. We then pumped up both paddle boards and played some. Thor jumped in and swam. Drinking a chunk of salt water resulted in some digestive issues, but he seems OK. Overall, a good play day for Thor, and us as the weather was very pleasant.

2/9 The wall on shore is good only at high tide in No Name harbor (otherwise have to lift Thor out of the dingy, which neither he or I love), so we head out around 6am, which is high tide so I can get him a quick easy walk in the morning. Many of our decisions are based on Thor, I hope he appreciates it!
After we left No-Name harbor we had a spirited sail down the keys to Tavenier Key (about 50 miles away, and the first spot with even a little protection from and East wind.). We sailed fast with just the Double reefed main and Genoa out. and averaged over 8 knots for a few hours. End up stopping at Rodriquez key, sort of in the middle of the ocean it seems, but the swells cause no issues when anchored in the cat, and only modest ones in the dingy. The solar was working great on the sail down, kicking in around 18 amps for the batteries, which was nice. Not great access to shore for Thor, so we will head out in the morning. We found a gap in the mangroves, but very limited places to walk.

2/10 Head down for an even faster sail to Molasses Key, but this was a tight fit, no beach (washed away in the Hurricane) and hard to get ashore. This combination of issues caused us to pull up anchor and dodge Crab pots for 6 miles dead upwind back East to Marathon. We anchored outside Marathon and tried a few ways to get Thor ashore, finally lifting him on to the dock/wall of an RV park, where a few of the folks were nice.

Our love of the Keys is in doubt as there are not many spots to stop that offer any protection from an East wind, and the spots to stop are not optimal in any event (if optimal includes beach access for the dog, or swimming etc..). It is interesting, and we are glad to have checked it out some. Having checked it out, we will likely just go outside on the gulf stream and skip the whole thing on the trip back.

There have been some interesting and pretty spot, if you did not want/need shore access for the dog or walking around.

2/11 Hung out at Marathon in the anchorage outside the key. We are too tall to get into the harbor itself, so we dingied in.

Marathon is a big destination for many, with 200 plus boats on mooring balls in the inner harbor, never leaving all winter. It was a couple mile dingy ride in for us to check it out (we are too tall to get under the power lines guarding the harbor entrance, so we would not fit even if there was a spot, but the wait list is weeks long for a can). Once we got in, we did not see the appeal, as there did not seem like much to do. But it is fairly cost effective to stay for a few months on a can, and pump out boats come to you and I think people just park there all winter.

Thor had nothing but problems when we got him to shore, leaving a bit of a surprise in the parking lot that was not possible to pick up. Not much that excited us about the harbor anyway, so I doubt we will be back anytime soon!  We did take the opportunity to go in for lunch at a spot right on the main channel. Lots of greasy fries and a good burger for me, some sort of Shrimp burger, fries and Key Lime pie for Cheryl. There is considerable hurricane damage still around and the place is pretty packed.

It is fairly windy and a little wavy at the anchorage, but we ride pretty comfortably.
I spent some time working on the Star engine belt, but despite best efforts, I could not get the exact same belt that barely fit on the port Engine on the Star engine. Back to the old (10 hours of use) new belt, but now with sanded and polished pulleys.

2/12 Went down to Bahia Honda park and anchored between bridges. The water in the boot alarm was going off again, so I took out the cabinet to get at the alarm and jammed it full of paper towels and taped it shut. This silences the alarm, and all other alarms, so we need to be watchful, but the false buzzer made the engine a holy terror for Thor (and we did not love it either..)

In interesting spot to get to as you go through a gap in the old A1A roadway to a spot between the bridges. Had to use two tries on anchoring as we ended up too close to a mooring or lobster pod thing on the first try. Anchor held firm for two days despite reputation for very bad holding. We hit a snag when we tried to bring Thor ashore: the park was closed to all boat access due to repairs from the hurricane. The little harbor is blocked off, the other small bay has one boat on the wall (the volunteer who we talked to), and no one is supposed to enter the park by boat. Anchoring is fine, but no landings. We talked to Mike, the friendly volunteer and he said he had ridden out the hurricane in the little bay. His boat mainly made it OK, his car was totaled due to water up to the windows from the surge. The harbor needs to be dredged and there is a boat on shore that needs to be removed. Overall, he was not sure when things would be back to normal operations. We did find a spot around the working A1A bridge where we could let Thor off in shallow water and he could walk to a little area by the road. This allows the site to work for us so we decide to stay.
Brief swim in the afternoon and more great weather as we enjoy sunny days and reasonable nights (maybe 70 at night?), with solid East winds of 15-20 that have been blowing the last three weeks at least.

2/13 One more sunny clear day and we do a few boat projects (I install a 2 port USB plug in the Nav station and Cheryl gets a few more areas cleaned up). Cheryl takes a nice walk around to explore, this time we leave Thor behind. He attempted yesterday's walk, but his winter coat is better suited to the 28 degree nights we saw in St Augustine than 80 degrees and hot sun. He was getting over heated.  Cheryl got a nice shot of the boat, and we also had a nice sunset to enjoy. Not much else to report, a nice lazy day overall.
As an overall note, the weather has been great since Kathy left. When she was here we had lows in the high 20’s at night, typical day since then has been 80 for the high and 70 for the low. Nice, sunny weather with an East wind at 15 or so that has been blowing since we landed in West Palm Beach Jan 24th, so three straight weeks of East wind with the forecast for more east winds as far out as they go. No rain since we launched on Jan 11th, so I guess it is hard to complain about the weather.

2/14
We left in the morning, and bravely headed to Newfound Harbor. I say bravely as the channel into it is narrow and the charted depths are 5 feet in spots and we draw 5 feet.
This was the only stop possible between us and Key west, so we tried it. I noticed we seemed very slow right out of the gate heading down there, we were seeing 4 knots with the Genoa and I thought we should be getting 6 easy. Both engines were spinning so I did not think we had a crab pot, but a hour or so later, I noticed a trap being dragged behind the boat. We had caught one on the rudder, not the prop, but it was caught and not going anywhere. We dropped sail and were able to cut the trap free, but the rope and float were still stuck between the rudder and the hull. After some futzing around we were able to get a line on the cut line and I pulled it forward as Cheryl swung the helm. This maneuver took off a little bottom paint, but we did free the float.

With our prize in hand, it was photo time!

The bucket was to wash all the bottom paint off the deck that we picked up from the trap maneuver. With both props clear, and still more conviction to ride the gulf stream on the way back and avoid lobster land, we navigated into Newfound Harbor. It was shallow as advertised, we saw 5.4 feet a few times on the way in, but we did not ground the boat, and are anchored in a reasonable spot. We have not tried to get to shore, but hopefully one of the spits of land will have a spot for Thor. They also look somewhat hurricane damaged, so the walking paths etc in the cruising guides might be gone at this point. The Hurricane hit this area pretty hard.

Overall, we continue to add things, the project list is slowly shrinking, and the boat is rounding into shape. After 6 or so hard fought battles with the engine belts, I think this is stable, and the drives seem not to be leaking very much, which is also good news. The weather has been great, the company outstanding, and we are getting some more in a week. I think the shallow nature of the keys and the general lack of beaches one can visit by boat, make it a little tough with the dog. It is a very pretty spot, and if you had a small boat with a 3 foot draft, I think there would be tons to explore. Our mast height and draft limit us some.

We dingied around some in the afternoon and there was a small channel that was like a small version of Ft Lauderdale, with a number of cut offs, and boats lining each branch. All smaller boats to fit the area, but seemingly every house had a boat out front.  We also took Thor to a small island a 1/4 mile away, where there was a barge/houseboat type set up just off the beach area. The Dog (lady) on that boat came to the Island to say hi to Thor, and when Thor got into the boat to leave, the dog jumped in our dingy as well. The owners called it and it finally jumped out and swam to the houseboat and climbed up some steps in the water to get home. A pretty spot, and we plan on hanging around a few days.

2/15 We enjoy a lazy day at anchor. No need to move the boat as we have a week to get to Key West, and this spot is nice enough. There is a little beach for Thor, and it is quiet, sunny and great temperature wise. Cheryl does some morning yoga and I do some laps around the boat for exercise. Also hang up the remaining two shades Cheryl made so all the cabins have privacy blinds.
We work some on the boat, with Cheryl polishing the rails, and I waxed 1/2 the Starboard hull.

2/16 We have a repeat of Thursday, just calmer winds, so I wax rest of Starboard side and Cheryl does more polishing... It looks great.
We also take longer paddle board rides.

2/17 Saturday, we head off for Key west. 6 days ahead of when we need to get there, but this will give us a chance to check it out. We have a smooth motor and sail (we sail with just the Genoa for a couple of hours at 3-4knots... Lazy crew, I did not bother with the chute even though it was near dead down wind..).  We pull into the marina and get 50 gallons of Diesel, and also fill our water tanks. Now Cheryl and I can be pigs until we hit the slip in 6 days. We also saw the open 40 "Longbow" which is a GLSS owned boat, hanging in a slip at the marina. I also saw them last Feb in the yard at Cracker Boy, and in DeSable Harbor before the start of last year's solomac. We did not like the free anchorages, so we went around to Key West Garrison Bight marina where there is a mooring ball field. We get a ball with me in the dingy and Cheryl driving, works pretty well. The ride to the check in is 15 minutes, but there is a nice island nearby for Thor. We will explore Key West on foot tomorrow and leave Thor to guard the boat...

2/18 Sunday. The morning was spent dodging some light rain and rigging up the lazy Jacks for the main (the parts I could use anyway, the bulk of the line is too thick to go into the mast, but I was able to redo things so I could use the lower portion). I also took some of the excess new lazy jack line and created custom bumper lines for all 8 fenders, so these now look ship shape. A few other small jobs and after Thor's noon walk, we headed into town. It is about 1.4 miles to walk to Duval street and we found a good Mexican place to have lunch, and generally headed back.
The winds have picked back up and it is a steady 20Knots or so from the East. The Dingy generally keeps us dry in the chop.

2/19 Monday. We Stay put and I mess with the engines again. I manage to force the NAPA (OEM Sized) belt on the Star engine, but after 30 minutes of running it is still bar tight, so I remove it and put the old/new one back on. Too tight will destroy the bearings in the water pump and alternator, so I will wait for the parts Tom is bringing down. I also replaced the impellers on both engines. They were the right size, but not the OEM part as they did not have the clever screw in extractor point on the end. The Port engine is gaining a little water in the sail drive. Not a ton, but some, so I will drain a little off and move on. I also cut off the excess rough fiberglass from the half done repair job in the port engine room, and sand it down and put White Gel Coat over the repair. This looks better, is smoother, and I can paint the gel coat gray if I find a good paint match down the road. We took Thor in for a noon swim and let him get some exercise. He did pretty well not drinking the water, and so we should be able to let him swim more as we go to the next stops.

2/20/2018 Tuesday. One more very windy day and we decide to head to town. The pin on one of the dingy davit blocks had broken off so I had to use the hacksaw to cut it free and replace the shackle. That was it for the exciting boat projects for today. Town being the big adventure, with this tour being lead by Cheryl. We saw a pretty cool art boutique with some very fancy items (prices, not on display..), and got a couple of scoops of Ice Cream.

2/21 Wednesday. We took a three mile hike to pick up the head motor and base from the UPS store, and on the way there saw near heaven, with a 5 guys burgers, a Denny's, a Dominoes, and a few other fine dining establishments. As it was too early for 5 guys burgers (not for us, for them..) we had a nice meal at Denny's. We also picked up a couple of other items on the way back and turned in our dingy dock key. Glad we have the larger dingy as it makes the ride back and force a lot easier and drier. After we got back we took Thor for a afternoon swim, which went well and he seems to not be drinking too much water. Thor has made himself at home on the boat, which is very nice to see. The Solar is working very well, and if it is a clear sky day, we pretty well keep even for the  24 hour period with our 450 watts of solar. We got a great call from Matthew and Angel at night letting us know we are going to have a Grandson, which is pretty exciting!

2/22 Thursday, our last full day on the can for this round, and we spend it attending to odd jobs to get ready for company. Some cleaning of the rubber rail around the cockpit as well as stowing items we are not installing right now like the SSB help get the boat a little more ready for company. The morning started out rainy, which was our first measurable rain since Jan 10 or so. it soon went away, and the winds returned. We end up with a very pleasant sunny day. I also got Thor some more swimming time on what is his favorite beach so far! He is still trying to sneak into the cabin, but we are holding firm!

2/23 Friday, we headed to the slip in the Key West Bight Marina. We got in smooth and started the clean up process. Even though we docked smoothly, as the dock hand pulled us forward, we got some gel coat scratches from some nails on the pilings.. Hard to keep a perfect hull!
I got 10 gallons of dingy Gas, and we did some clean up before everyone arrives this afternoon.

2/24 Saturday, we sent folks out in multiple directions to get food and drink, propane, and other items for the week. We also tackled a few other jobs like replacing the alternator belt on the Starboard engine (hopefully for the good now..), and changing the gear oil in the outboard. Also picked up a few supplies at West marine. The fresh water pump was sounding funny and this turned out to be it's final sounds.

2/25 We left the dock around 6am Sunday to make the run down to Fort Jefferson. We left the dock smoothly despite a breeze pushing us on, and boats in front and behind, which was nice. The sail down was a nice down wind ride with Lobster pods, the whole way, but also Dolphin's and turtles and lots of Man-O-War jelly fish. A pretty nice sail overall, and we got in around 3:30 or so. I took some time on the crossing to replace the fresh water pump, which at this point had quit completely (12 hours from sounding funny to dead..). This was a little tricky as the replacement pump was not identical, and the wiring to make the panel light go on took a second to figure out. After some futzing, it was in and running, and it is quieter than the old pump, which is nice. Once we got there,  we immediately took Thor to shore, but to the wrong shore and had to get him back in the dingy as the area was a bird sanctuary. Once we learned the rules, we did better!

2/26 Monday was spent exploring the fort and doing some paddle boarding. The Fort was interesting and we spent a number of trips visiting it. The few guns they had left were fairly cool to check out. There were also two sea planes that made regular runs to the fort and a ferry that took people from Key West each day. Some of the team snorkeled around the fort, which was OK, but not outstanding in terms of the snorkeling. The weather was great as usual, the water warm, and the company outstanding, so it is hard to complain.

2/27 Tuesday, we headed over to Loggerhead Key and did some walking and snorkeling. It was pretty good snorkeling and the island was nice. Thor was very unhappy when we all left him, but he did get over it.
We went back to Fort Jefferson for the night and the anchorage filled in a good deal with 12 boats in the anchorage by the time they stopped arriving. We helped one power boat who did not know how to anchor (mostly in self defense), and Tom was able to get a baggie of Ice for the evening drinks for our trouble! One routine was to get Thor ashore three times a day. It allowed for some peaceful evening walks around the Fort. We also had a nice spot to park the dingy each time.

2/28 Wednesday we headed back and despite the earlier weather forecasts, we had to motor into a bit of a breeze. We stopped at Boca Gande Key and anchored for the night. It was a pretty enough place, but not super interesting and so we pushed back to Key West the next day.

3/1/ Thursday, we sailed and motored back to key West and took a mooring ball in the main city mooring field. After checking in and getting squared away, we took a walk into town and poked around before enjoying our final dinner of the trip.

3/2 Friday was clean up and packing day and the weather was great, with light winds and no waves in the harbor. This made the 1.5 mile dingy ride to shore dry and easy for the folks flying home. It was a great week with Doug, Sarah, Tom and Heidi. One could not ask for more helpful and easy going shipmates. Friday night I spent some more time looking for the water leak in the Starboard hull. I traced it down to a leaking pipe going into the water heater under the aft bunk. After some work, I was able to replace the pipe and this seems to have stopped our water issues on that side! I think this was also freeze damage, and I will drain the system from the two water heaters next year, as I know for a fact that tons of water comes out when you open this fitting!

3/3 Saturday, Cheryl and I spend 3 hours walking around Key West. We covered the areas we had skipped so far, like the cruise ship dock, and some of the other attractions. It was a windy day from the NE, so a little cooler which made the walk very pleasant (as well as the company). It would have been a wet ride in the Dingy for folks going to the airport, so we lucked out there.

3/4 Sunday was a modest work day, with some gear oil changing for the leaking saildrive, pinning the boom vang, and working on our Taxes being some of the highlights! We also gave Thor a nice swim to tire him out for the lazy/low exercise days ahead. Thor has figured out not to drink the water, so his swims have no bad consequences. The mooring field is good in many ways. Everything is far away, but you can get to everything. The island we walk and swim Thor on is typically empty, so we have the place to ourselves. The dingy dock in town is nice and secure, and the walk into Key West is not bad. As one review said: "Everything is 1.5 miles away, the dingy dock, Key West downtown". It is all workable, and not a terrible place to stop.

3/5 We headed over about 11am and docked fairly smoothly into the slip in Key West bight marina. It was a tight turn with a cross wind, but overall, we made it pretty smooth. The boat next to us was one I remembered from the 2012 Salty Dawg rally. Always a small world. We were very efficient in our task, spinning up 4 loads of laundry, getting groceries, some gas, a new fresh water pump (so we are back to having a spare),  and then wandered off to see a movie  and have dinner.  Very efficient dock day.

3/6 Tuesday was the day to push on. We had a nice one day weather window for a fairly smooth sail up to Miami. Although the goal is to avoid the overnight trips, we were both happy to stop dodging crap pots and avoid a upwind motor in Hawks Channel. Plus there were not a lot of good spots to stop if we wanted to break it into a few days. None of the stops on the way down were "must see" stops for the way back. With this in mind, we filled the water tanks, and the bladder tank, so we were at full water, and headed out around 11am. The ride started out pretty sloppy, but after a couple of hours things settled down some and we were able to sail. There was a nice sunset, and the boat sailed very nicely. With about 70 degree apparent wind of 12 knots we were getting 8 knts of boat speed, which was nice.  As night fell, I noticed the bow running light was not working. Cheryl and I worked on it and got it going again, but the light fixture and bulb are both iffy at best, and the new bulb I bought I could not get to fit in the light socket as it had been damaged or in some other way messed up. Time for a nice LED light up there and be done with it. Ended up sailing about have the 130 miles and motor sailing a chunk more. Overall, a pretty nice sail and passage, a great moon rise, and with our arrival as planned at around 8am into Miami's Biscayne bay.

3/7 Spent the day off of No Name harbor. There was room in the harbor for us to anchor, but we liked the space and breeze outside. By timing our trips to shore we made it so Thor could jump from the dingy so no lifting was needed. Both Thor and I liked that!  The area is a park, and there were nice trails for Cheryl to walk on with Thor so everyone could get some exercise.

3/8 Took it easy with some small boat projects like patching the mainsail cover which we had torn on the solar heading down to Fort Jefferson. I had tried a few things, but finally used the hot canvas cutter to melt the tear some, and cut a few scraps from one of the hatch covers Cheryl had made. With these I sewed a patch over the inside and then Cheryl sewed a nice patch over the outside, covering my stitching, and making the whole thing generally match. I hoped to install new screens for the port aft head, but the new screens were not a exact match and so the fit was off. I also discovered the headliner was not set up well to screw the screen into. Fixed this and was able to tweak the old screen to get it mainly working, so after these repairs, I put the old/fixed screen back up.  It was fairly windy overnight, with a nice chop, but the Cat rides this sort of thing well, and anchor is rock solid, never moving an inch.

3/9 Fairly easy day, windy but pleasant. Took the time to clean the davit winches as one of them was sounding odd at best. The center spine that the winch handle is attached to was hard to get out and had some corrosion I had to polish off. I think if I let this sit a couple more years, they would be frozen up. We also locked in haul out date, and made some final plans for the end of the trip.

3/10 Saturday was looking like a good weather day to head up to West Palm Beach, about 60 miles away. We followed the usual routine, with me taking Thor in before sunrise for a quick walk, and got the anchor up as the sun was starting to get 6am start to West Palm Beach. We saw a great sunrise as we headed out, and then had a fast ride North. Peak speeds we saw was 12.8 knts, this had a 2 knot gulf stream push, but we were doing well. Averaged almost 9 knts for the trip, and arrived around 3pm at West palm. Sailed the whole way with a reef in the main and full Genoa.

3/11 Took a lazy day working on some of the odd jobs on the to do list like polishing the blocks and shackle fittings on the boom,  and took a long dingy ride to the anchorage between the bridges. Glad we did that as they are setting up docks for the Palm Beach boat show at the end of the month and the public piers are closed down. It would not have been a great spot for Thor with no access to shore! Quite a production to set up for this show, with a lot of docks being put together, a large tent and massive power being run so all the boats can have the AC on :-)

3/12 There was a front coming through today with a strong cold front behind it. I Cleaned a mast winch before the rains came and then we checked the boat for leaks as it rained. We looked pretty good on the leak front, with a couple of small leaks to chase down, but now some ideas of where to look! After the front came through we sat on the bow and enjoyed the 20-30 knots of breeze post front.

3/13 Finished cleaning winches, put stuff on hatch seals, puttering puttering. Cool day after the front. Now nearly a north wind and maybe 60 degrees. Nice and Sunny though.

3/14 Wed, did some cleaning up, and made it so I could see the Nav station desk for the first time all trip.. Mounted the AT130 antenna tuner for the SSB, and worked a few other small projects. Cheryl came below as we were enjoying a well earned drink enjoying the sun drifting lower in the sky, and asked “Mark, did you spill something down here?”
My first instinct is “gee, I hope not, what does it look like” (because you never know what I might have spilled…). I came to check and there was a lot of water running on the floor and the water pump was running. A quick check under the sink got me soaked. OK, not a slow leak. It turned out the hot water line into the sink had burst.

Lucky for me, it was all rusty and very hard to reach, and hard to see what you were doing as it was behind the sink..  Cheryl was not able to keep the faucet from rotating with the pliers when I was trying to turn loose the rusted nut holding it to the counter, so I put a hand clamp on the end of the adjustable pliers forcing it closed tight. We were able to get it out and I was able to cap off the water lines. Had to use the Sea Gull to wash dishes tonight.

3/15 Spent some time after the morning walk thinking about the faucet issue. Not clear how easy it will be to buy something today that looks and works OK. After a few other ideas would not work, I took two good feed lines off the sink in the bow “slave” cabin which we never use. Put things back together with the new hoses and now the stupid thing leaks very slightly at the joint in the fixture. Must not have liked the gentle way I removed it! It is back in business though, and so we are going to look into longer term fixes down the road.

3/16 Friday, exactly 4 weeks and we should be in Newton, three weeks till we haul the boat, so the trip is winding down. We take advantage of fairly calm weather to head north to Ft Peirce. Lake Worth is flat calm at night, a first for us, and the dingy ride in at 6am is a smooth motor over a fairly calm lake. We get the anchor up and are on our way around 7am. The Ocean is fairly calm as well with a light NW wind, so we are motoring in the calmest waters we have seen the whole trip. Maybe 1 foot waves, maybe a one foot swell.  A day would not be complete without some mechanical issue. Today's was the port engine would not turn over when I hit the starter. Not sure if the switch is bad, the battery weak, or the starter connections dirty (although the starter is new this fall, and should be OK). Need a lot of tools and skills to maintain this boat, but I still like it overall. We have decided we will not buy such a used boat in the future. Too many weird items have needed work.
We get in around 3PM and anchor in a spot off the channel north of this little Island. I don't love the spot so we pull up anchor and as we do, the Coast Guard is heading our way. They don't say anything, but just hover about 5 feet away as we pull up anchor and as we head back out the channel. I try to call them on the radio. I get CG in Miami, I tell them I am trying to reach the CG boat about 5 feet off my port stern, they say OK, but the local boat still does not answer. After 5 more minutes of this weird stalking, they come tight along side and ask to board. We tie up Thor and they do a inspection, which we pass. Seems very odd behavior, but not much we can do.
We go back and anchor on the south side of the island and get Thor ashore for a little romp. The Island is pretty nice for this and Thor gets a well deserved run on the beach. Some of the beach comes and goes with the tide, and it is very popular, getting packed with small boats and people during the day.

3/17 Saturday, We Stay there and the boat rides the current switches very well. The Island get very busy during the day as people set up tents and generally make a day of it. We take an exploratory dingy ride around, and I also re-attach the main ground on the port engine. Still is a little flaky, so I am thinking it is the starter switch going bad. Overall, a very nice day and we enjoy the place. I also tore out the weird sticky caulk in the port aft cabin around the far back port, and re caulk it. I had earlier caulked the outside trip piece. Hopefully this solves the leaking we saw there.

3/18 Sunday. Looking at the weather there will be a strong front coming through Tuesday and one mid day Monday, with some strong winds for Wednesday. We decide to make the slip in Daytona for a week and head out Sunday afternoon to sail overnight and get to Daytona ahead of the weather and at high tide for the channel coming in. Around 3pm we head out and since we have plenty of time to make the 110 mile trip, we sail in fairly light air the first 9 hours or so. We put the Chute up for a while and generally enjoy a very nice, quiet sail. There are some Dolphins and the Ocean is pretty smooth. Thor even comes up to enjoy the sail.

3/19 Monday. Around 1:30am the winds go aft and die some more so we fire up the engine (starboard this time) and motor planning to arrive right about 9am. About 7am I spot lightning and the weather radio and radar show a line of thunderstorms coming through. We are basically around 6 miles from Daytona, with only two drift net fishing boats around, each about a mile away, so we kill the engines and wait to let the front hit us on the Ocean rather than as we snake our way up a unfamiliar channel. This works, and after a medium strength thrunderstorm and rain, we push on in. There is a second wave coming, but except for some rain, we get docked before it hits. This weather was not forecast, nd even in the middle of the night the NWS was not calling for anything in the morning. Always need to be ready I guess.

The way in is interesting, and our first taste of the real intercoastal. We see many dolphins and a few spots of shallow water. The tide is 3 feet and without high tide, we would have been pretty close to grounding in a few spots. The dock is nice and the area is quiet. Seems like a nice change and we will enjoy spending a week here.
Cheryl and I enjoy a evening cocktail as we watch the second wave of rain and storms roll in. They we head off to dinner in the dockside restaruant nearby. It is raing hard when we come back out, but that helps show my aft cabin port fix worked.

3/20 Tuesday we spend puttering on the boat as there are waves of strong storms coming through. There are a few tornado warnings, but the weather that hits us is not that bad. It seems the worst of it went just south of us. We do a short dingy ride around the area, and run the fuel out since we will not need it for a little while. Get set up with a rental car for Wednesday and also discover the main salon AC unit is not working. After swapping out the control board on the AC panel with no change, we order a new main AC control board, which should come Wednesday. Seems like something needs fixing every single day :-)

3/21 Wednesday we grab the rental car and get resupplied. Groceries, some plumbing parts, a nice dinner out and a trip to visit the truck in St Augustine are some of the highlights. It is very windy all day, 20-25 knots, gusts over 30, 2 foot chop in the small little harbor here.  Nice to have the big bumpers! Cheryl tried to take a morning shower, but no hot water on Starboard side. Lucky for me the port side was still hot. The water heater turned off and then did not turn on as needed when the water cooled. I turned it off, then on at the main panel and it fired back up. Always something!  I took the opportunity of a cool day pinned against the dock to wax the port side once more. I did it when we were in St Augustine, so now it has two coats, which it needed. I did the Starboard side at newfound harbor, so hopefully that helps.
I put a new battery in the truck (which was a pain), and hopefully things are ready now for when we come up.

3/22 Thursday, Roger and Eileen come..
I worked on the AC unit. Cheryl worked on the canvas. We are looking at the weather and leaning towards heading out on Saturday.
AC does not quite work perfectly as the temp sensor seems out of order. I need to putter with that as well. My truck key was cracked in half and falling out so I epoxied that back together. Seems the dealer would need to reprogram the car anyway, so locking up this key is no big deal. Just can't ever replace the battery!
Cheryl's folks come on time, and we are joined by old neighbors from their days in Indianapolis. Makes for a nice visit and a enjoyable dinner. Thor uses the time to rest up.

3/23 Used Roger's car to get parts from West marine and got his car oil changed. Generally puttered around all day...

3/24 Due to wind forecast for later in the week, we decide to head up to St Augustine today, with a 7:30am start. Low tide, but what can you do. We go slow over the couple of real low spots, but never see less than 6 feet at low tide. Always pretty on this stretch of water. Smooth ocean, makes for a nice motor. Roger and Eileen get a little Ocean voyage of 55 miles or so and we are happy with choice as the weather Sunday was not the best.

3/25 Sunday Spent day basically getting the car up from Daytona. Left on 10am tender and rode back on the 4PM tender so basically an all day affair, but things went smoothly.

3/26 Monday 10am tender takes Roger and Eillen ashore and we dingy in to send them off.  A nice visit, with no issues and I think everyone was happy to get some Ocean sailing (well motoring...) in. With a day at a dock, a day underway, and a day at the can, they got a taste for everything but anchoring! Spent the day getting some things organized, and dodging the rain that fell most of the day. Also, after three other meathods, I came up with a solution to tieing the can that prevents it from scrapping the hull and taking off all the bottom paint when we are wind against the tide. I tied it short, back to the windlass cleat so there is not enough rode left to reach the hulls. Seems to do the trick.

3/27 Took the day puttering. Gave Thor a long walk to the garage and back, and caulked one of the heads.

3/28 Wednesday. Wake up to a clogged port forward head. Called in time to get the pumpout boat so the tank was empty. Spent a few hours getting the hose off the tank end, and cleaning the calcium out of the hose. Lots of it had broken loose and clogged the hose from the head. Put things back on, and noticed the 1.5" hose to the tank was leaking at a small tear where it hit the tank fitting. This might have been there already as the hose was oddly pushed up and that might have been to move the slice slightly up. In any event, I did not have any 1.5" hose so we headed off to West marine to buy some. The step down fitting was too big to get the hose over, even after I sanded it some, and I had to hammer the hose on to get a reasonable amount on the fitting. Nothing is ever easy!  Got it sorted, decided to date the repair for the record, and the head is in great shape now. Did some more caulking as well.

3/29 Thursday, we met Kathy for a motor around the area. She showed up around 1:30 after a visit to Paul and Lori, Lance's Mom, and Jennifer and Charlotte. It was quite windy so we motored under the bridge, wend most of the way out the inlet, saw large breakers on each side, but the inlet was still passable, and came back. The large dredging machine was tucked back in the inlet some due to the rough conditions. Had a nice visit and went to dinner around 5pm (we are the early bird special folks!). She headed back to Orlando, and we had a rough and wet dingy ride back into a 20 knot wind fighting the current. Hard to stay dry on that one, and I got nailed a couple of times when I took Thor in for his end of day walk. The wind and current produced a fairly jerky motion for the boat as well, and that made it less comfortable sleeping.
Mary was sorry to have missed the outing, but she was not feeling strong enough for the trip. We will get her next time!

3/29 Friday. We got some groceries in the morning and I got a new pair of shoes. Cheryl called them "old man shoes", but I got them at a sporting goods store in the basketball section.... Who can judge fashion. We did some shopping and clicked off a few items getting ready for visitors on Sunday. I put the base part of Cheryl's head back together and changed the oil in the Starboard engine. Trip is clearly winding down!

3/30 Tried a new can tie with the painter on the boat, so the can could not hit. This worked OK, but put a lot of strain on the can. The next day the harbor guys came by and told me I could not have the painter on my boat, but I could tie lines to the can as long as I did not use the splice eye.

Worked on Cheryl's head. The hose to the tank was clogged with calcium, so I got that sorted, I think the motor is leaking when I ran my tests, so that is on the replace list as well. Changed oil in both engines. About 60 hours on each for the trip (estimated for star engine).

3/31 Re-tied my mooring lines with a line to the can from each hull. This keeps the ball of the hull and also smooths the ride. Worked well in the windy period we had against the tide over night. Changed the oil in the generator and filter. Noticed the old filter was the wrong size and hard to get off... Oh well. Now all three are changed. Exactly 100 hours on the gen since launch. Likely a few more the last week, but not bad. Spent a chunk of time finishing our taxes on Turbo Tax, so it should be ready to run when we get home.

4/1 Sunday. Fixed the salon AC issues in the morning ( I had plugged the thermostat into the wrong spot when I replaced the control power board). Used the last of the Caulk to do much of the starboard heads. We then picked up some anti freeze from West Marine and some containers from Lowes before heading to the airport to get Bob and Carol.

4/2 Great sailing day. We headed out into a fairly calm Ocean and got a nice close up of the dregger they use to keep the channel clear. We went out about 8 miles, and enjoyed a near perfect sailing day. We had some fun getting going as the Starboard engine start switch would not work. I was able to short the starter to get it working and rigged a temporary switch to start it until I got things figured out. We stopped at the Fuel dock and filled both water tanks, and took in 85 gallons of Diesel. Very good and productive day overall.

4/3 We took advantage of the fairly calm weather to remove the mainsail and cover. It took about 90 minutes, which I viewed as pretty fast!. We then headed to shore for a trolley ride to explore the town and take a trolley tour. Retied the can again, this time with 3 strand lines run through blocks on the ends of the hulls. Gives me better adjust-ability and shock absorption. Seems to work great, but need to un twist them each day due to the tide swing.

4/4 Everyone else went on a lighthouse tour, I worked on the engine. No success. I could not track down the starter issue or the blower issue.

4/5 Thursday, not one to give up easily, I spent a good deal of time removing the engine panel, cleaned all engine wires and got the starter back working. Wired the hour meter to the fuel lift pump, got this working as well. After a nice lunch, we headed into town to walk around, and visit odd spots like the museum of weird junk collections! We had some weather blow in, and threaten us with heavy rain, but all we really got was a very cool cloud formation and sunset.

4/6 Friday was our last day in the water, so we made use of the mooring field's free pump outs and got both heads pumped in the morning. Took more small items off and at 1PM, we headed to the boat yard to get hauled out. This went very smoothly, which was nice, and by 3:30, we were blocked and it was time to take Carol and Bob to the airport.

4/7 Saturday was a busy day packing the boat up, and also our last night sleeping on it for this "trip".  Much of the time was spent doing laundry and putting the engines to bed. Good old Thor spent these last two nights in the car, which he seemed OK with.

4/8 Sunday. We finished the packing of the boat, put all the bunks on their sides, covered all hatches and in general, tuck the boat in. We hopped in the car around 12:30 and we were back in Newton at 3:30 the following day, after a 8 hour stop at the midway point for some sleep.
This ends the exciting story of our quest to conquer Florida. As with many endeavors, I feel the safest path is to simply claim victory, and sight a few meaningless stats to prove the point.. 
- We had 22 guests this trip, 14 of which stayed overnight.
- We covered 1160 NM on the trip,
- Spent 92 nights on the boat,
- Put about 60 hours on each engine and 101 on the generator
- Spent 38 nights at anchor, 4 nights sailing, 12 days at slips, 28 days on mooring balls, and 7 nights on the boat while in the Boat yard in dry dock.

We never were arrested, and the only time we were boarded by law enforcement, they found nothing wrong. No one was seriously hurt, and we never ran aground, hit anyone, or dragged anchor… With the many great guests who honored us with their company, and the good number number of wonderful sails. I say victory is ours!