The NYC skyline upon our ominous 8AM approach.

While we weren’t attempting to break our south-to-north trip record … it simply turned out that way. Some places we were planning to linger at, became quick stops as weather was just too perfect not to be underway. Rainy, thunderstormy days to wait in port? Never happened – hardly any substantial rain & not a single thunderstorm (even in the Carolinas where we’re always attempting to avoid severe thunderstorms & tornado warnings every spring).

A beautiful, calm travel day like this is hard to turn down.

Mornings like this are worth waking up early for (even for sleepy Rusty).

Anchored off Cape Canaveral close enough to see a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket takeoff. The (even more spectacular) Artemis II was scheduled to take off just 2 days later, but would it be postponed? We decided to move along (of course it went off on schedule!).

Everything effects our schedule … Being chased by pirates? Just another day in our nomad life – “step on it” & leave them in our dust!

Keeping an eye on this hungry alligator. I think he was eyeballing our stern steps to see if he could swim over & climb up – not a chance buster!

Ahhhh … seems everyone needs a good push once in a while.

Lori likes this form of anchoring – just put down your spuds & no more rocking.

The Navy (along with nearly everyone it seems) are switching to powercats.

Yet another scheduling dilemma … Britts Donuts in Carolina Beach, NC is only open weekends this time of the year. Do we adjust our schedule to arrive when open, stand in line for 45 minutes, just for some donuts??

One advantage of being north early is that marinas in the Chesapeake are just getting going, so lots of available slips. With occasional nights into the 40’s, it was great to plug in for some heat.

With our Safe Harbor Marina membership, we received 11 free nights of dockage this trip. Considering transient boat slips are often going for up-to $220/night, it’s a nice “savings”. But how do we get out of this slip (& how did we get into it ourselves after-hours), both at low tide)?

Getting a head start on summer projects while underway, beginning with our icemaker. While I would never install one, “it came with the boat,” so we have been attempting to keep it going. The company (U-Line), for some reason, paints their ice cube mold with green epoxy, which flakes off on your ice cubes – yuk! Spending $400 on a replacement U-Line ice maker assembly did the same thing after just a year. Researching on-line, I learned this is a common issue. Fortunately, a generic household ice maker assembly (for 1/5 the price) will (almost) fit right in, but the wiring needs to be deciphered, which turned a 2-hour project into a 2-day project with (literarily) sparks flying. In the end, success! Now onto the more serious “boater” projects.

While it is still a bit chilly in Connecticut, we are happy to be secure, plugged in and to be able to ignore weather forecasts for a while. Fortunately, our summer project list is a small fraction of previous years, so hoping for a fun summer!