Natalie's Next

Here we are in Pensacola on the boat, the first time we are here as our full time residence. It has been quite the journey getting here. Closing up the house, getting those last regular doctor’s appointments in, making sure our neighbors and our house sitter were ready to watch the house and tend the garden (they get all the vegetables they can grow)! Our house sitter used to be the guardian of our cats while we took vacations, and we are so grateful she was willing to watch the house because it is not nearly as much fun as the cats.

We filled a Ford Expedition Max to the brim with stuff. I didn’t think it was going to all fit, but Mike got it all in. To be honest, I was quite anxious about it, and I had to apologize to Mike for my craziness. When it was my turn to drive, I had to get used to not using my rearview mirror since all I could see there was stuff packed to the ceiling. We stopped as we have before in Columbia, TN just south of Nashville for the night. We found a cute restaurant at a golf course nearby called Birdsong Social. Highly recommend if you are in the area.

We have spent our time here getting the boat in final readiness. Who am I kidding? It will be good enough ready and the rest we will take care of on the way. It feels a lot like Whac-a-Mole with new things popping up we need to deal with. The latest mole was the davit, or crane, for the dinghy. One side just stopped working. Fortunately we were able to get someone in today to figure out what was wrong after Mike spent most of yesterday taking it apart without success. We have just punted getting a new dinghy cover until we get up and out of Florida. We tried for over six months to get someone here to make us one to no avail. We hear that with all of the storms, Florida boat companies of all kinds are slammed.

Now, we are planning our run to Carrabelle. It is the jumping off point for a Gulf crossing. Draw a line from Carrabelle, a cute little town before you get to the Big Bend, to Clearwater north of Tampa and you will see our planned route. We opted to go to Clearwater instead of Tarpon Springs in deference to all of those recovering from storm damage. The Gulf crossing is the only deep water run officially on the Loop. Making the crossing requires impeccable weather and about 10-15 hours in our boat. We are told that next Tuesday, April 1 is the best day to do this in the near future so we need to get to Carrabelle by Monday. So, tomorrow we make whatever final preparations we need before we head out early on Saturday to Destin. Sunday will be Destin to Panama City, but likely we will be sailing through some stormy weather. Monday Panama City to Carrabelle. The good news is that we are taking the ICW (Inter Coastal Waterway) the whole way which is slower, but less impacted by the weather. And, hopefully, we can enjoy a little bit of those towns on the way. We do have plans when we have “crossed our wake” to take parts of Florida a bit slower and get ready to sell the boat.

It feels to me that through Ready, Set, that “Go” is actually doing the crossing. I have to remind myself that “Go” is really once we pull away from the dock on Saturday. It is so surreal that this is actually happening that it could not possibly be now. And now, I need to get back to it.