Some of the new lighting in front and up on the top back of the fly bridge.

Star Gazer has spent a four months in Lantana, FL. We have been with it three of those, with the other month in Thailand. We used our Florida time to catch up on medical appointments, the IRS and any bills that might have slipped through the auto pay cracks. One great thing was that I got the cataract in my left eye fixed. I lack binocular vision and normally use only that eye. Now I can look way ahead and see the day markers in the ICW once more.

We also got a number of things done to the boat in Florida. The bulk of this was done by Greg Aukerman who we met when he worked on our boat in Washington, NC. We got on well together so he came down to Florida for a month while he stayed with us on the boat and did a lot more. Most boaters agree it is really hard to find people who will show up and get quality work done on a reasonable time schedule. Once they find that person they stick with him.

Greg redid electrical circuitry, added some new electronics and added various other items like some new lighting, windshield wipers, etc. He automated the electrical so if we plug into shore power it will run everything. Unplug and the boat switches to inverting AC power from our battery bank. If the batteries run low the generator starts up and runs until the batteries are recharged. Most of our time at anchor the boat is completely silent while it runs off the batteries. We still have plenty to do on a boat, but at least we don’t have to worry where our next kilowatt is coming from or whether the battery bank is properly charged and maintained, a much more complex process than I realized.

Now it’s time to leave and start the great loop. First we will go up to the DeFever rendezvous 25 miles north of here at Old Port Cove marina. We’ll meet a number of friends there, including Bruce and Mandy as well as other DeFever friends we met at Brunswick Landing during our first stay there.