Finally Letting Go of Land

After two months of delays and two unexpected trips home, we re-boarded SeaDream Sunday afternoon and finally untied her docklines this morning, heading toward Jacksonville for the first day of journey to St. Petersburg, FL, where Rachel & Jim are meeting us April 13^th.

Among other delays, severe winds damaged our Nashville home’s roof. Bad weather slowed replacement but the crew worked very carefully and the new roof is much improved and super nice.

The last few days at the dock were very busy, mostly cold and relentlessly windy. The many-miles-long, open fetch of the mile-wide St. John’s River gave us steady 20-25 mph winds across our dock with frequent gusts well over 30….. and biting low temps as well. This is Florida?

Then….. last night our duck bills complained! Quack, quack!! These black rubber duckbills reside in a toilet waste pump. We had spares and Mike installed 4 new ones. Easy access made replacement simple; Clorox disarmed the little bit of mess. The pump now sounds very happy!

Today we arose bright and early, to 34 degrees and a 10-12 NW wind. Yep, this is our Florida. After storing the car and walking Louie, we disconnected shore power, topped off the water tank and warmed the engines, then waved goodbye to friends as wind and current pushed us off the dock at Reynold’s Park Marina for a short trip to our anchorage just south of Jacksonville. This first day we’ve taken it slowly, getting our sea legs and enjoying the boat. The next nine days will be much longer, traveling to Florida’s West Coast by way of Lake Okeechobee, through locks and canals ending at Fort Myers. New cruising territory…. new adventures. Hopefully the weather will co-operate and…… please turn warmer.  

 

 

Rubber duck bill for waste pump.

Louis wanted to show "Pinky's" bill.