One day wind will be my friend. But sitting at the dock trying to get ready to head south, wind is not my friend. Yesterday was exceptionally windy. Gusts were 35mph or more. I guess I should refer to winds as knots, in which case, it would be over 30 knots.
There isn’t much you can do outside when its that windy and cold. So we opted for stocking up on our groceries, propane and odds and ends that we needed at west marine. We spent much of the day inside the boat doing different things. I made flatbread, and Keith did some braiding on anchor line. Something he’s never done before.
We are trying not to order anything by mail so that we can leave and head south. Our plans were to be leaving any day now, but unfortunately we are waiting on our Honda generator that we decided at the last minute to purchase. It should be here on monday. yay. If all goes well, we will start watching for our weather window. We need about 4 days of fair weather to travel to St Augustine, where we have decided to stay a week or two.
We still haven’t decided on whether we will take the intracoastal waterway (ICW) or go on the outside. I think we are leaning on the outside. For those family members reading this, its okay! we will probably stay 5 miles from shore. We will be able to see shore and if it got bad, we could duck into the ICW. I have mixed feeling about the ICW. Its safe yes, but its slow going, and you motor most of the way. There are still issues with running aground if you aren’t careful. But then I guess you have that pretty much everywhere.
Even going along the coast line, we will have to come into the ICW to anchor at night.
The last of our friends here left today. It will seem awfully lonely now.
Since the weather is supposed to get bad again in a couple of days, we have decided to take one of our cars and leave it in St Augustine. Then, when we decide to go south of there, we will hopscotch our cars further down. That will give us quicker access to our cars in case of an emergency. We won’t really know if this is a good idea until later.
Our trip south is rapidly closing on us. Due to insurance reasons, we have to be back in Brunswick June 1st when hurricane season starts. Unless we decide to pay the extra insurance and take it to the West coast of Florida. We have talked about wanting to check out that area as well.
The main thing is that we are on our schedule and not anyone else’s. Its easy to get caught up wanting to leave when others leave. But they have been doing this a lot longer than we have and we have to make sure we are ready. We are so close. But until it happens, we just hang out here and enjoy the sunsets.

our boat at sunset
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