If you follow us on Facebook or Instagram, you might have noticed us working on boat projects and provisioning. That’s because Randy and I have been preparing to go long-term (longer than a week or weekend) cruising! We are so excited to finally be able to drop the dock lines for a while and get a chance to see new places from the water.

Where are we going?

Our current plan (and plans can always change) is to head south through the Keys around Florida and then head north. I’ve always wanted to cruise the northeast and since our new insurance wants us north of Cape Hatteras by July1st to avoid Florida during hurricane season, we finally get that opportunity. We are fortunate that Randy can work from the boat during this time which gives us flexibility with our routes.

Originally, we had planned to spend some time in the Keys/Dry Tortugas before heading north, however, with it getting increasingly hot down here, we are ready to cruise to some cooler weather. We plan to make a few stops along the east coast of Florida like Fort Pierce or St. Augustine. At the end of May, we’ll leave the boat there for a long weekend so we can drive back to Fort Myers for Corey and my nephews high school graduation. After that, we are north-bound! We have some loose plans on places we’d like to see and stop but are not really committing to any real routes. Since this is all new to us, we’d just like to take our time and see where things take us.

Getting Blue Turtle ready

In preparation for our trip, we’ve had quite a few projects on our list. Things like getting our rigging inspected, installing a new AIS receiver, adding insulation to our fridge/freezer, replacing the batteries in our battery bank, and inspecting our water tanks and installing a drinking water filter to name a few. While Randy has been busy with these projects, I’ve been busy provisioning food and beverages and trying to figure out where to best stow everything. After multiple runs to Costco and Total Wine, we are finally ready! Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram to see where we are headed. Also, scroll to the bottom of this page and enter your name and email to get notified every time I post an update here. Stay tuned!