Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas!
Well folks, we're in Naples. We are now 87 miles from Key West.
Today, we are celebrating Christmas. We spent the early morning drinking coffee and watching "The Santa Clause." After breakfast we will do some work to get the boat ready for our biggest crossing yet. Once that is done, we will have our Christmas dinner. We have a little tree, and we have the boat all decorated for the holiday.
We are staying at the Naples City Dock for a day or so. We need to get fuel, do a pumpout, fill our water tanks, etc. I have to make new reefing nettles as the old ones have gotten to worn to trust. We need to load the bikes on the deck. Then we will watch the weather. We need about 24 hours for the crossing to Key West. Our reservations are for Saturday, so we have three days to pick from. The wind is predicted to be easterly, so it should be a pretty smooth crossing. It is still a challenge as we've not yet done a 24 hour crossing. Our biggest so far was the 18 hours it took to cross the Gulf. If the weather holds as predicted, we should have no trouble. The autopilot is working and we will be starting our with full fuel tanks and full batteries so it's all systems go. This might be our last posting before the crossing, so wish us luck!
Update: It turned out to be such a nice day, after our work was done we took a bike ride to the beach. To the folks up north: eat your hearts out! We were wading in the surf on Christmas day. Wow! That's what being "south" is all about.
Merry Christmas to everyone!

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