Florida here we come!

The moon was new and the stars were out when we set off from Niagara-on-the-Lake for our drive south on Sunday 8th January 2012. The inflatable dinghy in the back of our car caused no hiccups at the U.S. border crossing, and we had passed through Buffalo by 7 a.m.
For the next ten hours we drove on snow-free roads, through New York State, Pennsylvania and Ohio - where we discarded our coats and stopped for a roadside picnic - to spend our first night in London, Kentucky. The next day our drive took us through the narrow and winding mountain passes of Tennessee in thick fog and occasional heavy rain.....but still no snow! Last year we had snow right up to the Florida border, so this year we counted ourselves lucky. Chatanooga and Atlanta flashed by as we headed for our second night's stop at the La Quinta Hotel in the small town of Valdosta, just north of the Florida border.
Now we were on the 'home stretch', and, despite getting lost in Orlando and ending up in an area which featured a variety of 'Correctional Institutions' and Bail Bond stores, we managed to get back on the highway to the sun. As we drove into Harbortown Marina in Ft. Pierce the thermometer in our car read 28C. We had arrived!
Since then winter has returned to Florida with night time temperatures of 2C and a daytime high of 11C one memorable day! But we are used to the vagaries of a Florida winter, and whereas in our early years as snowbirds we may have felt discouraged, or maybe even 'cheated', we just shrug our snowbird feathers, and get on with scrubbing the boat!
'Southern Vectis' was launched on Wednesday 11 January. Her starter motor didn't fire up, so the marine yard gave us a boost and we made it safely to our dock - F38. A new starter battery is needed before we can make our move south. But after eight months on her own, 'Southern Vectis' looked and felt good to us.
Since then we have been getting ourselves organized and provisioning the boat. We've also renewed our aquaintance with the newly renovated 'Harbor Cove' waterfront restaurant. We've even stolen an afternoon to sit beside the pool.Yesterday we went to the Stuart Boat Show but couldn't find one sail boat! In the evening we met up with Al & Maggie, friends from last year, and swapped boating tales at the bar.
We plan to stay here another week. We've booked tickets to see a Gordon Lightfoot concert next Saturday. After that we'll head off and see where the wind...or our engine....takes us!