June 19 - Last day on the water

Sunday, June 19

It's fitting that we end our big cruise on Father's Day, another day to celebrate Captain Dan who makes all of this possible.

Goodbye Jacksonville...

We only have 25 miles to travel today to Green Cove Springs.  We want to arrive close to sunset (to avoid the worst heat of the day), so we are sailing down the river, with all 4 sails up, giving the neighbors on shore something to look at!  This stretch of the river is very wide and deep, reminding us of Lake Pepin.

Once we arrive at Green Cove Springs, we'll have a couple of ugly days where we work to get the boat ready to haul out in the hothothothot heat of June in Florida (yeah, May would have been a better month for this!).  We basically need to strip down everything on the deck -- sails, canvas, jugs, dinghy -- so there's nothing to fly away in case a hurricane manages to find it's way this far north and this far inland.  Once we fill the inside of the boat with all that stuff, we'll pack up what needs to go back to MN, clean and secure everything that could move around in the cabin, and then go get a rental car for the return drive.

But, our first order of business today will be to find a TV. 

REBECCA GOLDSMITH IS MISS IOWA, AND SHE'S COMPETING IN THE MISS USA PAGEANT TONITE.  Becca is one of Michelle's best friends, and it's VERY COOL to personally know one of the lovely ladies!

P.S.

As I start to clean out the cabin storage lockers, I've just got to say that my concern about hoarding too much toilet paper (ended up with 6 extra rolls, not bad) was FAR overshadowed with my concern about running out of coffee.  I stopped keeping track in the food inventory at 11 bags, but obviously I keep buying it whereever a good deal presented itself, because I just emptied 10 bags of coffee from deep storage!  I also worried too much about my use of ZipLock storage bags , as I've got 7 large boxes left!  PB and Jam was another commodity we also throught would be our "fall back" lunch more often than it was!