Our first stop after crossing into Florida was at one of our favorites, Marineland Marina. While we have stopped many times at St. Augustine (10 miles north) to a mooring, we’ve lately snagged a slip at the very protected & reasonably priced Marineland Marina, then rented a car or Uber’d back up to St. Augustine to visit by land.

The sun setting (for good?) over Marineland – the world’s first “oceanarium”, originally named “Marine Studios” built to film early underwater movies. On opening day to the public in 1938, they figured on a few hundred curious tourists to stop by – instead over 20,000 tourists clogged A1A for miles.

While there, we learned some great news! While Marineland had been in bankruptcy & auctioned to a Texas developer for 9 million, a last-minute reprieve. At the very last court hearing, a local multi-millionaire couple pledged 5 million to keep Marineland in operation & the judge approved the sale. So, one of Florida’s oldest tourist attractions & smallest will continue on with its expanded research, rescue & education programs.

While our Uber driver was driving us back to Marineland from St. Augustine, there just happens to be a Parlor Donuts shop on the way…

Our base for Bahamas prep is Vero Beach, where we have our storage unit, a dentist & doctors. From when we were at the Vero Beach City Marina last year, this is Twin Sisters from space courtesy of Google Earth.

While I used to clean our boat’s bottom myself before crossing, our Manta has roughly twice the square footage of bottom surface than our PDQ. Florida’s warm water, along with hardly underway for 3 weeks, the growth quickly accumulates. These 2 divers spent 1 1/2 hours with tank air & without any breaks – so the same job would have taken me … days. Once underway to the Bahamas the growth isn’t as bad & I can keep up with it myself.

As our Bahamas prep winds down (major provisioning of groceries, wine & beading supplies for Lori) I’m studying the weather daily to see if we should speed up, or slow down, based on approaching weather windows. As December moves along & especially into January, the good windows become narrower & fewer. Some years we’ve had no wait at all, some we’ve moved up our schedule rushing to leave now & one time (2 years ago) we had to wait 3 weeks. Which will it be this year?