Ahh, the moment of truth when the boat goes in the water. The diesel fires up for the first time in six months, we check all thru-hulls for leaking plus water output from the engine and pull away from St. Marys Boat Services and head down to the marina in St. Marys. The boat was "on the hard" on the North River, a tributary of the St. Marys river. All was well and now it was time to finish provisioning and other jobs not done in the yard.
We have been borrowing cars to go to Walmart, Lowes, Total Wine and Liquour, Costco and West Marine. The boat is overly full of provisions but fortunately the upgrade refrigerator and freezer are working well. That is not much of a challenge because it is about 35-65 degrees out. We have found that our boat air conditioning/reverse cycle heating is not working, probably due to a freon problem. That means that when we leave the dock we will not have heat, oh well we will be in Florida soon.
We have Christmas in St. Marys, Ed attends Catholic Mass completing his religious duties for 2009. Sharon and Reggie from Pea Soup, Ken from Duet join us for a salt-crusted prime rib roast with gravy, garlic mashed potatoes and vegatables. Earlier in the day we attend a luncheon on Steel Away, a 70 foot schooner built by the owner.
December 28th we set sail for Florida opting to go on the ocean for several days to Port Canaveral. We arrive without problems at Cape Marina on the 29th. We enjoy nice weather before Ann forgets that she opened a hatch in the floor, steps thru the opening and impales her foot on a wing nut below the floor. I am on the dock cleaning the tray that goes in the hatch when I hear a long stream of cussing. My thoughts are to stay away, if she needs my help she knows my name. Next thing I hear is "Ed, I've hurt myself". I take one look at her foot and call over a doctor (Rhett and wife Melissa Cooper) that we just met who were on their boat next to us. He advises Ann to run water over it for 1/2 hour, not to seal it but to keep it open, change the bandage often and stay out of the salt water. Plus she has some prescription antibiotic to take. I cart her around piggy-back for a day befoe she can walk on her toes.
On the 31st we go inland to Cocoa from Port Canaveral which involves a bridge opening, lock, bridge opening and several miles down the Intercoastal Waterway. The lock takes over an hour so we miss the 3PM bridge opening and have to wait until 6PM which we miss by 1 minute so we have to wait until six-thirty. We finally get thru and to Cocoa, anchor and go into town for New Years Eve. We dance the night away at the Dog and Bone Pub to kids playing their parents rock'n'roll. Yes Ann realized if she hobbled and danced on the ball of her foot she didn't incur pain. New Years day we get a 24" pizza (traveling fuel) at Ryans Pizza, Ed changes a fuel and oil filters while Ann shops and we are ready to travel south.
The weather is now seriously cold, 35 to 45, we have no heat so we are toughing it out. Feels like we are preparing to go skiing as we dress for the day. We keep thinking that it will be warmer further south but the cold front keeps building all the way to Fort Lauderdale. We have a few nice days which I spend at the dentist.
Ed went to the dentist in Oregon complaining of lower and upper jaw pain on the left side but mainly lower. She could not determine what needed to be done and Ed successfully kept the pain at bay with 1-2 ibuprofen per day. Somewhere near Fort Pierce, Ed said ouch and that he needed a dentist right away. We did the dentist-endodontist thing in Fort Pierce and St. Lucie and Ed felt great after the root canal and we started heading south again. About a day later Ed says "I need another root canal, this time on the top" so in Ft. Lauderdale we find a new dentist and endodontist and Ed feels great. Ann visits the chiropractor and emerg. clinic for a sinus infection and a tetanus booster. We learn that antibiotics are free at Publix in FL-our good luck! After the medical visits we drive to Ft. Lauderdale to visit Ann's brother, wife and son who are vacationing in the "warm" 35 deg weather of FLA; it was a nice visit. Fortunately we put the boat in the marina for the day as the currents at Ft. Pierce are very strong and our boat seemed to have moved too close to others are we were preparing to go to our morning appts.; it was a good decision as we didn't arrive back home till 1:00am
We stayed with our friends Frank and Joanne Finney s/v Fantasy Island in Fort Lauderdale (Pompano Beach actually). They were champs for running us around and such. We owe them big time! We attended two SSCA (south seas cruising association) breakfasts with them. We then moved into Lake Sylvia in Fort Lauderdale where we reunited with friends from St. Marys (Tom and Sybil on Gorilla, Christian and Mary on Iwanda) plus Pea Soup.
It starts to warm up but still we get the heating system fixed plus redo our dodger and have several canvas pieces fixed. Also, we go to the Southport Raw bar several times for food and internet. We meet several of Tom Chalkley's old friends, Rusty and Ned. Rusty helps us out several times with rides. We also see more friends from the boat yard, Dave and Britta from Anna Karam.
Time to leave the states finally on January 22. We plan to leave early but do not actually get out until 3:15 PM but we do leave! It takes a lot of time to get ready but fortunately the weather was decently warm after about January 11th. Bahamas here we come!
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