Slow boat to …….

I left the Sassafras River in early October, heading south. At the time of departure, I already knew this was not going to be a short trip. Normally it takes 4 to 5 weeks to get to St. Augustine, Fla, which is a trip of about 780sm(statute miles). Running at an average rate of 5sm an hour. So running straight through with no stops it could take about 170 hours. but the normal max distance underway is 50sm or about 10 hours a day. so 17 days would be a fast trip. But people need rest, weather delays your passage, repairs, fuel stops take time, provisioning requires long side trips, etc. But the real reason this trip was going to last awhile was that Arlene who was supposed to travel with me this time, could not come. We discovered about 1 month before my scheduled departure, that Arlene had Bladder cancer, and a really bad kidney stone which had to be treated and surgically removed. So for 1 month Arlene underwent her own regiment of chemo treatments for the bladder cancer, then a wait of 1 month to make sure that was cured/in remission. Then scheduling her surgery to remove the extremely large stone. Arlene being the unselfish person she is told me to start the trip alone. We decided that I would head south and lay-up in Oriental, NC. where she would drive down and spent a week or so onboard, then together we would head back north in our car, to handle the scheduled surgery and recovery. Once we were sure Arlene was healthy again, she would once again drive down to Oriental, NC with me, and we would resume the trip together. So now I’m in Jersey, the boats in North Carolina, and Arlene and I are waiting for her surgery and recuperation. That’s the bad news. The good news is we had a great time aboard Trinity at the Whittaker Point Marina, in Oriental The weather was great, warm days, sun shine, and great company.then a 11 hour drive back to the unusually cold and nasty Jersey weather. So we got back home two days ago, Yesterday was spent doing routine maintenance to the in ground pool, removing the old winter cover, and leave catcher. Putting on a new cover and leaf catcher, and generally playing in cold and nasty dirty water with the temps hovering around 50 degrees. But at least Arlene was happy to be back home with a dishwasher, real stove, comfy bed, and Cable TV. Boy getting old together can be fun but at times it just SUCKS!