“Happy hurricane season!” she whispers under her breath with sarcasm. June 1st to November 1st, every single year. Blah. The good news is that the active season is August-September and with our ability to monitor the weather the way we can now, there are no surprises. Make a plan, keep an eye on the weather, both eyes actually, and hope for the best.

Bigger news: We escaped Dania Beach, FL!!! After almost a MONTH at a dock and on the hard, we are finally back on the hook this morning watching the sunrise. Dania Beach is just south of Ft. Lauderdale and really feels like the epicenter of all things marine. You can get anything upgraded/fixed/fabricated/cleaned that you can imagine, and all you have to do is pick up the phone. We tackled a list of warranty projects on the boat, mostly cosmetic. The engines and generator are serviced. The bottom is clean with a fresh coat of antifouling paint. A little carpentry, a little plumbing and a lot of electrical. All sorts of good stuff, but the upgrade we are most excited about is… a new mattress. The boat comes with standard foam beds, which are super firm and surprisingly comfortable. We decided to sleep on it for a year to see if it would suffice. Almost….but nope. This new beauty is AWESOME and we are tickled every night we when we get to crawl into a proper bed. Our purse is a little lighter, but the boat is in fabulous shape.

Well, almost fabulous shape. We sailed 45 miles north from Dania Beach to West Palm Beach – great day out on the water. After being at a marina for so long, the incredible expanse of the open ocean tastes like freedom. We played our favorite sailing playlist and jammed up the coast before dropping the hook in a familiar anchorage, ready to enjoy a few days of south Florida. And then…..generator problems. Our solar power can run most of our systems, if we are a bit more frugal with our power consumption. But it can’t power our air conditioning. It’s June in south Florida – it’s hot. Temperatures don’t drop below 80 at night, the water is 85. That coupled with our boat facing the direction of the current as opposed to the wind (meaning no breeze onboard!) meant sleeping in an 85 degree stifling box. Yuck. Also made us laugh at ourselves and realize that we probably need to toughen up a bit if we were all so debilitated by a little warm air. After some sweaty troubleshooting, we need to replace the automatic voltage regulator – a part we can’t get our hands on for a week.

We looked at the weather, looked at each other, called our weather guy, called some crew. We are headed back out to sea baby. It’s 330 miles up to Hilton Head, SC. With the speed boost of the Gulf Stream, it should take about 42 hours – two days and two nights with a dawn arrival. It’s a bummer to miss a few of the Florida anchorages we keep hearing about, but with the summer and hurricane season staring down at us, it’ll also feel good to be tucked in and secure (not to mention a little less sweaty). S/V Tideye, anchors aweigh!