You may have noticed the long hiatus in High ZZ’s Cruising Blogs.  My only excuse is that upon reaching Florida, our “Trial by Ice” was finally over, and the real fun began!   I was “living the dream” too busy to write about it.  Those of you from northeastern climes will recall the winter of 2013-14 as a doozy.  Not the best time to transit the Inter-Coastal Waterway south from Virginia.   From Norfolk to Fernandina Beach, we recorded 17 inches of snow, ½ inch of ice, and 6 inches of rain at or below 45F (OK, not exactly freezing, but damn cold and miserable).  Our visits to Savanah and other Georgia and South Carolina towns were mostly washouts.  Even in St. Augustine, it rained 2 inches while we were there (but at least it was in the 60’s).  However, once we reached the St. Mary’s River, the weather, and hence our moods, improved greatly, the fun of retirement and living on our boat really started, and we left the stress of transiting ICW skinny water far behind and out of mind.   We got to sail/motor-sail much more…now this is cruising!

High ZZ’s is now tied up in Ft. Pierce, while we spend a few weeks at our house in South Venice.    This gives us time to reflect, recover our “land legs” …those sailors among you will understand that the first few hours/days back on land are wobbly and vertigo is common when showering on land.  We found the first six weeks on the boat taxing, scary at times, tedious at others, not as fun as we/I imagined.  But the last two weeks….Fantastic!

And, just as the Titanic discovered, we have discovered just the “Tip of the Iceberg”.  Our little trip down the ICW (we have logged 1,000 nautical miles on High ZZ’s so far) has become just the tip…that 2% of the iceberg sticking out of the water…just a very, very small fraction of what promises to be a fantastic adventure of cruising on a sailboat.   Deb is not quite sure; she enjoyed the travel and sightseeing, and the closeness/reconnection we have made as a couple working as a team whenever anchoring, docking, checking navigation marks…doing anything with the boat that two can do better than one, she is free from the shackles and stress of work, tight schedules, and now even the stress of leaving Linda back in Virginia….  But she is still intimidated by the size and complexity of High ZZ’s, and the thought of being off-shore and having to pull night watches seems overwhelming to her (all fears that will pass with experience and building familiarity).   Shep….well let’s just say that it was like your very first taste of chocolate ice cream…but just one of those tiny, crummy little tasting spoons that give you the briefest instant of cool icy, sweet ecstasy!    What a tease.  It has left me drooling like so many Pavlov’s dogs at the thought of MORE CRUISING TO COME. Let’s see the rest of that iceberg. Double, triple scoops…a chocolate ice cream banana split dripping in chocolate syrup!