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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009, Cape Canaveral, Florida
 

  After being so negligent for so long, I find myself compelled to make excuses as I finally sit down to write an update; or wanting to come up with something deep and profound to say about our time in the U.S. If it's okay with you, I'll skip all that and just get back to my regular routine.  Sorry for the long break.

     We spent the month of October once again at our friends' dock in Edgewater.  We flew out west to visit family. 

The girls got to have a REAL Halloween with their friends, trick-or-treating through the neighborhood.
Cassie celebrated her twelfth birthday with a honest-to-goodness birthday party with ten of her friends (two not pictured here!).
We knew we would stay put on Zia through all of this, and then look for a weather window to head south as soon afterwards as we could get away.  Well, that turned out to be two days later.  We took off after filling our fuel tanks on Tuesday afternoon, November third.  The forecast was for anywhere from 10 to 25 knots of wind, mostly out of the Northeast, for the next five or six days.  The plan was to head south to West Palm Beach, staying close enough to shore to avoid the Gulf stream.  This would add significant miles to the trip, but would be faster in the long run than crossing through the Stream.  With 3 to 4 knot currents running south to north, and the wind blowing against this flow, the waters would also be very choppy and uncomfortable.

     We had a glorious full moon on our first night at sea.  Actually, our first fifteen hours we spent negotiating our way down the Chesapeake Bay.  It was by far the worst part of the trip:

cold temperatures, lots of other ships to worry about, a narrow channel with lots of shoals around it, and plenty of unlit marks lying in wait.  Even with the bright moon, these wooden poles, standing four or five feet out of the water, are very difficult to see at night and could easily bring our mast down if we hit them.  Needless to say, we kept a very close watch for that first leg of the passage.  It was five in the morning when we finally crossed over the Bay Bridge Tunnel.  I was just congratulating myself for navigating through this in the dark by myself.  I had turned the boat fifteen degrees to our new course, trimmed the sails to match the new wind angle, and was sitting back down at the helm seat when I looked up to see a huge, lit channel marker looming in front of us.  Judging distance is very difficult at night, and I wasn't sure what I was looking at until its beacon flashed again before my eyes.  "Holy shit! That's right in front of me.  OK.  Stay calm.  Think.  Turn off the autopilot and then steer the boat to pass to leeward of the mark...  Damn, that was close!" 

     The rest of the trip was relatively low stress.  We made great time, completing several nearly 200-mile days.  We had a couple of exciting visits by friendly dolphins. 

The seas were a little rough, but the kids were coping okay.  By Saturday morning, after our fourth night at sea, it was clear that we weren't going to make it to West Palm Beach until late that night.  It always sucks coming into a new harbor in the dark.  We started looking for alternatives.  You can always slow down so you don't arrive until daybreak, but that is no fun either.  We have friends who live in Melbourne Beach, about an hour southeast of Orlando.  It looked like we could duck into the Inland Waterway at Port Canaveral thirty miles away.  Why don't we stop there?  We could visit with Adam and Zanell, rest up, avoid some of the strong winds that were tormenting the coast because of Hurricane Ida, and then complete the last hundred miles of the passage later in the week.  A quick consultation with Joe after his morning nap cemented the plan.  Cape Canaveral here we come!

     After saying goodbye to so many good friends in the Northeast, being greeted by friends upon our arrival in Florida was heartwarming.  We had the added pleasure of seeing Zanell's son, Pieter, who had arrived that morning from South Africa for his summer holiday.

They met us at the marina and then we all headed out to a nearby restaurant for dinner.  The following afternoon they picked us up and we headed to their house about thirty-five minutes south of here.  We wound up spending the night and taking one of their cars back to the boat the following day.  They don't often use their second car and we were welcome to hang onto it while we were here.  Can you believe what amazing friends we have?

     We couldn't put off school any longer.  We only managed one day while on passage and desperately needed to get back into the swing of it after all our travels.  Cassie and I have a deadline to be in Miami to catch a plane on Saturday evening.  Hurricane Ida was continuing to stir things up in the Atlantic.  It looked like the whole week was going to be pretty windy and rough.  With a car, friends, and plenty of chores to keep us busy, we decided to hang here for the rest of the week.  Joe and Juliana will drive us down to the airport in our borrowed car.  We can tackle school, visit the Kennedy Space Center, and join Adam, Zanell and Pieter on their excursion to Universal Studios on Friday.

     Where might Cassie and I be heading on Saturday?  We are flying to Ecuador!  In case you missed it, the plan is to sail to Ecuador in mid-March and stay there through January, 2011, enrolling the girls into a local, Spanish-speaking school for the year.  Although basically a Third World country, Ecuador is relatively safe and friendly.  We looked at many places in Central and South America and only came up with a couple that would be suitable for us to live, on the boat, for a school year.  Climate was the main factor in our decision and Ecuador came out at the top of the list.  Upon further research, we found nothing to dissuade us from settling there.  All the same, we figured we should go check it out in person just to make sure.  We are, after all, arranging our next year and a half of cruising around this plan.  Cassie was the one who suggested that she accompany me on the excursion.  I was thrilled.  We'll be gone for six days.  I can't wait to tell you what we discover!

     In further news, we have a new addition to the Zia Crew!  Some of you might remember our last cat, Hobie.  I don't think I ever confessed his fate.  It was a terrible experience for us.  After spending the winter with his wonderful foster family in Turkey, roaming the boatyard with the other tomcats, he picked up some very bad habits.  As soon as we got back to Zia, we discovered that he was spraying on other people's boats.  One day, he jumped onto Zia after being chased down the dock by another boat owner brandishing an oar.  We had no choice but to confine Hobie to the boat.  The problem was, we were about to embark on the EMYR rally, rafting up with eighty other boats and traveling through the Middle East in the middle of summer.  There was just no way we could keep Hobie locked up inside the boat during this seven weeks.  After much heartache and many tears, we left Hobie with "the Cat Lady" in Marmaris.  She runs a shelter for cats not far from the marina and had an adoption program for cats with families in Germany and Belgium.  It was the best thing we could do for our little friend.  We were assured that he would find a new home with a loving family. 

     In order to ease the pain of leaving once again, and given the fact that we would be spending the vast majority of the next two years at anchor, we decided it was time to get a new cat.  We knew it would make a huge difference to Cassie and Juliana.  We picked out the only friendly female kitten at the SPCA shelter in Annapolis on Halloween day.  It took a little extra time to get approval for the adoption given our unusual circumstances, but I was able to go back and pick up "Whoopi Goldberg" later that day.  The girls had no idea.  They were moved to tears when they met her and realized what we had done.  It took us a day or two to come up with our own name for her, but I think we picked the perfect one.  Meet Boo!

     I think that catches you up with the latest developments in our lives.  I will try to get back on schedule with my updates.  Now that we are venturing into new territory once again, I'm sure it will be easier.  In the meantime, it is always great to hear from YOU so drop us a line!
   

 
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