South to Florida

Our fleet of catamarans waiting in freezing conditions in the Rudee Inlet, just south of Norfolk, for a weather window to head south to warmer climes.

We needed full wet weather gear just to take the rubbish ashore!

Finally in Florida, after 4 days and 3 nights at sea, we had good winds with us most of the time, but had to do a fair amount of motoring too.

Now safely alongside the quay in Scorpion Marina in Cape Canaveral.

Fabulous to be warm again. When we left Norfolk it was 5C and the first day here I saw 30C on the thermometer, what a difference 650 miles make!

Thanksgiving dinner with the full Turkey experience was a first for us, but great fun. A bit like a practice run for Christmas really!

Some generous locals asked us to join them, an offer we could not refuse.

Visiting the local Art Festival was fun.

This is a the largest pot of popcorn I have ever seen cooking though.

A rocket launch to Mars!

What a fantastic sight and all from the marina, well we are in Cape Canaveral after all!

Now we are due to leave here tomorrow, the boat is out of the water and we are working hard to get all the jobs done in time.

I must go and pack..........

Deltaville, Virginia

Heading south is a cold business!

I look at though I am in the Antarctic, we must be getting soft.

Can't wait to head south again.
The leaves are changing colour now and it is a beautiful sight.

We are stuck in the marina, whilst the engineers look at the engines.

There has been rather a lot of white smoke coming out of the exhausts and so we are having new injectors fitted and the pumps have also been serviced. We cross our fingers that this will sort out the problem.

Here in Deltaville marina we are getting lots of jobs ticked off the maintenance list.

Here is Peter up the mast, fitting our new Wifi cable, when this is adjusted, we shall be able to have better internet on the boat.

It is not actually working at the moment, but we hope that tomorrow, he will be back again to check the wiring.

The Tiki Bar:

Here in the marina, the majority of the slips are covered and the locals will come down to their small motor boats for the weekend.

Behind each boat is plenty of space and some of the owners set up their own kitchens and bars, with huge fridges and b'ques. This is one of the most outrageous.

They are very friendly folk and we are always invited to join them for a drink at sunset.

This guy was determined to get his catamaran out of the water and we stopped to see if we could help.

He had a small trailer that was not wide enough and the boat kept falling off! He finally managed it, but we decided to leave him to it, afraid of the thing falling on top of us, him or his wife.

Daryl and I sampling some of the local fare at the Urbanna Oyster Festival. It was a huge event, they close the town for the weekend and the locals and visitors descend on the town to enjoy oysters cooked every way possible.

We decided that raw is best, covered in batter, they really could be anything!

And no festival is complete without a parade. This was a rather retro affair, with lots of old cars and huge bikes, this float was playing 'All you need is love' and other Beatles songs!

There were majorettes, swirling their batons, and several school brass bands.

Good fun to see it all and the weather was cold, but sunny too.

There are some big people here. I think the baddies would have a pretty good chance at running away from these two sheriffs!!