Tuesday October 4: Finally - Leaving and Headed for Mobile

We've been greeted by a morning sunrise and blue sky each day since we returned from San Diego last Wednesday - occasionally with a light mist rising from the water.

It's been in the low 60's at night for the past several days .... refreshing for a change to need a blanket at night.

In theory we were going to leave by Monday but then refinishing of the teak held us up. The best is to apply a total of four coats and there needs to be 24 hours in between coats.

So part of the day was devoted to the teak. Lunch a couple days, trip to Walmart to replenish the fridge, freezer and Steve's supply closet.

Plus we waited an extra day because one of the guys working here had a Mercury 2 stroke engine and Steve worked a deal with him to swap our 4 stroke for his.

The two stroke is lighter and easier to store as it doesn't matter how it lays on the deck. Good deal for everyone :-)

Several other small tasks and engine maintenance things on the engine were on the to do list before left - check and done.

Last major project was to move the dock box to give enough room for the solar panel to slide between the box and the back window of the main cabin.



We had them in vinyl bag attached to the back of the flybridge furniture but after in/out many times as we traveled it became clear some other storage area might be nice.

Perfect! We'll use the panel over the next few days so won't bother covering them for now.

Last thing? Attach the refinished hat band and it's zillion screws - let's hear it for having a cordless drill  to use as a screwdriver!













The boat had a good washing today and finally we're ready to go.

The plan is to leave at 6 am with one lock and 70 miles to our first of 3 anchorages over the next several days. We hope to be in and anchored by 4pm!