Sunrise Sunday

Heading to Miami today

We've spent the last 2 nights tied up at Gilberts resort in Key Largo. The winds were forecast to be hard on the nose for yesterday's course up Biscayne Bay, so we stayed put for the day and we'll head to Miami today.

We hope the seas will calm down enough to head out into the ocean on Sunday and avoid the bridges. We'll see.

Sitting in Marathon....

The view from our room in Key Largo - Monday night.

Jan and I are currently in a slip in Marathon - in the Keys. We started our 20th anniversary trip on monday - staying in the Hilton Key Largo Resort on monday night. Then we drove to Key West on tuesday, put the dingy in the water and dingied out to Serenity, starter her up and moved her to a slip in Galleon Marina in Key West Bight.

There, I spent 3 intense hours cleaning her up. She was very dirty after spending 5+ months on a mooring. We went out on the town last night and then cast off the lines this morning at 8:30 and headed east/north.

We decided not to make a 'marathon' trip out of this and were tied up at 3pm this afternoon in a slip in the Marathon Marina.

A front is coming through tonight and we'll spend tomorrow motoring our way toward Gilberts "resort" in Key Largo where we will spend 1 or 2 nights - depending on the weather before heading north toward Miami and beyond.

We're having a great time!!


Going past Mallory Square this morning as we departed Key West



Serenity in the slip in the Galleon Marina in Key West Bight

Catching up Again

I haven't posted to the blog in a while for various reasons. One of them is that I've joined facebook and feel like I'm connecting with lots of friends there.

So let me catch up the Blog a bit:

The last post was from the Atlanta Race. After that, I had a week off and got back on the bike and put in about 75 miles that week. I also cleared out a bunch of dead palm fronds around the house from the late winter freeze we had here.

Then, I went to Bristol for the races there. My longtime friend Rick Jacob drove up from the Sequatche Valley to join me for a couple of days. I hadn't seen him for over a dozen years. He now owns and lives in the house beside launch where Jan and I got married 20 years ago. It was so great to see him. We used to be really close friends and then I moved all over the country and we just lost touch. We reconnected through Facebook.
This is Rick being shown our 'in-car' equipment by Thomas Pepper - the expert who installs and maintains the hi-tech stuff we have in the cars.

Rick and I in the studio with the 'cutaway' car used for showing where stuff is on the car during the show.

Rick and I on the roof where the main cameras are located.

This week, I've been working on some taxes and stuff. Yesterday, I went flying for my first lesson to get my private pilot license. I'm taking lessons from Jim Lee - a guy who've I've mentioned quite a few times on this blog. There's a real 'plus' to me to learn from a fellow hang glider pilot. First of all, they don't look down on hang gliding as a real form of aviation, but also there's just more fun learning from a bud.

Jim and I just before my first lesson.

The airplane we're flying is awesome!. It's the Sportstar and is so well designed. It's very roomy and has a wide speed range - plus no bad habits. I'm having a great time and really enjoying it.
This is the plane I'm flying.

I may be getting back into the air via hang glider tomorrow. It could be windy, so maybe not. We'll see.