Captain Kev and I have both retired now and are ready to hit the high seas. Since our last journey to the Abaco's, Christmas 2015, we have been very busy. Most of the last minute installations that were on the captains list have been completed. There were additional solar panels added to increase our wattage to 600, 7 new jell cell batteries, single sideband radio, in reach tracking unit and life sling. The last several months have been crazy with repairs and upgrades. The autopilot was giving us issues when we were in the Bahamas last time, plus it had a small hydrolic leak. After some help from our neighbhor Dave on Scallywag, several part replacement, and lets not forget one hernia operation. We now have a fully working autopilot. Yes Kevin spent so much time hanging upside down and leaning over the frame work of the aft berth that he ended up with a hernia. We originally just thought it was a pulled muscle and just let it heal. Then the weekend he retired it flared up so bad that he could only stand or walk for about 100 yards. So he has spend most of December resting and playing on the xbox. This does not make for a happy captain, who had a list of about 50 thing to complete before leaving the end of January. That list has now been reduce to about 10 items to complete before leaving. The rest will just have to be done underway.
We just returned from a lovely trip to North Carolina to see our son David and his family. We also delivered our car to them, so they are now the proud owners of a Ford Escape. We figured not to let it sit in a parking lot for 3 or 4 years when it can be used for a good cause. It was a cold and busy 5 days with the grand kids (Alex and Cole), but what fun we had. David had a large lego project to keep us all busy, like two little boys need help keeping busy. We will definately miss those little guys, but that's what air planes are for.
Our departure, if all goes to plan, will be on Febuary 1st. We are sailing with two other boats, Wave Dancer with Hazel and Trouvere with Charley and Paivi. Wave Dancer is departing with us and we will slowly make our way to West Palm or Miami to wait for Trouvere, Charley and Paivi have a few thing to take care of before leaving. Once we are all togeather then the plan is to cross over to the Bahamas and spend about 4 months there. For hurricane season we decided to come back and wait it out in Florida. This way we can reprovision and make any changes or repair to systems that might not be working or may need tweeking. In October or November we will head back out and just keep going down to the Virgin Islands and spend about 3-4 years hanging out and exploring down there.
When we have internet access, I will make blog updates. The blog post will be shown on facebook and you can also track our movement with the "In reach tracker", I will post that link once we are underway.
