Wednesday February 20: Home from New Orleans :-)

We arrived back to the boat from New Orleans last night - wonderful trip for sure - but more about that later.

Before we left last Thursday, there was work to be done.

The mast and boom had 2 coats of primer and 3 coats of top paint (we use Brightside - very easy to use and holds up extremely well). A couple of preliminary items before putting the mast back up though: thoroughly clean the stainless steel fittings and stays that keep the mast in place once it is raised. Like all of the stainless on the boat, it too rusts in the saltwater air.

In the meantime, I used the soldering iron to connect the wires for the white running light that is on the mast - higher than we can reach once the mast is up. Done and done - time to put up the mast!

First step is to balance the mast on the the flybridge - laying it on the seat and on the railing.

Then we can attach the two stays which run from the top of the mast to the aft end of the boat.

From there, we are able to move the mast aft and down. The bottom end sits on the flybridge deck and is attached to a fitting bolted through the flybridge deck. A pin hold the mast in place - two more stays that hold the mast forward and we are done!! Add the boom and good to go :-)

With the mast and boom now in place, we can use it to hoist the engine up and down to the dinghy.

But the real reason we wanted to get this done before we left for New Orleans was so we could flush the dingy engine with fresh water (salt water sitting in it is just not a good thing) as well as running all of the fuel out of it.

Of course one of the ongoing debates is whether or not this is necessary. In theory, it keeps the carburetor from getting gummed up. We're not sure if it's true or not but our little engine is running great and we like to keep it that way :-)

Using the boom we can just hook a fresh water connector to the engine and let it run while sitting on the aft deck. Easy to do for sure!

So getting to New Orleans involved making a choice: take a shuttle 122 miles to Miami airport for $80 and flying to New Orleans from there OR taking the bus 50 miles to Key West for $3.00 and flying to New Orleans via Miami. Cost to fly? Less from Key West!

So off to the bus stop to Key West we went. We each had a backpack and one carry-on and chose to board the bus 25 minutes earlier so we could stand and wait in the shade. VERY hot day in the sun. Plus that way if we missed the bus we could catch it going the other way :-) We traveled in shorts even though we knew we would be wearing jeans come the weekend as the weather was deteriorating quickly all along the southern coast.

We arrived at the Key West airport with plenty of time to spare - although we question the security of this airport!

Having never been there and not knowing where to go, we inadvertently ended up at the departure gates - never having gone through security nor having been stopped by anyone!

Mmmmm ... should I be worried?

Regardless, we managed to make our way to the right place and ended up at the end of the day in New Orleans. This is Thursday and the kids weren't due in until Friday night (Becky at midnight) and Matt and Wendy on Saturday at 10:30 am.

So what were we to do all day Friday except find a casino?

Right on Lake Pontchartrain and not all that far from the airport.

It was a gorgeous day as we enjoyed a picnic lunch at the park nearby overlooking the lake.

Why is it that we don't seem to be able to stay away from water ......

More on New Orleans later -