Well we loaded up the Saturn SC1 and with the suspension bottomed out, took I-95 South to St. Mary’s, GA.

After spending 3-4 weeks in St. Mary’s, GA, we finally got moving. We had a few projects we wanted to take care of before we left.

One big project was to install 2 propane lockers in the cockpit. Originally our boat had CNG, but since you can’t really obtain CNG easily, we had to convert the oven/stove to LPG. Luckily Seaward sold a kit to convert it, so I did that last year before we left. At that time, I bought these stainless steel propane tank holders, that attach to the back of the boat. They worked okay, but I hated how the looked, hanging off the back of the boat, with the propane hose and electrical wires dangling. So I decided to build 2 boxes, which I would bolt on either side of the captains chair. So I built the boxes out of plywood, glued them together, then coated them in a fiberglass cloth, and epoxied them completely, inside and out. Then I used Bondo to smooth them out, and finally painted them. They came out great, but they did take a lot of time to complete. And the big benefit is now we have nice high chairs to sit on when steering. Before we would have to stand up a lot, to get a good view of what was in front of us, especially if we had the dinghy on the foredeck. Now we can sit back relax and steer with our feet, literally. I don’t have a good picture of them done and installed, but I will get one soon and post it. Here is what they looked like before the fiberglass.

Propane Box, before glassing

So it took a while to paint them and drill all the holes in the boat, but they are in, and I am really happy with how they turned out.

Another project which Nadia tackled by herself was refinishing the hatch and companionway teak. She sanded everything nicely, and then put four coats of cetol, and will be putting two coats of gloss over that. The hatch looks really nice now. I will get a pic up soon.

We did a bunch of other little things, and spent some time traveling around the area, since we had our car. We also made some friends, and had a relaxing, and good time.

But it was nice to get moving again, and if you click on the globe you can see our progress. There are two links on the right under location, one to our first trip map, and one to our current trips map.

Right now we decided to stop in Sebastian, FL because we liked staying at this marina last year, and we got a really, really good rate. So we are enjoying ourselves, going to the beach, reading, renting movies… They have a great free bus system here too, so it easy to get to Vero Beach or the Mall.

My brother is down in Florida for the week, and there is a good chance he might stop by, and we are planning on going to the Kennedy Space Center. I have been wanting to go for a while, but there is no public transportation, so we were going to wait till we got back to our car to go, but now it looks like we might go Saturday.

So that is the latest news. Not much excitement coming down so far, everything has been working fine on the boat. We have been mostly motoring with a little motor sailing too. But the weather has been sunny, warm, and not too windy. Our plan is to leave here Sunday or Monday, and try to make good time down to Fort Lauderdale, where we want to spend a week. And then take our time from Fort Lauderdale to Marathon, since we have not gone down that far south before. We hope to spend around a month in Marathon, and then we are not sure if we will come back on the West or East Coast of Florida.

Sebastian Fog

Rising Sun

Pelican

Nadia at the helm