(This post was written on December 9th. It is now the evening of December 10th and we are moored in Venice…the Florida one!)

I am excited to report that we have finally set sail from Tarpon Springs and are on our way to Miami. It was a lovely sunny first day on the water, complete with dolphins coming to our boat and swimming just in front of the bow for a minute. There is something special about wild creatures taking an interest in us humans. It feels like a hug or wink from God! Since then we have discovered that seeing dolphins is a regular occurrence in the Gulf, but so far not one that has lost its adrenaline inducing appeal.

Right now we are moored at the north end of Longboat Key, with high winds whistling around the boat. We may stay put for the day, or may decide to motor down the protected Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) instead of heading out into the open sea. We are using the time to get some school work done (blogging for me) and Travis is installing some speakers. We expect to take at least a week to work our way around to Miami. Then we will wait for the right weather to sail across the Gulf Stream to Bimini (in the Bahamas). We did not expect it to take nearly this long to get our boat ready to sail, so we will not be taking our time to explore the Florida coastline. We have to be in Nassau, Bahamas by New Year’s Eve because we are meeting family there on January 1st!

The kids and I moved onto the boat about two weeks ago to help get “Schemma” into ship-shape condition. Every night we would say “maybe we will be ready the day after tomorrow” and then the next day would introduce (or prolong) challenges for Travis to meet in preparing the boat. Technology has not been our friend and we are starting to experience the truth the joke: “What is a boat? A hole in the water into which you pour money!” I have spent quite a bit of time in stores collecting provisions. It is time consuming to shop in another country. Many of the items I want to buy are not on the shelves and there are many other items and brands that I have never heard of! It is surprising how different things are between Canada and the USA. Even when I find the same product it sometimes has a completely different taste! But I have managed to fill every nook and cranny available for stowage on the boat with provisions – so it is probably very good that I couldn’t find everything I was looking for.

One “good” problem we encountered was discovering a crack in our head (toilet) holding tank. Although, gross and messy to deal with, it has finally rid our boat of the unpleasant odour it has had since we purchased it. Travis had replaced hoses and tried all kinds of odour absorbing products with no results…and now we know why! So far, his patching is “holding” and for the first time ever we are odour free!

This is my second attempt at writing this post. Shad, Rachel and I had all written posts on the day we left our marina, only to have our computer freeze up and lose our work. Frustrating? Yes – and basically symbolic of how things have gone for us in setting up our technological communication and navigation systems! So, I will simply list a few other highlights I don’t feel like re-writing about :
– Two days of rollercoaster riding with our adventurous kids!
– Shadrach chipping off his front tooth – again. (we may get it fixed in Miami if there’s time. It is not causing him any pain, PTL)
– Taking my aunts and uncles sailing and shell collecting after they helped us park Sesame (our van) for the winter
– Finally playing the board game “Munchkin” with Shad (he had been requesting this daily)
– Taking the dinghy to walk the beach and pier in Clearwater our first night on the water.

So, in case you were starting to wonder, we are alive and well and feel like we have finally started the adventure we left home to experience.

Well, two weeks ago, we threw everything into the van and headed out. It was a bit of a helter-skelter escape in the end. We realized that if we didn’t just GO we might never leave! There are a few things we have left behind because of our rush…but I am writing this from Florida, listening to a thunderstorm, rather than from snowy Winnipeg, so I think we made the right choice.

Heading south was a bit like heading back in time. We passed through winter (in Minnesota Rachel got her wish to play in the snow at least once this year), and day by day watched the leaves on the trees increase in number and take on vibrant fall colours. Finally, a week after we left, we came down out of the hills of Georgia and simultaneously entered Florida and summer. It was pretty bizarre to wake up freezing in a frost-covered boat and be passing palm trees beside the highway in the afternoon!

We have been very blessed by the generosity of my American family and even by some American strangers (a hospitable Georgian pastor and his family who had us over for lunch after church last Sunday). Funny story…we stayed at a hotel last Saturday night and Travis found a Mennonite church in the town we were staying in. So, Sunday morning we took a walk to down town Trenton, hoping to see what Georgian Mennonites were like. We kept circling around the pin on our GPS but could not locate the building. Finally, we took a closer look and realized that Travis had found a Mennonite church in Trenton, OHIO – 6 hours from where we were! So, we joined the First Baptist Church for their service instead.

But back to my family – I am so blessed to have cousins and aunties and uncles who will open their homes and make room in their schedules…even when we are not able to give them exact times or days when we will arrive. And are unsure when we will leave! We filled up any extra space in auntie LaVon and Uncle Neil’s house for the first week in Florida. Right now, the kids and I are staying at my auntie Bonita and uncle Arnie’s house while they head up to Minnesota for a gathering! How crazy are they to leave us in their house with no firm date of when we will leave it?!

The compound where we are staying is a gated retirement community originally only for retired missionaries and pastors. We feel very safe here! I am reminded of the freedom to roam I enjoyed growing up on the SIL mission centre as we walk on the roads between houses and cycle to the pool. They have a weekly chapel service which I attended. It was very meaningful to hear testimonies of thankfulness from people who I know have spent a lifetime serving the Lord.

I’m the kind of person who doesn’t just like to look at things. I want to touch, taste and try whatever comes my way. So, it has been lovely to feel the sand beneath my feet, brave the cool ocean water, try barbecue and other local delicacies, and take a boat tour so we could see alligators up close.

We are enjoying swimming and sight-seeing here in Florida, but do feel a bit like we are living in limbo, waiting to really begin. Travis is spending most of his days and nights out at the boat, which is over an hour awayfrom the rest of us. I really look forward to when the boat is ready to go in the water and we are done making all our set up decisions and purchases.