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

Boat maintenance

Me and the wife having a little fun :)

Forth of july weekend with the family

we had a excellent time with are family chuck, tammy, and the kids
and cant wait to do it again

                                                  some times we forget why we do this
                                            and then the sea reminds us why we do this