Skip Gundlach wrote:

As our travels and travails are pretty well documented....
..... That there were terrifying times, angry times, frustrating
times, chaotic times, and many other less-than-"perfect" times doesn't
change the fact that in the end, it was joyful, blissful,
exhilarating, fun, and above all, a great adventure.


Things never work out as planned, but it's nice when things work out
about as well or better than you planned, in the end. Glad to hear
that you've recovered from the wrecks and are moving onward. Right now
we're hunkered down for this freeze + nor'easter just a ways south of
you all.

One thing I'm curious about and haven't seen you mention- you had a
molded lapstrake pulling boat (a 12-footer IIRC), are you using that
for a dinghy?

I've seen the hookah style underwater breathing apparatus in use a few
times by fellow cruisers, that seems like a great tool for working
under the boat. We plan to get one in the near future.



I'll post again after we reach Miami. The weather forecasts (well, you
know how we feel about the accuracy of those available to us, but
they've been saying essentially the same thing for more than a week,
so it seems reasonable to expect some congruence between the forecast
and the reality)

Hate to disagree, but usually we get a pretty good forecast... I'd say
that over the past year of daily tallying forecasts with short term
(24 hour) results, the forecasters are pretty close 80% of the time
and right on about 50% of the time. Kind of like the tide
predictions.... they're not perfectly congruent to the real world but
they're close enough to provide a workable tool for day-to-day cruise
planning.

... have it as a marvelous, rollicking run from here to
Miami. We'll leave before dark, to get outside the entrance in
daylight, and pull into the Port of Miami, likely, while it's still
dark. From there we'll go to our mooring and commence local sailing!

Stay tuned for the reality of the trip...


I can understand your wanting to get south away from a hard freeze,
but setting off in front of a predicted 30 knot nor'easter.... which
will be blowing against the Gulf Stream to boot... may be on the hairy
side. We're staying put until probably Thursday or maybe even Friday,
and we're going all the way "inside".

Hope you have a good safe run down the coast!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King