Finally leaving the marina...

Note* the Popeye spinach

 While the wind blew strong the whole Thanksgiving week, we took the opportunity to tidy up the boat, do laundry and provision the boat for take off.  We borrowed friends cars and hauled pounds and pounds of canned goods......

......gallons of drinking water, dried milk, a dozen+ bags of white wine.....and most importantly, 10 cases of beer....."light" beer mind you.....except for the 2 cases of "lager"---that's for you Mike Fauser when you come join us.  It sounds like were beeraholics, but ya need to know that this refreshing beverage in the Bahamas is about $65/case vs $18/case here in Florida.  I've discovered Yuengling beer, brewed up in Tampa, to be an affordable and tasty choice, but the biggest challenge was finding space for 240 cans of beer.  It had to be secure from rolling around while under way and avoiding a messy explosion. 

In our cockpit is a designated "beer locker" with a drain to overboard
---Island Packet yachts thought of (almost *see below) everything-----it held 3 cases. 



 I found cubicles, closets and bilge floor lockers.....I didn't even have to throw the dried milk overboard----it was actually easier than anticipated....heck, I should bring 5 more cases and sell them to dry stranded sailors for $45/case!  We stocked up the first aid bin and battery stash..........extra line and engine parts...... flashing neon party light strands that cycle through colors of the rainbow (thanks Heinz!)....three more chart books covering the islands of the eastern Caribbean....plus a few wayward Cuban charts, just in case---ya never know where the wind will blow us. 

And then the time had finally come......

We love you guys---thanks for all your support and friendships!!!!

 .....2 days after Thanksgiving (and a large Fare-thee-well C-dock party--of course).....the dock lines were cast off and the little boat Fiesta pulled gently away from her berth of almost a year.  The good friends who had helped us immeasurably showed up for Bon-Voyage waves....we will miss all of you....may the fair winds blow us across the same path again out in the big blue!!!  

Leaving the nest...

Adios Fiesta!

 Nervous?  yes.  Excited?  yes.  Ready?  yes and no.  Did we think of everything?  no.....but we just gotta go....and figure it out along the way. 
True adventure always has an element of fear.


  We motor-sailed out into Tampa Bay for about an hour....cut the motor, raised the sails....slid out into the Gulf of Mexico where we took a left hand turn heading south....for 2 1/2 days on one tack.   

It was a banner day on many levels....the first of many legs in our journey to come....ready or not, here we come.

Welcome....another day

Conditions were a sailors desire--10-15kt winds ENE on a beam/broad reach

....sunset & moon rise off of Venice, Florida.  Then, the predictable rambunctious waves all night calling for a double-reefed mainsail + our new mini-staysail.  Bundled up in our winter ski clothes, we took turns napping and steering the helm....

....until, morning brought coffee with the sunrise off of Ft Meyers beach...

then....repeat for another day.

 On our second night, we had decided to pull into a favorite hidey-hole, Little Shark River, on the west coast of the Everglades National Park....to get a nights sleep before the next day of taking on the pinball-alley of crabby pots in daylight all through the Florida Bay to our destination of Marathon in the Florida Keys. Our arrival into the deep dark shores of the Everglades (the moon was late this night) was nail-biting, because we knew there were unmarked black metal pilings lurking offshore....but I had almost correctly positioned them on the chartplotter last May when we passed by here...so just as the moon rose, we dropped the anchor offshore around 11pm and slept soundly (between the anchor checks) 
in the rolling seas for about 7 hours.  

Pulling into Boot Key harbor was like coming home....but this time we got a mooring ball right away--no waiting like last March.  I guess the busy season starts more in January.  We called our Sea-Tek friend Alex (who had installed our solar panel last March) to come over and check a couple of electrical issues we've had.  Namely, that the batteries weren't holding a charge.  Sure enough, the 2 large very heavy AGM batteries were 8 years old and shot...so glad we found this out now. 

Alex--the harbor wiz

Boom....next day, Alex and Travis were onboard installing 2 new large heavy batteries....*this is where IP yachts could have made a larger compartment to support the energy storage needs ----it was a very tight squeeze.  They also installed a new hard-wired 1000 watt electric inverter (now we can charge our laptops, drill, razor etc) AND he fixed the ongoing tricolor issue on top of the mast.....all within 4 hours...someone buy this guy a beer! 
 And we did :)  

Thanks Alex.

While we now watch and wait for another weather window to cross the Gulf Stream to Bimini in the Bahamas, we're going to catch a local bus down to Key West next Tuesday.  We have an official appointment with Homeland Security (Customs/Border Patrol) to get our free LBO----Local Boater Option card.  This card will enable a very easy reentry back into the US with a simple phone call...instead of having to show up physically at a far away office in a specific harbor to re-immigrate.  

We have no idea when we will return or where that will be.....but it made sense.  

A peaceful state of mind

And finally....another creative video by Tim----"Unattended Dreams"