Titusville - Recovery day

Six hours of watching robotics competitions

Today was recovery day after a long day of traveling. The girls and Philip were deeply involved in the robotics competition from their school in Hartford, CT. It's a fabulous series of events where the students design, make and compete in robots that they design to meet the requirements of upcoming competition. Each year they design new robots from scratch and compete against several hundred other robots designed by other students. The competitions are held at the school, local, and state level and even go on to the national level. It's an amazing process and details can be found at NE First Robots. 

Philip, who's on the team from Hartford where his daughters attend, watched the event live over a broadcast from the competition area, about six hours of TV time. We were able to stream it over WiFi with your unlimited Verizon plan. I never knew such competitions existed until Philip got involved.

Excuse me but we always watch the sunset

I think Monday is a day at the Kennedy Space Center. The Falcon Heavy launch is still due for Tuesday and that's not a day for travel anywhere near here. The last Falcon Heavy launch attracted 100,000 people and the roads were jammed, nobody moved for hours. So we will explore the space center before the crowds on Tuesday.

Titusville - Invaded!

Our teenager Sarah, where did the little girl go?

They left 35 degree weather and arrived in 85 degree weather! Such a pleasant surprise and respite from the winter doldrums. Today was the hottest it's been since we've returned to Titusville. They will have a week stay with us and are looking forward to adventures to come that include a Falcon Heavey launch sometime this week.

I think they also plan visits to the Kennedy Space Center and to Disney World. It's enough to keep everybody occupied which is not hard to do given the warm weather. Fleetwing tends to fill up during visits such as this, two adults and two teenagers, Sarah and Natalie.

After three glasses of fine wine, it looks pretty good.

We plan to just go with the flow and see what they want to do. I think they are just glad to escape the cold weather. Enjoying the beach or the sights around here are just a bonus.

Titusville - D Day minus 1

I like the reflections off the water

The aft cabin has never looked better. We are ready for the invasion due Saturday afternoon. The weather has warmed up to Florida natural for this time of the year - about time! So where did all the stuff go? Why, into the starboard locker, it's packed solid. I wouldn't run the boat that way but for sitting on a dock for a week, it's fine.

There's even a Telse S in the parking lot here, an $80,000 car. It's been plugged in for the last week. 

The Falcon Heavy launch has slipped to Tuesday, April 9 at 6:36 pm. They did a successful test firing today and plan on a full launch four days later, which is pretty fast in itself. I wouldn't be surprised if that date slipped a day or two. It will be a sight to behold with the return of the twin boosters landing in sync at Kennedy.

I never tire of sunsets

We now have a new horn, 123 Db of power. A boat our size is supposed to have one with 120 Db output so now we're legal. There's nothing left to do except wait for the arrival of our crew from the frozen north country. I can still remember the sensation of stepping out of the plane that started out with temperatures in the '30s and landing when it's in the '80s. The feeling is surreal.

Titusville - Labor of Hercules

One of the attractions of the Titusville Marina is the nearby park complete with a dog park.

In order to get ready for our kids visit on Saturday, I had to clean out the aft cabin. As anyone who has ever had a boar with two cabins and only two crew knows - that aft cabin is so handy in putting stuff away and yet still have it near. We started out with good intentions with a relatively bare aft cabin but as the days went by, the aft cabin beckoned with all the unused space. Whereupon, we succumbed and gave in to the temptation of endless storage. Now the rubber has hit the road, so to speak and we have to clear it out. That resulted in today's activity. What you do not want to ask is where it all went...

We get a better view of the sunset after we moved to the other side of "A" dock.

We heard today that they are expecting an extra 100,000 visitors for the Falcon Heavy launch on Sunday. We never expected that! We are close enough to just walk to a good viewing area. The latest news is that the launch will be delayed since the rocket did not make the required test firing today. Hopefully, it will be sometime this week.

The kids are due to arrive Saturday so we'll spend another day getting ready.

Titusville - Moorings too

Titusville also has a mooring field - but it's wide open to the wind and waves

We keep getting these northern fronts coming down. This is the time of the year when all this is supposed to stop! I want warm weather, I want calm days, I want a south wind if there's any wind at all. What is going on? Well, I'll show the weather gods, I'll just sit here until I get what I want...

The purpose of the spray is to prevent stratification. I always thought it was to aerate the water

Well, that was refreshing. Unfortunately, we'll have to move by 4/15, it's getting late. We think we have all these things we have to do over the summer and some are probably pretty important so we will eventually go north. First of all, we have the kids next week and the weather is predicted to be in the 80's so that's a relief - if prediction meets reality. We can all hope.

Hoolie continues his enthusiasm in going to the dog park. If he thinks he's headed that way, he whimpers all the way, it's the only time he ever makes a sound. He doesn't do it in the morning or at night when I walk the same path, only when he's actually headed for the dog park. Dogs learn I guess. All he does is run after balls I throw. He doesn't bring them back, he just chases them. That's his exercise. He ignores all other dogs, he just wants to run. I wonder what he thinks of us...

Titusville - Visits and a wood stork

An odd-looking creature. Notice the one leg stand. He reminds me of a scene from Time Bandits

Since we're not traveling, many of our friends have dropped by to say hello. Today we renewed tied to a friend that Ann had when she attended the University of Maine. Dick and Barb spend the winters in Florida and the summers in Maine. It's a good way to get the best of both worlds and I think there's a lot of other people that do the same thing, us included although we do it on a boat. We used to spend winters in New York, it's not bad, it just doesn't appeal to us anymore. We like the warmer weather now.

It's always good to meet friends along the way

They are headed back north and we'll follow in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, we continue to enjoy the warm weather and I'm finishing up on getting all the routes ready for my Facebook site. I will be creating a gpx file that when downloaded, includes all the gpx files needed for going north. One download, all gpx files for all routes on my GPX Routes page. That one file should make it easier to upload the routes to a chartplotter since there are so many of them if you do it separately.

Time to take Hoolie ashore!

Titusville - Cool Monday

There's a reason for the bars, he can bite!

Well, it was 85 yesterday but only 70 today. Perhaps it's still too early to go north? Usually this time of the year, we're just now leaving Key West headed to Marathon. Being in Titusville, we have a huge head start so we don't have to move until the middle of the month to be in sync with our previous trips home.

Ethanol free gas is routinely available here

That schedule also coincides with our kids arriving next week for their week in the sun, escaping from the frozen north. We will have visitors on Tuesday from Ann's college days in Maine. Dick and Barb will drop by for some catching up during lunch, it ought to be fun.

The weather at least seems to have settled down and should be nice for our kid's visits. We just heard a few minutes ago that it was 25F at home, ugh!