Day 6

We turned the corner and are headed north as of about 9:00 this morning.  We had a mooring ball in Port St. Lucie and slept well.  We had dinner last night with Dick and Nancy Snyder.  They are refurbishing their sailboat after a few years of cruising and are looking to get the boat off the 'hard' next fall.  To those that don't know the Snyders, they are from St. Croix beach near Chris's sister Linda and are members of the St. Croix Sailing Club.

The boat has been needing constant TLC and would enjoy it more if I could get at least one project ahead but the cruisers tell us that this is normal.  We have put in nearly 50 hours since we left Hudson which is about what an active boater does in a season so I guess that I also have to put in a season of maintenance each week.  I had to replace one battery last week and now the second one is growing weaker.  The are the 125 pound big boys so will need to have someone from a marina help me put it in.  The last thing I want to do is tear out may back right now.  This is the starting battery so cannot delay.  On newer boats a person can switch to the house battery in an emergency but this is not a newer boat.  At some point I will have to rewire it the new way or at least put in an emergency bypass with a solenoid so at least the engine will start if there is a problem.  Hmmmm, gotta think about that. 

I finally got the windlass working right.  Maybe.  The instructions from the Italian manufacturer assumes that you have had one of these before so I went for trial and error.   Mostly error. 

Each day brings new challenges and after a couple of mishaps in a lock yesterday I'm sure Chris thought about decking me. (My mistakes but took it out on the crew).  Mom always told me that I never learned to keep my big mouth shut.  Maybe she was right but I'm working hard at it as this is tight quarters and she's a saint.

We have been spending long days on the water and look forward GA where we will take a week or two to unwind, catch up on our to do list and perhaps have a couple of days with cousin John and his wife Cheryl from Atlanta.  John, the cribbage boat is at the ready.