Florida

It's warm; Freya's new bikini has made its first appearance and the Skipper's shoulder has stopped being a bad weather indicator. Yes, we are in Florida. The slightly scary state that everyone warned us about. The no anchoring, don't touch the sea grass, don't go to Miami, watch out for the authorities, of which there are a huge range with large guns. So far it has been delightful, friendly with lots of wonderful wildlife and not to mention again, warm.

We were sad to leave South Carolina with the beautiful lowlands but the last couple of days there were so cold. We stopped at Beaufort after a cold, miserable day and found the Lady's Island Marina which improved the day immensely. We arrived at the dock with TJ's help and on the next boat looking out through the port hole was a bird. Thus we were introduced to Sam Peck n Poo who had landed on board a year ago and never left. Except occasionally to visit a friend's yacht and be sociable in anchorages.

 The marina is a great spot to stop as is very friendly with TJ a incredibly helpful dock master, groceries close by and a BBC cafe that has the best almond croissants I've had for a long while.

The weather window opened up and we went offshore from Beaufort. 

Freya's first overnight passage on 'Bounty'.

The promised winds never really eventuated so we ended up mainly motoring with wind on the nose most of the way.  We did get about six hours of sailing but needed the staysail and mizzen up most of the way to steady the boat when the ocean decided to do a spirited impression of being a washing machine. 'Gus' the auto helm worked brilliantly and certainly helped with those long night watches. We did 375 nm in just over two days and arrived into Cape Canaveral just as four huge cruise ships were exiting the canal, complete with blaring music, guard boats with machine guns on the front and a festive air. Our favourite was the Disney ship with a large figure of Goofy hanging over the back. 

We finally were brave enough to enter the canal and the lock and to our delight two Manatees entered the lock with us. They proceeded to feed quite happily as the waters rose and then departed through the gates with us, as if the lock was a handy convenience store of stirred up Manatee food. 

All this meant we were later than expected getting to the Harbour Town Marina which we had to find and enter at night. Not an activity to be recommended but we made it, tied up and slept happily in a boat that was blissfully still.

We are now on our way to Vero Beach for final provisions. You know, essentials like soft toilet paper, deodorant, sun screen and chocolate. Hopefully if the weather forecast stays the same we will head off to Bimini on Saturday or Sunday.