Adventure of a Lifetime

We did it! We're here!! Left Annapolis on October 26, and arrived in Key West on November 30, with one week home for Thanksgiving. The craziest, most fun, most exhausting, most challenging, and most rewarding month I can ever remember. After our previous 24 days of travel with surprisingly few hiccups, we had our share of mishaps today in what was supposed to be the easiest and shortest leg of our entire trip. A bit of foreshadowing - it all ended fine. We decided to sleep in, and I did not get up and take Gimel out until 6:30. By comparison, yesterday, we were already under way and entering the ocean at 6:15 a.m. Here was the view from the back of our boat in Marathon before sunrise. And then, inevitably, the sun came out. Here was the very short channel from Marathon out to sea. Throughout the Keys, we saw bridges connecting the islands. As we left the channel and headed into the ocean, I heard "Oh shit! Oh no!" on my headset. I figured that Gimel had fallen off the boa...

Well, it took less than 24 hours for me and Ann to realize that we did not like Miami enough to stay there for the whole Winter. Thanks to the helpful/friendly/awesome folks at Oasis marinas, we were able to switch our reservation to the Perry Hotel & Marina in Key West the day before flying home for Thanksgiving. We will take two days to get there. On Tuesday, 11/21, Ann and I flew home, and our kids all came home, and it was wonderful to see everyone! We spent Thanksgiving at Ann's brother's house where we were treated to a beautiful stuffed bird. (and don't worry - there was a whole vegan spread as well). Mark and Laura have twins as well, so here we are after an amazing meal with all 5 kids and the proud parents. Not pictured is Elana's boyfriend Bruno, who took the picture. We flew back to Miami yesterday and were off the dock at 6:20 a.m. this morning. Here we are, leaving Miami at the inlet before the sun was up. We had 2-3 foot following seas. Total pleasure...

We arrived in Miami on Saturday, 24 days after casting off from our home dock in Annapolis. Some statistics from our trip: Total nautical miles traveled: 1,115 (1,283 statute miles) Chesapeake Bay nautical miles: 124 Ocean nautical miles:  619 ICW nautical miles: 372 Average speed under way: 8.1 knots Typical cruising speed in ocean/bay: 9.75 knots Diesel fuel used: 1,927 gallons (capacity is 1,750) Number of nights at anchor: 7 Number of extra days paused due to weather: 4 Favorite spot: Hilton Head, SC Number of days we played pickleball: 2 Number of football games Michigan lost during our trip: 0 Number of signs stolen by Michigan during our trip: (too soon) This is the track we created on our Garmin Inreach.  This was a completely immersive and exhausting experience. I would say that the entire process was more difficult than we expected. The biggest challenges were: fear of shallow water in the ICW, planning and navigating our route each day and figuring out how far to go...

The weather in South Florida was really bad this past week. Our plan was to leave Stuart on Tuesday after taking an extra day to relax and recharge there. However, mother nature had other ideas. We stayed put until today when the weather finally improved, a total of five days in Stuart. Finally, this morning, we woke up to a gorgeous day and were under way at 6:40 a.m.  I had a bad cold the whole time we were in Stuart, but we decided to go out to dinner one night because I couldn't stand just being on the boat for so many days straight. It was raining and there was some flooding, but we put on our raincoats and grabbed an Uber to town. As you can see, one of us is happy to be in photos no matter if it's a bad hair day. The other eats vegan food. A bad hair day and definitely not vegan A nice vegan meal Dinner was nice, but when we got back, Gimel decided that since we did not take him with us, he would munch on our salon TV remote control for dinner. First time he's ever d...

(This is Ann. I am guest blogging today because Avi isn't feeling well.) We left our marina before sunrise to head to Stuart, a distance of about 85 nm - our longest boating day yet.   Our marina in Port Canaveral Six hours into our trip, I took a picture of our radar screen to show the water temperature in the Atlantic Ocean - 80.47 degrees!  The red and blue on the left of the screen is not land, but a storm heading our way!  Spoiler alert: we survived! You can see how cloudy and rough it was in the next two photos, but a great day to sail!  We were getting 2.4 foot waves from the SE, so on the port side bow, for most of the trip. It was often an up and down ride (as a precautionary measure, I took Bonine in the morning). In the last hour or two in the ocean, the waves were hitting our port side stern, making for a much more comfortable ride. We made good time, mostly doing 10+ knots. As we approached the inlet to Stuart, there was an airshow taking place....