Rain, rain, and more rain.

Pretty much the last 3 days.

I know I am probably not going to get much sympathy from the folks up north but it has been raining for the last three days. I did not get off the boat on Wednesday or today. Thursday I made three trips in the dingy to get water but never got on land, just pulled up beside the seawall and filled our containers. Tomorrow I am getting off the boat and going ashore no matter what. The Hunger Games is playing so I think we will go see it. Monday should be sunny and back in the low 80s.

It is so nice being out of the boatyard and back in the water. Life is getting back to normal. Next week we are going up to Indiana for Thanksgiving. We will be gone about a week. It will be good to see everyone. Hopefully we can take some warm weather up there with us.

This is what I would rather see when I look out the window.

Back in Marathon

We are finally back in the water and back in Boot Key Harbor. We went back in the water last Wednesday but had a leak where the drive shaft enters the boat. We had her pulled back out and fixed that leak. We went back in the water on Friday at 2;30. On Saturday we traveled back to Marathon. It took us 7 hours and was a perfect day to be on the water. We arrived in Boot Key at about 1:30. The next day we went to church and then took the bus back to Key West to pick up the car and scooter. I rode the scooter back and Sharon drove the car. Of course it rained and stormed on the way back. I had a head wind most of the way and could not get over 50 mph. Had one impatient pickup truck driver almost run me over only to turn off the highway a mile later. When I crossed the seven mile bridge it rained the hardest of the whole trip, but we made it.

We don't ever want to go to a boatyard again. It was miserable. I think another two weeks and I would have been ready to trade Island Queen for an RV.

Ready to go back into the water. 

Bow  thruster.

Modified rudder.

Island Queen's only through hull.

Headed back to the water.

4th Anniversary

Today is our 4th anniversary of cruising and living aboard. We left Lighthouse Landing on Kentucky Lake November 4, 2010 on Morgan our 1970 Coronado 25 sailboat. It took us about 13 months to make it down to the Florida Keys. We then purchased Island Queen our 1978 Marine Trader trawler. We have been in the Keys now for almost three years. That doesn't seem possible, but that is what the math says. We are really looking forward to April when we will start up the east coast.

We are still in Key West at the boatyard but hope to be back in the water tomorrow at 11 o'clock, and happily at anchor by 1. It looks like we will have good weather on Friday to head to Marathon.

Locking out of Kentucky Lake 11/4/2010

On the hard 11/4/2014