To the Bahamas or so we thought

When we last left you we were still in Marathon waiting for our boys to show up for the weekend well they showed up and we had a great time went down to Key West a couple of times and did the bar crawl this is a pretty neat experience as both the boys are now legal drinking age. me Mom and the boys had a blast unfortunately the weather was not cooperating we didn't get to get then out on the boat to the reef I was really looking forward to diving with them but we'll do it another time the boys left for St Pete Monday and arrive back home all ok. now it was time to provision the boat for the trip to the Bahamas  three or four trips to the grocery store and knot this way stores were full so after topping off our water tanks we left at 6 o'clock in the morning bound for Rodriguez key. the trip down went excellent a little rough in the morning but steaded out to 10 to 15 knots giving us a nice reach all the way down. Knot this way was sailing over six knots and we dropped the hook at around 3:30 in the afternoon. We ate some dinner watched a movie and went to bed early for a early morning departure got up in the morning crew ready boat ready and the weather wasn't having anything to do with it 18 knots on the nose would have made for a hell of a nasty ride so decided to head north to Biscayne Bay to a little marina called  Dinner Key real nice marina with clean bathrooms and nice shower stalls and now here we sit waiting for another Windows soon as we get it were out of here wish us luck

                           

Marco Island to the keys

Well the trip to Smokehouse Bay Marco Island from caya costa  went pretty uneventful except the last 10 miles ( I swear if there's a storm within 15 miles I will run into it ) the storm passed pretty quickly but with 35 knots sustained winds and 8 foot seas it was not fun  but we made it safe and sound. we enjoyed our time at Marco Island a really neat and clean little island but because of weather ended up staying about 3 or 4 days more than we planned on we left Marco and headed for little Shark River we actually got to do a little sailing ☺ Little Shark River is literally in the middle of nowhere very quiet we didn't experience too many bugs I guess the wind was on our side after a nice breakfast the next day we were on our way to marathon the first three or four hours the wind was right or nose then it came out of the east then it was a fairly good sail  all the way to Marathon. Since then we've been doing all the tourist things going to the beach, Key West, and a really nice little preserve in Marathon called crane Point we are looking forward to this weekend are boys will be down to visit us we will be in Marathon till the end of October then it's off to the Bahamas :)
                                                                           
                                                                                

                                                                             

trip to marco island

So we left caya Costa bound for Marco Island but before we left we needed to fuel up so we go to a little marina to top the tanks off all went without an incident as were leaving the marina I have Karen holding the line to the dingy on the side of the boat so we don't get it caught up in the dock as we round the channel marker headed for open water I tell her to let go of the line shortly after that we both look back in horror as the dingy was not tied to the cleat and falling back behind rapidly lucky for us a very nice fisherman grabbed it and brought it back to the boat leave it to Captain Ahab. To not tied off to the cleat the rest of the trip went uneventful until the last 10 miles then we ran into a hellacious storm 40 mile an hour winds and 8 foot seas not fun but we made it through and the boat did great now we're waiting out weather in Marco Island hopefully we leave Sunday wish us luck
                                                                                

And the journey begins

We left the dock at 9 a.m. it felt very surreal going down the canal knowing we won't be coming back for at least a year our first stop was Venice a pretty uneventful sale down very light winds and mostly on our nose weather was nice partly sunny. About 91 degrees we pulled into the marina expected to get some dinner  and find out that it will be closed until the 28th of September  so had to fire up the grill and cook some burgers  yummy going down to the beach tomorrow to look for sharks teeth pictures to come
             

           
                       

trip to cayo costa

It's been a little while since this blog's been updated we have been working very hard on the boat for the last two months trying to get ready for our August departure. Working both after work and weekends gets old real quick so we thought we'd take advantage of our spring break vacations and take the boat down to cayo costa for a week even though the boat was not 100% it's basically about 95% done with the rest of the painting to be finished and some cosmetics on the outside this would be a good time to test the onboard systems the trip turned out to be just wonderful the boat ran flawless it's nice to have running water again with all the new lines and faucets the new alternator perform great the extra battery that we added to the house bank worked out great we now have 300 amp hours we were able to get about two days usage out of the boat before needing to recharge the biggest draw on our batteries was obviously our refrigerator which I believe the thermostat is bad so I need to replace that because it seems to freeze all the time we also had some issues with our depth finder I don't know if it's a transducer or the module but it seemed to come and go at its own leisure but other than the issues that I just listed we were real happy with the performance of the boat now a little bit about our trip we started out in Gulfport Beach headed for Venice we stayed at the crows nest at Venice had dinner at the restaurant real nice Marina with clean restrooms and shower facilities and a big bonus was the courtesy bikes that me and Karen took full advantage of. Venice is a pretty neat funky little town I haven't been there since a school trip back in the early 70s to look for sharks teeth we took a bike ride to Publix and enjoy the ride the town is pretty cool and the people extremely friendly the next day it was off to cayo  costa we took the inside path the intercoastal from Venice to Port Charlotte and anchor with 20 sailboats at Pelican Bay all I can say about cayo costa is wow what a beautiful island one of the best beaches we've ever seen lots of trails and wilderness to check out just had a great time will definitely be back to look at more of this island stayed for about two days then it was time to head back to Venice again weather was perfect  we took the intercoastal just beautiful scenery lots of dolphins lots of fish lots of birds after a short stay at the crows nest we left the next day bound for St. Petersburg we took the outside  weather was perfect mid-80s the seas were less than 1 foot with wins 8 to 10 miles an hour a perfect end to a perfect trip here are some pictures of the trip enjoy

Sides finally done

                       Finally finished up the sides of the boat now time to move onto the deck

a lot of hard work but me and Karen are very pleased with the outcome
I'd like to thank my wife Karen for all her hard work and dedication to this project without her help this would have not gotten done  :-)

Finishing up the sides

                         After a lot of hard work it looks like the sides are finally just about done

         in the last picture with Karen you can see our new dodger that is not completely install yet
            now it's time to get the top deck prepped and ready for paint  yea let the fun begin  :-)
     still lots of work to get done before are August 2015 departure date  but I think will be just fine
      if anybody's interested we used Easypoxy paint and primer  and I'm real happy with the results