This is December 9th, we are presently in Miami awaiting a weather window to proceed further south. Now that we have a bit of time while waiting some “Whisper Watchers” have requested a more detailed account of our trip so far. We drove down this year and along the way we stopped overnight to visit with our good friends Ed and Marlene Giffin in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. We had supper with a former cruiser George Hebb in Halifax. We then continued, met former cruisers Doug and Pat Brown for Lunch and stayed overnight with Don and Shirley Myles in Grande Bay, New Brunswick, visited Lloyd and Sheila Foote former Newfoundlanders who moved up there years ago. It was wonderful to visit old friends.

We drove to Ottawa and spent the weekend with Karla, Nick, Taite and Emily. It was Halloween and it was fantastic to be there for this occasion. We did some shopping, took the children to a movie and really enjoyed being with the Family for the weekend.

We drove from Ottawa to Jacksonville, Florida, staying in a hotel one night. Of course the picture in the first blog shows the tire. Other than that we had a great trip stopping at JR’s, an outlet store, and a Huge Harbor Freight store.

Arrived at Ada and Oliver’s Marilyn’s cousin and Husband in Jacksonville. We stayed with them from November 3 to the 16th Had a lovely visit. Whisper is kept on dry dock at Gibson Marina, one hour drive from their place. Most days Vic left in the mornings and worked on Whisper preparing her, Marilyn went to work with Ada some days, but some days she joined me getting Whisper cleaned up and ready. We did some flee markets, out for some and toured around. One day, the four of us drove to Amelia Island to visit Sandi, Steve, Jim and Beth, (Cruisers). Had a wonderful day.

We moved on board Whisper November 17, continued to provision and rig the sails. We had a new Dodger being made so we moved to a wharf in Palatka to wait for it. We finally got the dodger and proceeded to Jax Landing. We were not too far gone when I heard a different sound. Upon checking Vic discovered that the fan belt had frayed. We are very much in sync in cases like this. I quickly turned off the engine and maneuvered Whisper while Vic retrieved his tools and extra fan belt and installed it. We arrived at Jax Landing without any other incidents. When we left Jax Landing we anchored in a lot of lovely places along the Florida coastline. We arrived in Titusville November 24th in time for the American Thanksgiving, which we celebrated with friends the next day. We spent a few days there and proceeded to Vero Beach. Vero Beach is unique in the fact that it is nicknamed “Velco Beach” as many cruisers get stuck there. It is a little town that has all the enmities for cruisers including a free bus to anywhere you want to go. Many cruisers stay here for the winter. We met another former cruiser Gerald Milburn, who now has a condo there. He was kind enough to take us out to Walmart, etc. we had lunch with him. While there we also met Cindy and Jeff on SV Salty Dog, we had cruised with them in 2007. We left Vero Beach December 2nd , heading for Lake Syliva, in Fort Lauderdale. We anchored in Peck Lake and by Lantana Bridge. From Lantana Bridge we came through 15 bridges before arriving at Lake Sylvia but it was pleasant and we made most bridges on time without delay. We anchored in Lake Sylvia and the next day we went to visit Mike and Diane, from Ontario who have their trawler at the Marina for the winter. On the way back Mike and Vickie invited us aboard their boat for drinks along with Brian and Dawn Ann. We were on anchor in Lake Sylvia and we could dinghy to a restaurant “Southport Raw Bar”, where you could tie your dinghy up for $10 go shopping come back and use the $10 as a credit toward lunch. A good deal! We enjoyed out time there provisioning, visiting and getting Whisper prepared. That brings us to the current day. Will be in touch later. We are unable to upload pictures at this time due to the bandwidth.