Hi - Marilyn here (I was asked to identify myself) ...

We're still "on the hard" - awaiting masting (hopefully today), and then launching (hopefully tomorrow). Everything works at its own speed here ... a lesson in patience! The car needs to be returned tomorrow, so for now we're using it to provision, etc.

The weather has turned sunny and gorgeous - can't wait to be on the water! Might make a quick visit to the beautiful near-by beach today, in between doing laundry, shopping and so on. Not much exciting to report right now. Happy holiday preparations, all.

Yeah - we're now living aboard Sea Change, having moved in on Friday night. The downside is, no wifi connection in the yard, where we are still waiting for our mast to be placed before we can be launched. So we had a weekend off the computer ... reminded me of the old days!

The boat is pretty much ready to go - except for a few big things like the mast, the radar and the solar panels. That should all happen in the next couple of days, and the weather is getting warmer and sunnier. So this all may work for us to leave for the Bahamas before the end of the week.

Meanwhile, we're exploring the area a bit - yesterday we discovered a lovely outdoor shopping plaza and I visited my favourite clothing store - Chico's. Also saw a wonderful children's dance performance in the commons there, and then Jeff and I had a salmon dinner near-by - the best meal we've had since we arrived here! Today we'll start cooking aboard, and only eat out once in a while - we're both feeling ready for home-cooked food.

The pics below are from yesterday - the dance performance, our dinner, and a little Christmas light spirit at Rybovitch Marine Centre. Nice to have a day off ....

Friday 13th - and our first uneventful day, except for the fact that our dear friend, Tom, went through a serious surgery today in London, Ontario. We're wishing him the best ...

By 5:00 p.m. we toasted each other with a gin and tonic (see pics below) because Sea Change finally looks more like a boat than a storage unit! Then we celebrated with dinner out. Lots left to do, but we're over half-way there. We may move aboard on Sunday, though still on land, as we're not masted yet. The "Norther" cold front continues - good timing, though - maybe it will be followed by fair weather for our big crossing!

Here is a link to the Delorme site that you can access to see a map of exactly where we are located at any point in time. Not much fun right now, since we're in a boat yard - but once we're moving on the water it might be more interesting .... off for day 3 of reassembling Sea Change.

https://share.delorme.com/JeffSolway

Day 2 working on the boat, today during a cold front (a windy, chilly 70 degrees F) - good working weather! Mostly successful, except for a small mishap in the morning. We used a product intended to remove the glue left from duct tape that sealed our hatches. Unfortunately, it also removed the gel coat around the bow hatch - sheesh :(. Fortunately, we're in a full service marina - so it'll get repaired before we leave.

One funny incident - Jeff was working on the mast, which was supported by sawhorses, when he noticed that they had the name "Sea Change" written on them - in his handwriting! He knew we'd left our sawhorses in Rochester for later pick-up - so he had a moment of disorientation, before he realized that the trucker had taken our sawhorses with the mast on the truck. So much for picking them up later.

Here are some pics of our view from our hotel room and from Ribovich Marine Centre, where the boat rests for now.

Here's how we left Sea Change in Rochester in October, and of course, how we found her today, after a truck ride to Florida (though much dirtier than when she left!). The next few days will be devoted to putting the boat back together. Lots of work ahead, but we enjoyed 82 degree sunny weather all day today, and discovered that a security guard at the airport found Jeff's camera case intact! What's more, the office manager at our marina has offered to pick it up for us, as he lives nearby - saving us an hour and a half of driving ... so it's all good.

December 10, 2013

Well – the end of Day 1, and Murphy’s law definitely prevailed. It started out all right – we even saw a “beginning of vacation rainbow” from the cab window on the way to the airport, and it hadn’t been raining. But then it began – one thing after another.

First we ran from one line at Air Canada to another – not realizing that though we’d booked with Air Canada, we were actually starting out on United Airlines. When we finally found the right line, Jeff said in horror – “Oh my god – I think we’re a day late!”. Turns out his cell phone was showing the date as December 11^th – and we were booked for the 10^th. There was lots of time for our hearts to calm down once we confirmed that this actually was December 10^th, as we found ourselves waiting at the front of the United line for 30 long minutes, while the frazzled staffers listened to frustrated travellers complaining. “What’s wrong?” we asked, when we finally wrangled our way to a kiosk. “Don’t you read the papers?” the staffer replied. The US is buried in snow, and by the way, they’ve rerouted your plane. You’ll have to change planes twice enroute to Florida.

Yikes, we thought – not a good thing, especially with snowstorms likely delaying things everywhere. So I asked if we could switch to an Air Canada flight directly to Ft. Lauderdale instead of West Palm Beach (they’re not very far apart). “Sure” said the accommodating attendant – I’ll book you on a flight at 3:00 p.m.” So, having arrived in the airport at 9:15 a.m., we patiently waited until 3:00 and boarded our direct flight to Ft. Lauderdale, where we landed a few hours ago. All was well until we arrived at our hotel and discovered that we had left Jeff’s camera case full of expensive equipment back at the airport – now an hour’s drive away!

We drowned our sorrows in a shared chocolate fudge sundae, stared at the half moon over a palm tree, and decided that things could be worse.

So we now are waiting until the lost and found opens tomorrow to see if some honest soul found the case and turned it in. We really think we deserve a happy ending to this day … hopefully it covered off all the things that can go wrong for the rest of the trip (famous last words). Time to get some shut-eye – tomorrow we check out the boat for the first time since it arrived on Monday. More anon …