Splashdown and launch!

We arrived at the boat at 3am on the 29th, and have worked steadily since then to get her cleaned up and in the water. After changing all fuel filters and the oil, the engine starts and runs. The bilge pump is functioning. Alot of things are "frozen" but with application after application of WD-40 things are freeing up. The weather has been incomparably gorgeous - mid to high 70's and sunny with a light breeze and scattered clouds. We are SO happy to be out in the sun that the hard work and long walks to town to provision are a joy. We intend to leave the marina today and anchor in the Manatee Pocket as the lovely South Anchorage in Stuart is presently closed and won't re-open until January 15th. It's wonderful to be back in Florida, and in the sun for the first of the year.

On the road again

Here is the misty view from our lovely hotel room in beautiful downtown…Green Bay. I guess we are slow starters. Just a week ago or so, we had some sailor friends over to dinner. While discussing our last trip, Wayne observed that we experienced our first difficulties at Shot Point, about 10 miles from Marquette. One gentleman remarked, “You must mean Whitefish Point”. No. Shot Point. As the faithful may recall, this was the first time our brand-new diesel engine stalled due to a clogged fuel filter. We seem to be leading a parallel existence, as our first impossible barrier to forward progress occurred a mere 3-hour car ride from Marquette: the vortex of Green Bay. Never mind the confusion the night before leaving regarding whether or not Wayne had a reservation, followed by the discovery we were routed two different ways: by cosmic coincidence we were both re-booked through Green Bay (I had gone to the airport ostensibly to bring him home after his flight was cancelled) and put on a van to this Cheese Capital of the Midwest. We obtained a room at the downtown Holiday Inn on a dreary and foggy night, in the anticipation of a 6:30 am flight to Minneapolis followed by a first-class flight to Fort Lauderdale. Yes, we could not be re-booked to West Palm Beach in any way, shape, or form. But hey, we thought we would just figure it out from there. Who cares when you are in Florida? We set the alarm for 4:30 am, and drifted off to a blissful vision of palm trees and crashing ocean waves. Awakening was not difficult; given the exciting day we were to have. As a last-minute thought, I turned on the cell phone and discovered we had a message. I naively thought it was my daughter calling to tell me how much she loved me. Not a chance. It was a computer from Northwest Airlines telling us our 6:30 flight had been cancelled and we were re-booked the following evening at 6pm via Detroit, arriving in Fort Lauderdale on midnight the 28th. Cold shards of fear knifed into our otherwise sleepy and warmly optimistic little head clouds and straight down into our guts. We went to the airport anyway, hoping for a miracle. Any number of entreaties, wild plans, visions of renting a car and driving to Chicago, taking Amtrak, or taking a bus to Milwaukee disappeared into the oppressive fog as we slowly believed the word and the word was this: three days of holiday traffic and miserable weather in the Midwest has left hundreds of travelers stranded in Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, and anywhere else we could get to from here. We were the last in a LONG line of sufferers. We were assured that our re-booking was secure, and having a confirmed reservation was about as good as gold at this point. The fog goggles were lifted from our eyes, and we finally noticed that our fellow travelers all had the classic UP “deer in the headlight” look. Wide, blankly staring eyes, red-rimmed and unbelieving were the norm among the other airport shufflers. Finally understanding the magnitude of the situation, we headed back to the lovely Holiday Inn City Centre, Green Bay. Tomorrow the Packers play the Lions in their final home game, and we will be in town to witness it. Hope Aaron Rodgers can see the end zone by then.

Southbound...I think....

Merry Christmas everyone! Ours was going quite well, getting organized, everything humming for our departure tomorrow. The lovely snowy scene you see is indeed Marquette, a great day on the Cross Country Ski trails. But the lure of the warm climates and warm waters is too great and we are heading down the ICW again...almost. Nothing is without some drama. I pulled up my reservations on Northwest Airlines' frequent flyer page and printed my boarding pass a scant hour or so ago. Not so for Wayne. I looked with every variable at my command, but could not find a reservation for him at NWA.com. No panic, these things happen. Knowing that he had booked the flight with a credit card reward program, we figured the credit card company could provide us with some kind of number with which we could extract his flight info and print out a boarding pass. No luck there either! The E-ticket number we were given produced absolutely no current reservations. The only thing left was to try Northwest again. Again, because with the overload of people being re-booked due to atmospheric conditions, our earlier attempt was rebuffed with the message, "our system is overloaded, try your call again later." Luckily, our "later" call went through and after about 15 minutes on hold we were able to speak with our saviour of the day, Josh. Josh was a really nice guy who seemed to understand what we were saying. He could not pick up Wayne's reservation with just a first and last name, we already knew Wayne's frequent flyer number wasn't going to do us any good, but when we arrived at the idea that (for other and incredibly silly reasons) Wayne's credit card had been reissued in a different number, we were a little bit stumped. But then Josh said..."did you get a bunch of schedule changes?" Well right off the bat, Josh and I were on the same page and while I checked Wayne's email (because in fact, he had) Josh was able to root around in the old Northwest Airlines computer and pull up Wayne's reservation after all. Hosanna in the highest! While Josh gave me numbers, I plugged them into the nwa.com webpage and, miracle of miracles, there was Wayne's reservation. Too bad he is flying out at a different time than me and has to connect first through Detroit and then through Newark. No matter, our vision of having to buy a $500 plane ticket to get Wayne to Palm Beach disappeared, and we are just happy enough that he has a boarding pass. You see, we still need to buy a functioning 8hp dinghy motor when we hit Nassau (yes, Claude, we have a propeller now for the Tohatsu). With a $500 plane ticket in the unexpected budget column, the nice new dinghy motor was fading fast. That, coupled with the economic downturn in general, would have resulted in a rather dreary Christmas. But no! By hook or by crook, no matter how, we WILL bloody get to Florida, pick up the boat, and float around in Stuart for as long as it takes to get a little suntan. The action never stops on this blog, so stay tuned, sports fans!