After Mark and Robin left, we remained at Cocoa in order to visit with Sara, a Seattle friend who was in the area with her partner, Drake, for a work trip. In addition, a mutual friend of ours, Bethy, had recently moved to the Orlando area. Bethy and her husband Alex drove out to Cocoa and on Friday night we hosted a huge dinner party on the boat – my first time cooking a 3-course meal from scratch for 6 people on the boat. We had a great evening catching up.

Alex and Bethy stayed on the boat with us and the next day we ate pastries for breakfast and then played some mini-golf. I am extremely bad at mini-golf and lost by a large factor. However, we had a great time!

Alex and Bethy are big fans of Disney, so I knew I had a good opportunity to make a trip happen – only 2 years after our failed plans with Matthew only days before the parks shut down for Covid. We would only have one day, so I requested that we go to Hollywood Studios since I wanted to see the Star Wars zone! David is not a fan of crowds (people) or rides, so he decided to stay on the boat for a day of relaxing and video games. Alex, Bethy, and I drove back to Orlando on Saturday night so that we would be close to Disney in the morning. We work up early and started booking rides on the app, then headed to the parks for a fantastic and magical day! The Star Wars zone is incredibly detailed and I can only imagine how it must feel for a super-fan to walk up to the Millenium Falcon – much the same way I felt walking up to Hogwarts, I imagine.

Even though it was Easter Sunday and very busy at the park, Bethy and I had a fantastic morning – we ended up waiting in line for a few rides, and used the app to book fastpass times for other rides in the afternoon, by which time Alex joined us. Bethy was very patient for all my selfie poses!

Just before our reservations in Olgas Cantina for drinks, the sky opened up and it began raining. And I mean torrential downpour! We waited under an umbrella for our reservation to be called and made a mad dash in to the building.

By the time we had finished our drinks, it was close to the park closing time, and luckily the rain had scared most of the people away. I managed to convince Bethy and Alex to ride one more time on the Rise of the Resistance ride, and we had a little fun in the Hall of Stormtroopers.

While I was having a fantastic day, David was having his own version of a fantastic day on the boat sleeping in, playing video games, and working on coding projects. We were reunited later in the evening (our first day apart in over 2 years) and started making our plans for heading out of Cocoa.

After some negotiation, Hinckley finally agreed to release the boat to us, and mid-afternoon we were able to launch the boat into the water. We immediately left and went to a different marina in Stuart where we planned to stay for the next week to assess the full situation in the boat and complete the most important unfinished and messed-up projects that we would need in order to fully operate Highwind. Top of the list would be identifying and fixing the error message on the new fridge, wiring up the windlass so that we would be able to anchor, confirming that we still have a washdown up front that works (to spray mud off the anchor as we pull it up), and adjusting David’s desk to fit in the remaining office space due to the new fridge box being built too big.

While we were gone, we had also received the repaired watermaker from Spectra and new blinds, both of which needed to be installed so that we could get rid of large boxes taking up most of the living room before David’s parents arrived to visit!

We had a bit of a busy week with work during the days and full evenings of boat projects to complete.

It was pretty stressful, but we managed to finish everything in time to head out of Stuart on Friday and head to Ft. Pierce where we celebrated with a sushi boat.

On Saturday, Mark and Robin arrived about 15 minutes after we had finished stowing away all the tools, tidying up, and vacuuming! Mark’s birthday was on Sunday and we celebrated by visiting a local brewery and then a cider brewery.

We capped off the evening with some delicious Thai food.

For the beginning of the week, we headed to Melbourne, where Mark and Robin explored while David and I worked. We had been checking out the launch schedule at the Kennedy Space Center and a rocket launch was scheduled for mid-day on Wednesday. We decided to adjust our plans slightly and head to Cocoa for a good view. As it happens, the launch was postponed to Friday, but regardless we arrived mid-week in Cocoa. David managed to find some VIP launch viewing tickets, so we prepared to take Friday morning off for the experience.

We arrived a couple of hours before launch and were shepherded onto a a bus where we were driven to the Saturn center for our prime viewing. We had no previous knowledge of what was launching, but it turned out to be the first mission of Axiom Space, a manned mission aboard a Space-X Dragon with the first all-private civilian astronaut crew heading to the ISS for a 10 day mission.

We had a fantastic view from 3 miles away from the launch pad.

Sadly the rocket was actually behind the structure that you can see in the picture, so we were not able to see it while we were watching the count down, but we were able to see when the crew boarding arm moved away to the side.

We watched some promotional videos from Axiom on a live-stream, and also there was a live-speaker at the bleachers providing us with information regarding the launch.

Finally the clock reached the 5…4…3…2…1 and the rocket lifted off. A few seconds later the sound rumble rushed through us and we could feel the vibration in our chests.

It was an incredible experience! I did record on my phone, but was looking at the ship with my eyes (the light from the engines is blinding!).

I hopped on and off calls for the afternoon while David and his parents visited the museum, though I did get to see the full Atlantis exhibit.

On Sunday we did a kayaking tour through the mangroves. We hoped to see some manatees, but unfortunately we did not. We did get to kayak through very narrow tunnels made by the mangroves where I tried unsuccessfully to steer the kayak and David tried successfully to ram our kayak into his parents’.

It was lovely to have them on the boat with us and we had a great visit!

We arrived in Big Sky on Saturday afternoon only a little jet-lagged and hoping that David’s curse would be lifted and that we’d see some new snow while we were there. Although we had planned to rest and recover from jet lag on Sunday, when we awoke, it was snowing and there had been several inches of new snow overnight, so we put on our ski gear and headed out for a fantastic day of skiing with friends, including Brent, Elizabeth, and Timur. Unfortunately Michelle had recently broken her ankle so was laid up at the house.

The next day was a beautiful bluebird day, which gave us some amazing views from Eric’s gorgeous house.

Unplanned, David’s “vacation” week had been filled with staffing meetings, and while I had not planned to take a full week off, I was hoping to be able to take a day or two off for some skiing, except my calendar was filling up as well! As it turned out, we did not get any new snow for the rest of the week, and we ended up working full days. However, we had lots of fun in the evenings, spending time with friends and playing games.

On Friday, it was time to head out of Montana and back to Florida where we would be able to finally see the result of the month of work being done on the boat. We knew that the situation was not good and that the boat would not be ready to go into the water until Monday at the earliest. After mulling over a couple of options, we decided to keep our Friday flights and booked the weekend in a hotel in Stuart. Since we wouldn’t even be able to access the ship yard, we decided to organize an impromptu visit with Bethy and Alex in Orlando, so on Saturday morning, we rented a car and drove out to meet them. We went to Disney Springs for lunch – which is a Disney-ified outdoor mall and then spent a few hours wondering around.

We returned to Bethy’s house for the afternoon to hang out, and then decided to grab some dinner before David and I drove back to Stuart. Unfortunately, when we went outside to start the rental car, the engine wouldn’t turn on! Enterprise roadside assistance estimated 90 minutes, but Bethy’s neighbourhood group came to the rescue and we were able to borrow jumper cables and get the car going. We had a lovely dinner and then returned to our motel in Stuart.

The next day, we walked down the street from the hotel to a brewery where we had some beers, lunch, and played a board game on the ipad. In the afternoon, we decided to go and see a movie – Uncharted – our first time being in a movie theatre in several years!! For dinner we went to Benihana and sat with a couple who had never done teppanyaki before!

Early Monday, David had a meeting scheduled with the General Manager at Hinckley, so we left the hotel, and braced ourselves for the ensuing nightmare – the story of which will constitute its own blog post!

As we were about to try to fall asleep on the plane, the person in the row behind us told us that the Aurora was visible from the window. We opened our window to see the most amazing view of the lights dancing outside. This was my first time seeing the phenomenon and it was absolutely spectacular. It felt like we were flying right through it. My pictures are very blurry and just do not do it justice.

We landed in the early afternoon on Saturday and new we needed to find things to do so that we would not crash early. Since we could not get into our room yet, we left our luggage with reception and headed out to find some lunch. We decided to head back to Divinis, which we wrote about in our last Prague post (A Week in Prague). We had a spectacular lunch while trying to keep each other awake :). We headed back to the hotel and were finally able to access our room for a shower! We then headed around the corner to a thai massage place which was lovely, but also I have to admit that I napped a tiny bit. Oops! Next we went to a Banksy exhibit, which was very well done.

After that we grabbed some pizza for dinner and then headed across town to do an escape room. The room was Alice in Wonderland themed and very well done!

On Sunday, we decided to visit a town outside of Prague since we’ve already hit most of the major tourist attractions in the city. We hopped on a bus to Karlovy Vary, a town in the mountains known for its mineral water springs throughout town that are supposed to be drunk for their healing powers.

You are supposed to purchase a special ceramic mug with an integrated straw (available at ALL the souvenir shops around town), and then fill and drink. The water is naturally sparkling, and varying degrees in temperature. To me, the taste was so awful that it made me gag. I was only able to taste from 3 of the springs before I quit. David meanwhile drank from all of them!

The architecture in the town is just beautiful! We spent the morning walking around and locating the springs, some of which are located in these amazingly beautiful and intricate colonnade structures.

In the afternoon, we took the funicular up the hill to the Diana lookout for an amazing panoramic view of the city. At the top, there was also a mini-zoo with the most adorable piglets!

Rather than take the funicular down, we decided to walk down, in the direction of a well known landmark – the Jeleny Skok, a statue of a mountain goat. After following the signs for a while, our anticipation building, we eventually found the statue, which was actually not even actual-sized, but very cute!

We continued walking around until it was time to catch our bus back to Prague. It was quite a challenge to fight the jet lag and stay awake for the bus ride, and we had a quick dinner before we headed back to the hotel to crash.

For the rest of the week, David worked from the Outreach office while I worked full time in the EST timezone from our hotel room. I don’t think the hotel cleaners appreciated me turning them away every day!

On the last morning, I finally had time in the morning to take a walk through the city before starting work. I wondered through the Old Town Square and across the Charles Bridge.

On our last night in Prague, we met up with a colleague of David’s who was currently on vacation in the city, and went to a “cave restaurant” – one of apparently a few in the city! The restaurant is downstairs and decorated to feel as if you are in an underground cave. We had a fabulous tasting-menu meal.

On Saturday morning, we woke up super early to get to the airport for our 3-flight travel day to Big Sky Montana, which will be our last week away from Highwind.

First on our travel itinerary was New York – a work trip for me. We were holding an Employee Appreciation Conference where we flew in the entire team from around the country for the first real in-person event since Covid.

Because we arrived for the weekend, and despite David having to work, we were able to do a bit of exploration of the city and get some good meals in, including re-visiting Atera, which was just as spectacular as when we had been there last several years ago.

For me, the week was jam packed with several leadership working sessions and then the main event, including coordinating for a group of 20 people to get Covid tested and visit several locations throughout the city. It was amazing to get together with the team and we had a couple of really fruitful days.

On Friday afternoon, we flew out of NYC headed west to Seattle. This time, David had a work event to attend. It was his birthday on the weekend and we celebrated by meeting up with various friends on Saturday and family on Sunday. Anna and Aaron hosted all the de Regt siblings for a delicious brunch, then we went for a walk around Gasworks since the weather was beautiful. In the afternoon we went axe throwing with Brent and Elizabeth which was very fun and surprisingly challenging!! Finally we capped off the day with an excellent dinner with both sets of parents at SYC. This was almost exactly 2 years after we had our Bon Voyage dinner at the SYC before we moved onto the boat!

For the rest of the week, we were both pretty busy with work schedules and visiting with different people each night. We try to see as many people as possible when we visit with Seattle!

On Friday night we headed back to the airport for our red-eye flight to Prague, another David-work leg of our journey.

David spent the remainder of our time in Bimini working on a few other boat projects including installing a light fixture over the island in the kitchen and a new Sirius weather receiver on our antenna. The wind remained strong through Thursday, but there was a weather window on Friday so we decided to head back to the US to make sure that we would arrive on time in Stuart and Hinckley for our scheduled month of maintenance and boat projects including a new fridge and hopefully finally solving our starboard engine vibration. The entire ride home was smooth and we pulled in to Hinckley before sunset.

We spent about three hours nervously and frantically calling every border security agency in the country since our app-requested border clearing never actually was approved, and weren’t sure we could legally land in the US. We eventually managed to reach someone at an airport who said we could clear customs there in the morning, and then nervously just … took the boat to the marina without any sort of actual crossing approval. Then, late at night, the app updated over to us being approved without any interview, and we slept more soundly.

We needed to drive back down to Ft Lauderdale to pick up our alcohol for the storage unit, and coincidentally it was the same weekend as the Miami boat show, so we decided to make a day-trip of it. After a delay picking up the rental car, we headed towards Miami. We primarily wanted to check out the vendor booths to chat to Spectra (the watermaker folks) to complain out our broken-on-arrival brand-new watermaker, and Webasto (the new a/c system folks) since the guy David had been emailing with wasn’t very responsive.

After walking around the vendor hall, we headed towards one of the marinas where we hoped to walk around on a few power cats. We did not visit any that felt like better uses of space than Highwind! As we were heading out, the sky opened up in a torrential downpour that lasted for about 15 mins. We ducked in a tent to wait it out before heading back to the car.

One of our SYC/MBYC friends has a second home in Miami and was hosting a yacht club happy hour for the boat show. We headed over to his place, which had an amazing view of Biscayne Bay and enjoyed some good company with friends.

After happy hour, we rushed to the storage unit just in time to clear out our alcohol before they closed for the evening.

For the rest of the week, we spent our time at the Hinckley marina on the boat preparing for a large number of projects to be taken care of on the boat over the next month while we do some traveling for work. Primarily, we are hoping to install a bow thruster, replace and relocate the fridges, and hopefully solve our engine vibration issue. We had various folks on the boat throughout the week assessing all the different projects (probably about 15 different projects in total) while we worked our day-jobs, and also prepared the boat for the work. At the last minute, the folks at Hinckley decided they wanted to haul Highwind out of the water on Friday rather than next week, so we changed our flights to New York and had a mad scramble to finalize everything before heading to the airport!

For the first half of our cruise, we had some small waves – 2-3ft which made the ride a bit bumpy but nothing that concerned us. Once we got far enough into the crossing, the waters evened out due to some protection from Grand Bahama, so overall the trip was relatively smooth. We pulled in to the dock at the Grand Bahama Yacht Club and cleared customs with enough time for me to join my afternoon customer calls and wrap up the working day for me (David had the day off). Matthew and David headed into town on scooters to pick up some provisions and see if they could find SIM cards and a cruising/anchoring guide. For the evening we walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner.

The predicted wind storm was solidifying into a longer-term storm (Sunday through Friday) at this point. Matthew had to be back to an airport by midday Thursday to get back to the west coast, and with only having one day to get anywhere before winds came in, we didn’t really want to go all the way to the Abacoes in a single day to hang out in the wind and then hurry over 200 miles back to the US after a week. Our explorations had determined that there wasn’t much to do on Grand Bahama, so we decided to change things up and head down to Bimini to spend our week. We had a full Saturday with decent weather predicted, so we picked one anchorage to spend the day at before retreating to the populated island of Bimini for the week. Matthew had to change his flight from Freeport to Bimini, but it gave us the best shot at having more of a Bahamas-ish experience for the week of wind.

The next morning, we had another fairly early wake up, and headed out for our crossing. As we were passing Bimini where we needed to slow down a bit, we pulled out the ice-cream maker that was a boat-warming gift from David’s sister Anna. You put the ice-cream in the middle, fill it up with ice and salt and then tow it behind the boat for churning. We were a bit concerned that it wouldn’t work well given that the water was about 80 degrees, but we gave it a go anyway! It actually turned out to be pretty successful in thickening the recipe (nutella banana), so once it was done we stored it in the freezer for later that night.

We arrived at the anchorage, Honeymoon Harbour, just after lunchtime. It was beautiful – the water was so clear I could see the anchor hit the bottom and the chain lay out on the sand. Matthew and I immediately pulled out the snorkel gear and jumped in, while David set about flying the drone for some video/pics.

I usually am a bit nervous about snorkeling since I have a fear of fish, but it was just so warm and beautiful, I really enjoyed myself! We swam around the bow and took a look at the anchor to confirm we had a good hold and then we swam towards the beach and started to see fish and even a sting ray. I wish I’d thought about charging up the gopro batteries to get some underwater shots. I didn’t want David to miss out on everything, so we swam back to the boat and I encouraged him to get changed and jump in.

Once David had joined us, we swam all the way up to the beach where a bunch of day-boaters were partying. It turns out this is a well known spot to see the stingrays – because partiers feed them from the beach, so they swim right up to the beach when people are around.

After walking around a little, we swam back to the boat for a snack and a drink on the stern.

We enjoyed an amazing BBQ’ed flank stake fajita night with a beautiful sunset for the evening.

We knew that winds were predicted to pick up in the early afternoon the next day, and between us and Bimini there was a wreck that was supposed to be excellent for snorkeling. The wreck is the Sapona which was a concrete boat, so it’s pretty unusual. We pulled the anchor and started heading north. The winds started to pick up sooner than expected so by the time we reached the wreck we were in 1-2 ft swells; however there were a few other snorkel/dive boats at the wreck, so we decided to go ahead with the swim. After two failed attempts to anchor, we decided that Matthew and I would head to the wreck while David stayed aboard the boat and held off. We suited up with lifejackets and fins and swam over. There weren’t many fish around the wreck, but it was fun to swim in and around.

We had a quick swim back to the boat and a frantic pull out onto the swimpstep before the boat drifted too close to the wreck and then we were headed up to Bimini. The wind started picking up even more as we were pulling into the marina and it basically didn’t stop for the next 5 days.

After we had tied up and checked-in at the marina, we decided to explore a little, so we headed to the west side of the island to check out the beach. There was a coconut drink vendor, so we all got a drink and enjoyed the beach for a while.

The next day, Matthew and I decided we wanted to do some more swimming and there was a spit of land on the other side of the boat, so we suited up and hopped in the water.

When we were a hundred feet or so from the boat, we heard some people from shore yelling at us to get out of the water. I thought maybe there were trying to tell us that we were in a boating channel (we were), but I’d tied a fender around my waist so that we would be visible. I shouted “Why?!” and they responded “Sharks!”. Yikes – you don’t need to tell us twice!! We quickly swam back to the boat where David hauled us out of the water and then not minutes later, two enormous, maybe 5ft wide, spotted sting rays (supposedly dangerous) and a huge 6-7 ft shark swim by the dock right by our stern!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so I guess we’re not doing any more swimming for the week. We decided instead to hop on the local ferry from North Bimini to South Bimini to explore. We walked to the Sands resort, but everything there was closed. Someone told us about a nature walk that was a little further down the road, so we headed for that. Almost as soon as we entered the trees, David and I were instantly swarmed by mosquitos, so we quickly ran back to the road! We thought about looking for the “fountain of youth” but we’d been told it was a bit of a walk and ultimately just a well on the side of the road, so we instead decided just to head back to the boat! It was the superbowl in the evening so we headed to the local spot for watching while eating some amazing ribs.

The next day, in the morning the self-named “Lobster Man” visited the boat and sold us 6 lobster tails for a very reasonable price. In the afternoon, there was a huge rain storm, so we stayed inside the boat. David worked on a few boat projects while Matthew and I played board games.

Later that night, we prepared our lobster two ways – boiled and broiled, with some fresh corn and freshly made (by me) sourdough bread. What a feast! We liked the broiled the best, since we’d covered it in melted butter and garlic before putting it into the oven.

The next day, the rain had stopped, but the wind was still blowing. We decided to visit the “Dolphin House” a local treasure of the island. The house is built entirely by hand by one man, Ashley Saunders, made with materials that he finds on the beaches of the island. When he was unable to make concrete, he would even grind down conch shells to make it. One floor – an entire two bedroom apartment – is complete, and the second floor was still being constructed, so you could see the work in progress. It’s certainly one of a kind – it is entirely filled (literally every inch) with tile, mosaics, and motifs, even incorporating empty bottles and other beach flotsam.

After visiting the dolphin house, we waked to the north end of the island where there is a Hilton resort, which boasted several pools, hot tubs, and a swim up bar. After we had arrived, we paid our non-resort-guest entrance fee and headed out to the pool. Unfortunately, it was the windiest day so far, with winds 20-30kts so it was actually a littler cooler outside and the pool was not heated. We decided to order a drink at the swim up bar anyway (Matthew had never done one!) even though the bartender was literally telling us we were crazy! Since it is not the height of their tourist season, which starts around Spring Break, the pool was empty and they basically closed up the bar after we were done.

Matthew and I decided to swim the length of the pool, which turned out to be enormous since it spanned the entire length of the hotel, and then we decided to head up to the rooftop pool where there was supposed to be a hot tub. Unfortunately the hot tubs were all drained and it was even windier on the top of the building. We decided to cut our losses and head back to the boat.

The next morning would be Matthew’s last as he was to leave us before lunch to head to Bimini for his flight. In the morning, Matthew and I decided to walk to the southern point of the island, where we found a blowhole and got an amazing shot of Matthew.

As we were heading back to the boat, it started to rain, so we ran all the way! We then took Matthew back to the ferry since the airport is on South Bimini and said goodbye. It was so lovely to have Matthew on board – his first visit on Endeavour-Highwind. Despite some disappointment with the weather, we really enjoyed our time together!

David recalled that one of his colleagues lives in Miami, so we invited them to join us on the boat for an afternoon. We met them at the yacht club, then headed back out into the bay to anchor for some swimming. We had a lovely afternoon and then headed back to our dock at the Yacht Club for the evening.

We were arriving after hours at the dock (in absolutely no wind and no current), so there was nobody to hand a line to. I made a bit of a stupid decision and climbed over the railing to jump off to the dock. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite make it to the dock and ended up hanging from the dock trying unsuccessfully to swing my legs up. I had my lifejacket on, which made it difficult and eventually I slipped off the dock and into the water. Luckily, this was a fixed height dock that was very high above the water, so I ended up under the dock and not crushed between the dock and the boat. David heard me splash in (I was wearing my headset) and put the boat into neutral. A few seconds after I submerged and came back up to the surface, I was momentarily confused as a whooshing sound started…it was my lifejacket auto-inflating. I managed to swim back to the boat – keeping both my prescription sunglasses and headset on, while also still hanging on to the dock line (I wasn’t going to let that get caught in the props again!!). With the lifejacket inflated around me, David had to come down to the swim step and haul me aboard. I immediately jumped back into gear and we safely docked the boat. Luckily I escaped injury-free, with just a few scrapes on my leg. I guess we gave David’s colleague and her husband a good show!

Later that evening, after the adrenaline had worn off, David and I went for dinner up at the Yacht Club, where we had a great meal. Afterwards, David started preparations for the water maker install by spending the entire night removing the old water maker.

The next day, he installed all the components of the new watermaker (we didn’t need to be hauled this time, since there was already a through-hull from the previous water maker). Unfortunately, after we turned it on, it started it’s initial cycle and then stopped and would not be restarted :(. Chatting on the phone with Spectra we learned we needed to go through their very slow warranty process before they would give us any kind of replacement parts, or a new unit. This would mean that we’d need to be careful with our water consumption while in the Bahamas with Matthew, which isn’t the end of the world with our 200gal water tank; we were just a little disappointed that it didn’t work out of the box – now the second time this had happened to us with Spectra watermakers!

David had also just figured out where the level gauge for the fresh water tank was, which had been giving us issues since we bought the boat. In an effort to adjust the gauge to fix it, he broke it completely, so we now had no water gauge at all, while water-conserving in the Bahamas. When it rains, it pours.

Meanwhile, we made plans to leave Key Biscayne and headed north to an anchorage between Miami and Ft Lauderdale. We had posted the old water maker on a cruisers forum for free if someone wanted to try to resurrect it instead of us just throwing it out. We found a taker and a couple arrived by dingy to collect all the pieces. We invited them back over for drinks after work and had a lovely evening with them later!

Along with the watermaker, we’d also ordered a liferaft for the boat. They’re basically set up to automatically deploy if the boat goes under water, or you can manually deploy it easily if you’re going down and need to abandon ship. Between that and a waterproof bugout case of stuff that we’d set up, if we had something go wrong off shore or deep in the Bahamas, we’d have a few days of supplies and satellite communication to get rescued, nestled into our liferaft bobbing around in the ocean.

We had made our marina reservation in Ft Lauderdale for Wed through Sat, with the hope of a weather window for heading to the Bahamas. Since we’d made plans in advance, we were able to direct a batch of packages to the marina which arrived just as we did. We’d been holding packages for a month with us being on the move constantly without plans, so there was quite a lot of stuff.

We had rented another car in Ft Lauderdale, primarily to arrange for a storage unit to stash our liquor collection, since we read that we could only take one bottle per person of alcohol into the Bahamas. This was lucky because David was able to use it to drive the broken water maker engine back to Miami to start the warranty repair process. The next few days passed in a blur of working, and final travel coordination including arranging for COVID tests for travel.

Matthew arrived late on Thursday and since we’d been watching the weather all week, we made a game-day decision to head out on Friday instead of Saturday as planned due to heavy winds and waves over 6ft predicted later in the weekend. I had to last-minute take the day off on Friday, but we really didn’t want to miss that weather window.

We woke up at sunrise on Friday morning, hoping for smooth sailing for our crossing.

Leaving Key West, we headed to an anchorage outside of Big Pine Key. We planned to do a few hops up the Keys on our way back to Miami/Ft Lauderdale where Matthew would fly out to join us. We set up on anchor for a few days and it was quite a bit different than the business of Key West!

One evening we hopped in the dingy and went to Kiki’s Sandbar – basically the only restaurant near us – which had a dock for us to tie up to. There was live music playing and we had a delicious seafood medley including 3 kinds of fish, conch fritters, and shrimp prepared 2 ways!

Later in the week, another Looper couple joined us in the anchorage, so we visited them by dingy one evening and hosted them aboard Highwind the next. They are about to complete their loop in North Carolina.

We next ventured to Tavernier, where we managed to get a spot in a marina for a couple of days of strong winds that were predicted. It also happened to be the week that my boss, Steve and his wife were visiting Tavernier for vacation! We met up with them for lunch and hanging out on Highwind (for which we took no pictures!).

After Tavernier, we headed north to an anchorage just past Key Largo on Barnes Sound. We were completely alone in the anchorage and were treated to some amazing sunsets.

Finally, we headed north to Biscayne Bay, were we set up on anchor once again. That night, as we were relaxing after work, we heard a random boom of fireworks, which turned out to be some kind of private show from a barge about 200 feet off our stern!

We were trying to decide whether to meet Matthew in Miami or Ft Lauderdale for heading to the Bahamas on a vacation week, but due to an upcoming boat show in Miami, no marinas where available and I did manage to get a spot in Ft Lauderdale so that sealed the deal.

We had about a week before Matthew would arrive, and David had managed to arrange with the re-seller from whom we had just purchased a water maker that we could pick it up directly from his warehouse (just outside of Miami). We also looked at a map and discovered we we just outside of the Key Biscayne Yacht Club. I managed to organize reciprocity with SYC and so we planned to stay in their marina for the weekend. I also booked a rental car through Turo (an app we just discovered were people rent out their cars). Everything went smoothly and later we were back at the marina with all the parts for the new water maker.

In the extremely heavy rainfall (the most that we’d seen since we moved onto Endeavour-Highwind), we discovered several leaks – one collecting on the staircase to the pilothouse and the other in the guest bathroom. David managed to trace the bathroom leak all the way up to our bedroom where the seal on the window had clearly been disintegrating. He dismantled the window and the wall panel and we discovered the wall panel had completely rotted/dissolved and it became clear where the water was coming through.

To find the source of the leak on the stairs, David had to remove an entire wall panel and we discovered that the water was coming in through the seam where the pilot house joins the base of the boat.

Once the rain had stopped in the afternoon, David started picking out all the old sealant between the two layers of the boat, so that we could let it dry a bit before re-sealing. We also re-caulked our bedroom window.

Hopefully that would solve these rain leaks, though we need to rebuild the wall around the window in our bedroom, but without easy transport to a hardware store on Key West, we weren’t about to bring a new large piece of plywood to the boat. However, to prepare, I set about ordering some samples of foam-backed vinyl for covering the new piece, so that we can color match with the existing fabric on the boat (which we have learned is not made any more).

David and I had decided to remain in Key West for the rest of the week after Mum and Dad left, so we got back to work. It was warm enough that we turned on the A/C. Just before the weekend, David took a look down in the port engine bay, where we had just installed a new dry bilge system to match the one in the starboard side. Unfortunately, there was a bunch of water in the bilge. Since we hadn’t cruised anywhere, we figured it couldn’t be from a leaking shaft seal. David thought it might be dying hoses from the A/C, which hadn’t been replaced since the boat was built 15 years ago. He started dismantling the wall and we discovered a large crack in the hose that ran up the rear port corner. We were able to buy some replacement hose from the West Marine around the corner and it was a relatively easy job to replace. Sweet!

We turned the A/C back on. A few hours later we checked the bilge again…oh no, it was full of water again. We looked again at all the hoses and found another crack that was spewing water everywhere – only this time it was the hose that runs the length of the port side to the battery area behind the fridges – behind the couch and Hannah’s office desk. We extended our stay in the marina so that I could go back and buy the rest of their hose, and David set about finding access to the house, which unfortunately required dismantling two window panels, the entire couch, and sawsall-ing a panel behind the couch!

We were able to replace the hose, then left everything open with the fans on overnight in the hopes of getting everything dry. We woke up early the next day to reassemble the living room and head out to begin our journey eastward!

David also found the perfect spot to mount my rooster!