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This weekend Jimmy and I attended the St. Pete Boat Show, which was the 45th annual show, and is the largest boat show on the Gulf Coast. What made it extra special to us was that we did not have to stay in a hotel!!! (Sorry St. Pete tourism office). We have attended the St. Pete Boat Show on two other occasions, and stayed in hotels close to the venue. Last year some friends of ours (the P's) stayed at a hotel further out from the downtown area for a fraction of the cost

Why St Pete

Friday 12/30 - Three of us drove down to ABYC after work and unloaded our gear before Susie and Bill stopped by to say hello. A simple dinner was made up in the clubhouse before we made it an early night. Saturday 12/31 - We got up and prepped the boat for a potential 9AM departure. With nearly everything ready, we checked the weather and decided to wait for the afternoon tide, probably around 5:30PM to let some stormy weather pass by. The cloudy misty morning was spent

There may be a possibility to move Utopia to St. Petersburg New Year's Weekend. Jimmy has been checking weather and wave forecasts to see when we might have a good window to make the jump from Apalachee Bay. The trip is roughly 150km and could take between 25 & 35 hours. Since this is the first crossing with just the two of us, we are looking for a mild weather window. At the moment it looks like we may vacate our ABYC slip on Saturday. The latest would leave is Monday, d

Jimmy and I are now in the mode of frequently watching the weather forecasts. The plan is to leave our slip of the past year one day between Friday 12/30 and Monday 1/2. Since this is our first short handed overnighter, we wish to have calm seas for the crossing. So in the mean time, we chip away at our checklists. Some small challenges include navigation lights and broken water pipes at the marina. I had tap our nav lights a few weeks ago to get them to come on. Well,

This week we renewed/extended the lease on our apartment for only seven months. The current lease ends March 16, 2023, and the new one ends October 16, 2023, meaning we now have a final date as land dwellers. It is really exciting seeing all of the pieces fall into place and having a date out there. The timing is also interesting. We received the keys to the apartment right at a year ago, and this week we set our final date in the apartment. The original lease was for 15

This weekend was all about checking out safety systems onboard Utopia. We plan to take her to St. Petersburg the last weekend in December. It is roughly a 150 mile passage which could take 30 hours to complete. We've crossed the gulf three times so far, each time with a total crew of four. This time it will mostly likely be just the two of us, so I am taking a closer look at our safety items. Starting out with double checking the coast guard required items and reviewing a

Jimmy and I set a plan in place several years ago to begin full time cruising and now we are a year out. I really wish we started to capture some of the preparation from the past couple of years, but am glad to finally get around to doing this now. We just might attempt to recall some of the more interesting highlights from the planning phase. But for now, I'll start with this weekend. October and November have had us reflecting back to where we were a year ago, back when