Friends and family edition

Well....it's  been awhile, hasn't it? Steve and I spent January through April docked in Titusville and spent our time moving our stuff aboard, working on a lot of on-board and on-shore projects and - most importantly - spending time with friends and family and bringing Jake aboard.  Amazingly enough, all of this has been a full-time job so I took a hiatus from blogging. Now that we're on the move again, it seems like a good time to resume! 

We're currently moored in the Jensen Beach Mooring Field, and have been here since early May after stops in Port Canaveral and Peck's Lake.

One of the things that we've been very eager to do is to share our adventure with our friends.  Getting Starry Night completely outfitted and getting all of the systems up and running has been more challenging and time-consuming than we expected, so while we've had the opportunity to spend time with our guests on the boatl, we haven't been able to sail with anyone yet. Soon though! :-)

Laura's mom and dad, grandpuppy Tito, 

daughter Jessie and husband, and Captain Steve 

enjoy an afternoon visit in the cockpit

              Darlyn and Laura on a cold January morning in Titusville

           Margie, Laura, Steve and Vijay

                                                                                                       Steve does double-duty: Captain and Cook

Charlie checks out the drawbridge

Patti Carlson on-board for a tour

Jan Wortham, who loves the ocean more than anyone I know

Mark Wortham trolling for Mahi in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Stuart

We enjoyed visits from many others, including guests from Germany, Columbia, New York, Connecticut and Louisiana but neglected to get photos!  Time to get back into blog mode!

One of the first things we did after returning to the US was to pick up Jake and bring him aboard.  The first challenge was getting him on the boat.  Steve was able to stand on the boat and lift him onto (or off of) of the dock, but Jake's a 50 pound dog and this wasn't something I was able to do.  One of our first projects was developing a drawbridge system so that Jake could easily get on and off the boat  by himself.

Jake adjusted to living on Starry Night very quickly, enjoying the sun on cool day up on the forward deck and in his comfy spot in the salon.

The next doggie challenge was figuring out how to get Jake from Starry Night onto the dinghy.  We expected this to be very difficult since the dinghy can be moving quite a bit relative to the sailboat.  It turned out we needn't have worried!  Jake just steps right off the stern and onto the bow of the dinghy like a pro. I guess it doesn't hurt that going to small islands and sandbars on our previous boat were one of his favorite things to do.

Jake, anxious to arrive at a spoil island 

near the Canaveral Locks.                                                        Hi Mom!

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