Monday, April 27, 2009

Cape Canaveral, USA

We made it back to the USA after the most amazing night sail, with a near full moon and the gulf stream behind us we managed a speed of 9.5 knots for most of the night. We covered 190nM in 23 hours. Somehow, I do not think we should get used to such speeds! Despite dodging the many cruise ships, tankers and fishing trawlers we made it to Cape Canaveral at sunrise and here we are back in the US and A! The kids have settled into marina life after so many months on the anchor and are reluctant to leave all the wonderful friends we have made. The highlight has been the space shuttle launch and an invite to family day at the space centre by Kent and Terry (who is the nurse for the astronauts when they return from their missions). Everyone has been so generous and lent us their cars, tools, time and entertained us over the months. Lisa's highlight was an invite by our neighbours Hank and Annette to see Fleetwood Mac in concert in Sunrise, Fort Lauderdale, her first night away from the family in 8 months. The wonderful people here have included Bob and Nancy who loaned us no end of equipment, Cathy and Steve for their car and hamster sitting abilities, Milt for his entertainment and chauffeur talents too; Tammy and Jim the wild and crazy guys with no end of specialist tools and RUM!!! We have managed to get our precious "Bays" bottom painted and repaired the stuffing box, a first for Garry, but as usual always completed to perfection. We said goodbye to the " Rebellers", our lovely Canadian family in Titusville as they headed North back home for the summer. We had a lovely visit from Jon from "Cattitude" our sailing buddy from the Bahamas and our friends from Dania , Bob and Bear (Francesca) from "MV Tiger Cat". They decided to move their boat to Harborside Marina with us and we spent several weeks enjoying their company before they returned to the UK and France. Well we were all packed and stocked ready to head south to Panama. We decided that the original plans to head North were not going to be feasible with regards to time and finances, but as usual we got side tracked and ended up in Alaska. We decided to do some sight-seeing around the USA and booked a cruise to Alaska. It all happened very quickly! The bookings were completed on Thursday and we had to be in Vancouver on Saturday! Well we managed to get there after a frenzy of packing and arrangements.