Getting ready

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Getting ready to move hopefully April 3rd. I finally got everything put back together on the boat. The last bolts came in yesterday for my drivesaver and I put it together last night and took it out for a spin today. Still not perfect but I'm going with it. There are ratttles that were not there before I wrapped the crab pot line around the shaft. After asking a few people in the know, I think it will make it back to Virginia and them I can haul it and do what ever needs to be done. I started cleaning the bottom off also. There must be a foot of crud under there. I took the dinghy and and scaped as much of the sides as I could reach. Next I'll put on the mask and fins and scape for a while and then I'll put on the tank and finish it off. Things grow so fast in this harbor that you have to time it just right or it will grow back before you leave. It is a nasty job. It looks like upside down weeds and there are little shrimp the size of knats that get all over you and bite and something that looks like little worms that I don't even like to think about. The water is at least getting warmer.

Hard to believe that I have been here for over three months. It has been nice but I don't think I will come back. If I could have gotten out for a few sails in the area it may have been more fun but the boat and the weather did not cooperate. A month here would have been great but three is too much. There are people here that stay four months every year and have been coming here for 10 years. They usually work here. One couple is from Mystic Seaport, Conn and they have jobs in both places so they go north in summer and here in the winter. If I ever do this again I'll probably head to the Bahamas. I did hear that it was not the greatest weather there this year either.

The plan is that Desiree, if she can go, and I will take off April 3rd, weather permitting and go to at least Miami or even Lake Worth. Then my buddy Paul is flying into Miami and will rent a car and find us. Then Desiree wil somehow get back to the Keys. We plan on sailing down the coast as far as we can get in the six days he has. If the weather and the gulf stream are good to us we may even make it back to the bay. Hopefully at least back to NC. I want to run the engine as little as posible until I find out what the problem is.

Had some good times here this winter. Several friends came to visit, my daughter came for a week. Went to Key West four ttimes and Miami three times. When it was warm enough, which was often enough, we went to Sombrero Beach or out to Sombrero Reef. I guess I have beached out and drank out and Key Wested out and now I am ready to go somewhere else.

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Comments

[Larry S Martin]

GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU
good to talk the other day, sounds like you have had some fun and aggravation, hope it goes well on the sail back north, that crap on the bottom sounds like something like we ran into at topsail sea lice, we had never heard of them before, they would bite and cause red whelps and itching, mainly under womens bathing suits, glad you are doing this dirty work rather than me, i believe i will take the snow instead