June 6th through 10th

With Barb back, we attacked finishing up the final details before leaving.  We rearranged and repacked things that I had torn apart during my projects.  We updated our inventory of spare parts so we can find things when we need them.  We had not been diligent about updating the inventory every time we used something during the last six months, so it was good to make sure we knew what we had.

I had put the dinghy back in the water and was very pleased to see it did not leak.  It is now restowed on the davits.  With the new bow attachment point, it is easier to snug it up tight and it should ride better.

I had determined that the solar panels might be able to bounce around a little while underway, so I added another bar to the mount making a triangle instead of just the L-shaped tube that I started with.  It is much more solid now. 

I found and fixed another fresh water leak that popped up from when I was working around the lines to the shower.  I was glad it wasn't something I disturbed in the lines that run behind the batteries.  I did not want to move batteries again.

By Friday afternoon, we had pretty much everything done that has to be done.  There are a few things left on the to-do list, but they are low priority optional things.  We went to the grocery and reprovisioned.  We spent $100 on stuff that would have probably cost $200 in the Bahamas.  It was also overwhelming to have all the choices that we have in America.  In the Bahamas we were happy to find one choice of fresh orange juice.  In America we have a whole case of Tropicana, Minute Maid, and Florida's Choice, and there are at least five or seven varieties of each brand.

One annoying problem that we still have is that the auto-pilot control resets when the nighttime back lighting is turned on.  I think this is a low-voltage problem, and had hoped the new batteries and their higher voltage would resolve this, but it hasn't.  I tried making a closed loop of the five instruments, instead of a dead end, but that didn't resolve it either.  Looks like I will have to add another wire from the circuit breaker to the end of the instrument chain to bump the voltage up.  That will remain on the to-do list for now.

We have quickly become accustomed to land life during our month here in St. Augustine.  As I have explained, we are staying in our friend's condo, with the boat at their private dock.  We have had a car available to us the whole time, so we can run to the store or restaurants at will.  We have even gotten into the swing of keeping a home clean.  The condo has a Roomba vacuum cleaner.  If you don't know, Roomba is a robotic vacuum that runs around the room on it's own.  As it bumps into things, it changes direction and carries on.  If it gets stuck, it stops and beeps every minute or so, so you can find it and set it free.  I found after an hour I was talking to it like you would a pet.  When it's battery starts to get low, it goes home to it's docking station to recharge.  Pretty cool.  We can't thank Clyde and Linda enough for opening their home to us for the past month.  It not only saved us money, but enabled us to get things done that otherwise would have been extremely difficult.

For the past week, we have been driving Donna's truck, since with four of us in the condo, sharing one car would have been inconvenient - another example of how quickly we got used to life on land.  Saturday, we took the truck back to her in Tallahassee.  We plan to leave St. Augustine Sunday, headed offshore for Charleston.  From there we will go up the ICW to Norfolk.  We are watching, but are not too worried about the first tropical depression of the season.  It is forecast to come through Florida and then go offshore up the east coast.  We will be in Charleston by the time it gets to Florida and should be perfectly safe.  The storm is forecast to be more of a rain even than a wind event, so I don't expect to have to even do any extraordinary preparations once we're in Charleston.

GPS N 29-53.684 W 081-17.636  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 4747.