Our Voyage South

December 1, 2013

We left Port Elgin November 12 with an inch of slush on the road and started our trip south by visiting with family in Niagara for a few days. On Friday we crossed over at Buffalo and started heading south. Our plan was to take a week and see the sights on the way down, as we have never done the drive before. The first day we just drove until we didn’t see any snow on the hills on the side of the road, stopping at Summersville, West Virginia for the night.

Saturday was a short day, as we stopped to tour Mount Airy, North Carolina. This was the childhood home of Andy Griffith and is believed to be the inspiration for Mayberry, the town in the Andy Griffith Show on TV. We toured some of the attractions and had an awesome pork chop sandwich at Snappy Lunch, next door to Floyd’s Barber Shop, before moving on again. Stopping a couple of hours later for gas, we accidentally found the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame Museum. We had a quick tour, as they were about to close. The museum is run by volunteers and all proceeds are used for local charities. Our second day ended in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Sunday we were starting to see some fall colours and a lot of small deer feeding at the side of the road. We visited the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens at the Historic Bamboo Farm (near Savannah). It was in between their seasons, but we did see some beautiful and different orchids in their Orchid House. We spent the night in Fernandina Beach, Florida, where we had been last year, during Hurricane Sandy.

Monday we arrived in Titusville at noon and called Ron and Mary, friends from Glammis to invite them out for supper. Mary told us that there was going to be a space launch in about an hour, so we went over to their house and went with them down to the river to watch. The launch site was about 6 miles away on the other side of the river. We saw a little bright light going up in the sky. It seemed a long while after, we heard the roar of the Titan rocket. Had a nice visit with Ron and Mary in the afternoon and then to the Dixie Crossroads Restaurant to get Dave his Rock Shrimp.

We decided to stay another day in Titusville to start buying supplies for the boat.

Our plan was to take a day and go to the beach, but the weather was cold, so we drove south and got a campsite nearer to Indiantown.

Time 2 Go was scheduled to be moved to the work yard Friday morning, so we travelled to Indiantown Marina Thursday afternoon with the hope of getting a ‘look over’ the boat. That wasn’t to be, as it poured rain all afternoon.

Friday, the work started, we were in the work yard and settled by 9 am. and finally able to inspect the boat. The topsides were covered with a green slime and tree frogs. The inside was dusty, musty, gooey and sticky everywhere, but not as bad as we’d feared. The outside had to be scrubbed with Spray 9 cleaner to remove the green and the inside was vacuumed and then washed EVERYWHERE. All our clothes and bedding had to be washed...8 loads!

Down here Thanksgiving is a really big deal and we arrived the weekend before it. Indiantown Marina has things planned for the three days before, as well as Thanksgiving Day. All these events included free suppers and free drinks. They were a lot of fun and a great way to get to meet the other boaters. It did slow down the work a little bit, but we got a lot of good tips from people who have been doing this for years.

Nine days after being moved to the work yard, Time 2 Go is cleaned from top to bottom, new bottom paint, new lifting arm, solar panel, and solar vent installed, and is ready to be lifted into the water.