After taking down the staysail, Vevela found a shady place to take refuge from the sun... her name means sunshine in Smaoan. We couldn't find her anywhere and after much searching we found her curled up in the sail. As you can see, she was nonplussed at being discovered and awakened. She still looks groggy...
Less than 30 days left until we begin our push back south...
The trip back to Annapolis was beautiful and thankfully uneventful. The alternator regulator was replaced with an ARS-5...spiffy LED display, program in battery type, belt load, etc, and it controls your charge quite efficiently. It used the same wiring harness as the ARS-3 (which is no longer produced) so installing it was a breeze.
Since coming back to Annapolis, life has consisted of sand, sand, paint. .Prep, paint, sand. Paint, paint, prep, sand. That goes for both of us. Brian is working on Amour 5 painting the 65' mast, the boom, and spinnaker pole. After that coming back to Holding Pattern and working on our cabin top & decks getting ready to paint. Heather has been putting in copious time getting HP ready to paint, taping things off, sanding, the usual preparations for an Awl-Grip job. Thankfully the pay is good and the cruising kitty will get fat before we begin our next outing.
About that outing...we're not saying it too loud, but our plans are to get south of the hurricane belt for next season. Go somewhere with water we can swim in, eat the fish we catch...the Caribbean is the plan but, like always, we'll see what happens between now and then. We've been frugal, worked hard, done the 'Go North, Young Man..." thing, now we're figuring on leaving Florida, turning right, and seeing where we end up. Betwixt ourselves, we're using the phrase "Go sailing" a lot when people ask.
"Where are you going for the winter and next hurricane season?"
"We're going sailing."
We had a nice happening today... we were taping off the deck (still) and saw Summersail come by. We had met John in Titusville some years ago. He was overheating, we were having prop problems (the first time the feathering prop failed us...) so we got to be buddies. We decided to take a dink trip and went over to say hello, good to see you again... Lo and behold, onboard was Ed who we met last week and who took us to the grocery. Seems they are good friends. Small world. Forget six degrees of separation...in the cruising world it may be three at most.
By the first week in October (before Annapolis boat show crowd begins the stampede south) we will leave Norfolk, take the Dismal Swamp route to Albermarle Sound, to Beaufort, NC, offshore to Fla (maybe in one shot, maybe in multiple, all depends on how gracious the weather is to us...) back to Green Cove Springs to leave the boat for a week to head north and visit family...then off sailing for the winter... go down island, mon!
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