February 2007



Well, we've started year 2 of our adventure. We are now in Vero Beach, FL. We knew that this was a very "boater friendly" place to be because we had stopped here last year. We are on a mooring, side-tied with some friends that we met here last spring. We have stayed in touch with them by email and met up here just by chance. We have had a good time swapping stories of the past cruising year. While here, we decided that we needed to attend to a couple of additional mechanical problems. So we have taken a few extra days while we can get good mechanics to help us. It turns out that the problems with the generator and one of our heads have been more difficult to solve than we thought. We think that we have finally figured out the generator issue and are waiting for a part to be shipped in from the manufacturer. The head has to have a new motor so we are waiting for that also. Oh well....we'll get out of here eventually.

As most of you know, we spent about 2 months back in California and Oregon, visiting our kids and grandkids for the holidays. We left the boat in Palm Coast, FL behind our friends' (Brian and Tina) lovely home. We returned on January 5th and spent another couple of weeks working on Diamond Girl getting her ready for another year of cruising. We replaced our props because of electrolysis and did a lot of cleaning and scrubbing. All in all, a lot of work but well worth it.

So far we've only come south about 150 miles from Palm Coast. We're leaving here as soon as the parts arrive and we get them installed. We will start working our way across the Okeechobee Waterway headed for the West Coast of Florida. We're meeting our daughter and son-in-law and grandbaby in Ft. Myers Beach and will spend a week with them aboard. Then we are going to head north on the West Coast and explore up to at least Tampa and St. Petersburg. From there we will head south again, back across the Okeechobee Waterway, and up the East Coast through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia into the Chesapeake Bay. We might possibly get up to New York and the Long Island Sound. However, we really don't know how far north we'll actually get because we love the Chesapeake Bay and might get stuck there like we did this last year. There is so much to see and do...it's hard to believe. You couldn't do it all in a lifetime.

We are anxious to start travelling again. We seem to be happier when we are moving around and exploring new places.