Word Blog

I again have dropped the ball and not posted in quite some time. I am promising myself. I’m going to get back on this. We were headed to st Augustine to do boat work back in Oct. we remained there through mid Dec doing a refit on the instruments and more! List at the bottom of post. We final splashed on Dec 13th and remained afloat with no leaks!! A huge win in our book! We moved down the east coast of Florida to vero…Continue Reading “What we’ve been up to…”

It has been a while since I posted anything. Time just seems to get away from me these days. I always joked that there is nothing busier than a retired person… yep there is… a retired person living on a boat!! In May we sailed the boat to Titusville and got her all prepped for hurricane season. We left S/V Freedom on May 24th to head to Pine Creek in Pennsylvania. We needed to open and clean the cabin and get it ready for my…Continue Reading “We are back…”

We pulled out of Marathon shortly after the Cruiser’s Net started (around 9:30).  Stopped at Burdines for some fuel – Stew had filled the diesel tank with the jerry cans so we needed to fill the diesel jerry cans as well as the gas jerry cans.  It cost $105!!  Hard to believe but gas and diesel are very high in the keys. On our way out the channel we had some entertaining dolphins.  A large group that seemed to be mainly playing, jumping all over…Continue Reading “Bahia Honda… Finally”

We had so many plans for our time here at Boot Key Harbor but my being sick for over 2 weeks certainly ate up alot of that time! Once I was feeling better I still was not 100% so we could only do small things. We did try to enjoy the sunset every night. One project we really needed done was our mast light changed. Yes, up the 56′ mast!! A friend of ours, Christian (S/V Uinen a.k. S/V Distant Drummer), offered to do this……Continue Reading “Boot Key Harbor”

Dec 9th (Sunday) I started feeling bad.  It started with feeling like something was in my throat that I couldn’t dislodge.  I kept clearing my throat.  We had some errands to do and spent some time working on the blog while Stew continued working on the teak. Monday I was feeling worse but I was just coughing a bit and had a headache.  I spent most of the day working on the blog.  I started looking for where I could get a covid test.  If…Continue Reading “I have Covid! (Omicron)”

mile marker 1218 Saturday, (NY day), we were up with the sun to welcome the new year.  It was a spectacular sunrise. We had a nice breakfast then I set about making the food for the New Years dinner.  I steamed the sweet potatoes for the brownies in the solar oven, then did the potatoes for the mashed potatoes.  This kept steam out of the boat which was great.  Later I started cooking the brownies in the solar oven but ran out of sun.  It…Continue Reading “Officially on a Mooring Ball”

Started day: mile marker 1216 (No longer on the ICW) Ended day: mile marker 1218 Sunday (Dec 26th), we woke feeling terrible.  We neither one slept very well and honestly the difficulties we were having traversing the keys we getting to us.  It was just so difficult with our 6’ keel and 56’ mast.  We were exhausted.  I was getting depressed because the keys were disappointing.  I thought we would anchor and swim and snorkel… not so much.  We couldn’t get protection from wind and swell because…Continue Reading “So Tired of Rolling”

Started day: mile marker 1185 (No longer on the ICW) Ended day: mile marker 1216 Saturday, Christmas day, we decided to have pancakes for breakfast and talk to our family.  In addition, it was time to make water.  Making water takes about 3 hours so I decided to make lentil soup for the thermal pot.  I add all the ingredients, bring it to a boil, then put it in the thermal pot and close the lid.  It takes about 3 hours to cook – but you can…Continue Reading “Just Keep Rolling”

Started day: mile marker 1152 (No longer on the ICW) Ended day: mile marker 1185 Friday, we woke and got on our way raising the sails and back into Hawk’s channel.  It was a really nice morning. We decided to stop at Hen and Chickens reef to do some snorkeling.  That was really fun.  When we arrived there was a mooring ball (which was super lucky) and it was not super choppy.  This was our first time at one of these reefs so we took some…Continue Reading “OOPS, we hit a crab pot”

Started day: mile marker 1100 (No longer on the ICW) Ended day: mile marker 1152 Thursday, we woke and exited South Basin, raised the sails, and headed to the ocean via Cape Florida Channel to Hawk’s channel.  It was a beautiful day, and we did some sailing without the motor.  We couldn’t do that for long because we needed to travel 52 miles today before dark. Since we draw 6’ we could no longer travel in the ICW.  We had to use Hawk’s channel that is…Continue Reading “Heading to the Florida Keys”