We are not at Titusville yet!

I've relearned how to shovel snow!! A lesson not appreciated!

This as been the coldest winter we've ever experienced in December! We always return to New York during the holidays to enjoy Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years with family and friends. Usually it's an introduction to winter which we're more than glad to end the first of January, heading back south to our boat. This year, the return trip is especially welcomed given the depth of the cold weather up north. If you've followed the news you're well aware of the record setting cold temperatures during December and early January - and it's not even the coldest time of the year yet!

Our Christmas decorations certainly didn't feel very warm...

We left New York on January 3 to visit with our daughter over the weekend before heading further south on Monday. All along our trip south, we've been met with record cold temperatures in both absolute temperature and in wind chill. We stayed in Columbia, South Carolina overnight on the way south and saw 11F in the morning! That's virtually unheard of down there and the locals were freezing (as we were too!)

Our poor, Florida rental car - it didn't look very comfortable

This afternoon we finally arrived in Florida to visit with friends in Tampa with the temperature climbing into the 40's by late afternoon, warmer but hardly Florida weather! We'll stay another day and then reach our boat in Titusville by Thursday, hopefully with warmer weather!

Titusville - end of blog until January 7th

One last look at the bridge to Merritt Island and the Kennedy Space Center

We've come to that time of the cruise when Ann and I return north for the holidays. We'll eat Thanksgiving turkey, open Christmas presents and celebrate the new year. We may even see a little snow (the little the better) before returning to Titusville around January 7th or so to continue our cruise south to Key West.

We've packed the only cold weather gear we have, long pants, and will head north on Thursday. We expect a severe weather change but at least it's only for a little less than two months. It's enough for us to get our fill of winter weather and we do want to see the grandkids, it'll be fun.

So tonight it's goodnight to Titusville, they'll look after Fleetwing, it's snug and secure here and we'll meet again in January. Be sure to mark your calendars for January 7th when we expect to return and I'll restart the blog then for the rest of the trip to Key West and return in the spring. It's been fun, I hope you've enjoyed following the blog, I've enjoyed writing it.

Titusville - getting ready

Fresh fish for dinner!

The area is a resource for the local people. Although the dog park is right next door to the marina, almost all of the users are from town. Ann goes over almost every day with Hoolie and sits and chats at the community picnic table. I usually throw the ball to Hoolie who runs and runs and runs, until he can run no more - he doesn't know "quit". There is always someone fishing by the shore next to the marina. I supposed it's not only free, it's fresh and tastes good. We haven't gotten into fishing yet, Ann doesn't want anything to do with cleaning a fish.

The manatees are always around and today we saw one with a baby manatee. He (or she?) was right  beside his mother with a face only a month could love! As usual, Hoolie was quick to alert us and prevented a manatee boarding... He's good at that, never been one yet.

On Wednesday I'll pick up the car we'll have for the next 1.5 months on our trip north and back. This time we've used Hertz since they had a special for $948 with all taxes and fees included for the almost two month rental. It was cheaper to keep the car than pay the one-way fees for two separate rentals. Cold weather, here we come!

Titusville - 90 degree day

You can barely see the rocket in the upper, left of the photo

We're due for a weather change on Tuesday but today it reached 90 in the afternoon. I can't imagine what it's like in the summertime, obviously hotter than 90. The event of the day was a launch of an Atlas V rocket from the Kennedy Space Center. The Atlas V is a workhorse of the NASA launch system. Today was the launch of a probe to Mars to study the atmosphere there.

Here's a closeup - Mars, here we come!

It was a cloudy day but we did see the rocket climb above the clouds as it reached out into space towards Mars. The roar of the rocket was delayed almost 1/2 minute due to the distance to the space center but eventually it reached us, impressive.

Scattered around the area are osprey nests atop power line poles, we like them, they keep the dirty birds away!

The Atlas V is the latest edition of NASA's workhorse launch vehicle and you might expect it would contain the latest in American space technology! Much to my surprise, I discovered that the primary rocket engine is of Russian make! It's called the RD-180 engine, made in Russia.  So Russia is not only ferrying our astronauts to and from the space station, they are also selling us technology. And, not just any technology, but the latest and greatest for our own space launches, kinda of sad. What a comedown for NASA and the lack of investment by the US in space technology that we once led in. I'm sure the Russians and Chinese will take up the slack. Maybe we can get back to the moon or eventually to Mars aboard a Chinese rocket as a passenger...

Another day, another nice sunset

Otherwise, things were calm and we're looking forward to a cooler day on Tuesday. We're starting to pull things together for our Thursday departure date for points north. The problem is that we have very little in the way of heavy clothing, will have to make do.

Titusville - donut day!

Happy Donut Day!

A tradition in our family is to always have fresh donuts for Sunday breakfast. As you might imagine, that's not always possible when anchoring out or in remote marinas. However, when a donut shop is within 1/2 mile of a marina, then it's fair game for Sunday morning. Such was the case this morning, only a 20 minute walk away was a "Donuts 4 U" shop which had excellent donuts as evidenced by the line up in the shop for their product.

Having satisfied the Sunday morning requirement, the rest of the day was spent enjoying the 80 degree weather. We've gotten back into Scrabble but we're using the iPad version where we can pass it back and forth after each turn, more convenient than setting up a board on a boat. Plus, it won't let you play words that aren't real words, they all must pass muster through the included Scrabble dictionary. That said, there are many "words" that most people would not recognize but are valuable additions to the Scrabble dictionary such as Qi and Za along with many others more familiar to longtime players. Needless to say, sometimes the play gets a little intense and we'll knock it off for awhile (we are such wonderful winners...)

Towards the mooring field

I have a few more chores to do before leaving for up north such as changing the oil in the outboard, perhaps on Monday depending on the level of ambition remaining.

Titusville - A Saturday Jam

Jamming at Titusville

Whenever there's cruisers staying at a marina long term, there's always get togethers on an informal schedule. At Titusville, the monthly rates are so attractive, that they've gathered a large following with some staying for the entire winter. For us, it's not far enough south, we like our winters even warmer but it's not bad for November.

Not bad at 7:30 pm down here

Tonight several of the long term crew formed an impromptu band: one singer, one guitar player and one saxophone - a band. It's always fun at such events and you meet people from all over that you often keep meeting as you continue down the ICW, a traveling family.

A sign you see often around here

On the way to town, you pass by a pond with a no swimming sign except that this sign is there for a reason you don't find up north. Namely, it's no swimming because of alligators! I know it's possible because I photographed an alligator in the marina right behind our boat last spring (the photo's in the spring blog). So you do have to watch our for a few different things down here.

Titusville - marina people

A nightly visit from our local Osprey, he keeps the messy birds away!

One thing about staying in a marina for an extended time is meeting fellow cruisers. One couple two boats over are avid racers with a 42 ft Nonsuch. We don't race but in talking to them we discovered that they previously had an Ericson 38ft sailboat, the same model that we had before we bought the Beneteau! They raced it with success, almost always winning. I always thought it was a fast boat but in good hands (not ours...) it was even faster, apparently. They are also leaving their boat here for the holidays, returning after New Years Day to go further south.

I spent most of the day installing holding tank monitors which allows one to know how full the tanks are. It's amazing how much time can be taken up with such mundane tasks! Four hours later, everything is hooked up but the readout display is not yet installed at the helm station, another chore for a later time, groan! Aboard a boat, there's never a time when there's nothing to do!

The winds are calm, the days are cool (in the 70s) and we're biding our time until we leave for the holidays next Thursday. We'll rent a car for the duration from Hertz so we can take Hoolie with us and not ship him in a crate like we would if we took an airplane. Time for a peaceful night.