April 23, 2020

Well Hello everyone,

I am sorry that I do not update this more often.

Michelle and I are anchored just off of Key West, riding out the Covid pandemic from here.

We are very lucky that friends of ours here leased us a dingy dock prior to the shutdown, this allows us to legally go ashore and get groceries and do laundry. The streets are deserted here, as I suspect most are in North America. This really is a beautiful area!

We spend days on the boat or sitting on our friends porch watching the ocean, we really could not ask to be isolated in such a beautiful spot, we can still dinghy to restaurants, see dolphins, manatee, sharks and other wildlife. We try to go for a walk in Old Town at least every other day, the police don’t seem to mind and there are few take-out windows open for food and a grocery store called Fausto’s that has a great selection of food.

I have been practicing guitar daily, but still not getting much better, we have also been re-finishing teak inside the cabin, it is difficult to get motivated some days, our internet service is very slow, but we do our best and can even stream Netflix with a little lag.

Inexperienced boaters have tried to anchor near us, and two of them did not heading our warnings, one boat hit us in the middle of the night, when his in-adequate anchor dragged, another one hit our neighbour, his name is Dino and he has sailed around the world with his daughter and visited over 39 different countries, he checked out our boat, realized we knew what we are doing, and now we watch out for each other.

Winds are picking up as hurricane season is approaching and there is always an incident and Tow Boat Us towing boats during some of the heavier blows.

There is always something breaking on the boat:

Yesterday we replaced yet another membrane on our Katadyne watermaker, please NEVER buy anything from Katadyne!

We have a seized winch, which I plan on replacing this week.

Other problems are daily maintenance, but it is so easy to let things pile up.

Our new dinghy and motor have been one of our best upgrades, sorry to say but Great Lake chandleries do not really know what is required when anchoring in the ocean and getting to shore in heavy swells and waves. Please before going south, you will need a RIB and at least 9.9 HP.

It has been hot… and I mean HOT… we have fans running most of the time.

All the best

Phil and Michelle