Wednesday, January 3, 2018

What a trip!




Isn't there something about "Red Sky at Morning, Sailor; Take Warning"
We witnessed this sight as we headed out Tuesday morning
We left Pennsylvania around 7:30 am intending to stop well before Savannah so our trip would be easy over two days. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans. Ann had talked to a long time friend (Marion) and heard about a developing storm off the coast of Georgia. We had never considered that possibilities, after all, we were headed south! That's where the warmer weather resides - who worries about freezing rain or snow, that's northern weather!

As the day progressed, the weather predictions grew grimmer. We watched the weather channel hourly and it became pretty certain that if we didn't make Jacksonville, we'd be spending an extra day in a motel. With that bit of news, we bore down and in 13 hours we reached Jacksonville which was just south of the freezing rain line on the predictions. That is a very long day for us, especially with Finn in the back seat sharing the space with Hoolie. Of course, Hoolie just slept all the way.

This morning we just had a 2.5 hour trip down to Titusville with temperatures hovering around 36 the entire way with a strong north wind - Florida is NOT supposed to be this cold! As is our custom for all grandkids, Finn will be writing a daily blog of his adventures - a viewpoint of an 11 year old.

Hear we are again. Another journey. Another fun time on Fleetwing. Two days ago I earned my crew jacket. plus it was new years eve everything was perfect. i got to stay up till 12:00pm and got my jacket. The next day was the long haul. 13 hours of nonstop driving. I mostly slept and played my device the hole time. We got to the Red roof in  around 9:20pm. The only reason we had to go to Florida in such a rush was because of an ice storm. But it was all worth the next morning because we only had to travel 2 miles. Florida got SNOW. Who would of thought Florida could have snow. Any ways when we got to the boat we spent about 30min unpacking. After that I had lunch and watched a try not to laugh. Tonight’s menu is the famed CHICKEN RICE AND BEANS. With some canned cranberry sauce. Whell that’s all for now but I say BACK TO THE ABYSS.    


A nice setting moon tonight
I'm not quite sure what, "Back to the abyss" means? It does sound like an adventure. Hopefully, it will warm up sometime in the future. Just to keep us on our toes, Fleetwing developed a leak after we loaded the boat. It was dry when I turned on the AC seacock but the bilge was full shortly thereafter. It seems to have abated somewhat. Perhaps the  boat shifted from the new load and water had collected from rains, going into the bilge after the boat balanced? Or else, Fleetwing developed a new leak? It seems to be concentrated around the prop shaft but it's not the stuffing box. Time will tell.

  

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Smart move to get your move on!! Looking forward to your evaluation on the various navigation apps!!

Bob423 said...

Beth, the last thing we wanted to do was travel for 13 hours on the first leg of our trip but being boaters, we know that the weather is king. Nevermind what you want to do, the weather dictates.

I am swimming in iPad Nav apps. Surprisingly, there's still lots of room on a 128GB device for the 13 apps. Having to learn how to use all these apps is the biggest challenge and I'm trying hard not to overlook a capability which I'm sure someone will immediately let me know I missed. So I'm checking everything twice but I'll still make mistakes. At any rate, I'll give my views.

SV Puffin said...

Happy New Year! Glad you made it safe to Florida. I have been following your adventures for a little over a year now since Hurricane Matthew. We spent a night at the Titusville Marina last week and told Tom how we followed your blog. They treated us great as we would expect. Check out the Scrub Jay trail on Merritt Island. We saw over half a dozen last Sunday. Have fun!
Patrick

Bob423 said...

Patrick, sorry we missed you. We have a car for the weekend and will certainly visit Merritt Island. Thanks for the tip on the Scrub Jay trail.