Whew! Terry from Marine Maintenance concluded his work around 1700 hrs yesterday. Everything seems to be running and sounding fine. We took MTB out into the Gulf for a test run yesterday afternoon and enjoyed a wild ride through 3 foot seas and a building south wind. I continue to be impressed with the way the boat handles and the ability to power through some pretty heavy waves. Brought her back in and checked for default codes and everything checked out fine. It appears we’re now ready for the crossing to Clearwater. Looking at the forecasts, it appears our next weather window is Tuesday / Wednesday with decreasing seas from 2 feet to less than one foot. This weekend we’re bracing for storms tonight and tomorrow with seas building to 10 feet. We’ll top off fuel Monday and get ready for departure.


In the meantime, I’ve found a couple of neat apps. Find Ship is an app that locates boats with AIS. It’s free and you can literally find us if you zoom down into PCB, St. Andrews, Grand Lagoon. Click on the small triangle shapes (which are boats with AIS) and continue clicking for more details like length, width, name, type, etc. The other free app is Windy. This is the wind and sea condition forecast. I use several forecast tools including daily NOAA broadcasts.


I would say that this past week has not been my most favorite time. I spent five days sitting on our boat watching people work on her. Although I would have preferred to have been doing things of more fun, I did learn an awful lot about our boat. Another thing - service people give priority to transients - for which I am grateful.


Now to finalize plans for the Clearwater and arrange to get the second bike to us!