Last day onboard

This morning we woke up to our last day onboard, which makes last night our last night on board. From now on we will be vagabonds for a while. Again...

Surprisingly enough, I am more worried about packing everything we own then I am about moving back to land, back to Israel, back to real life. 

Back to real life. 

Pause. 

Rewind. 

A month ago we were still in the Bahamas. Enjoying the white sands and the beutiful beaches. Then we had to say goodbye to that all that. 

We had an amazing golf stream crossing (I must admit I was worried about that) and within 9 hours were back in the land of endless possibilities. Amazing. 

The contrast between the availability of everything in the US to the lack there of in the Bahamas, only 70 miles away is mind blowing. 

After crossing we slowly made our way up the ICW, a system of channels going 'inland' parallel to the Atlantic Ocean. Completely protected from the elements but full of bridges which slow you down. Some are fixed bridges we just went under, others open at certain hours and you have to wait for them, but the really cool ones are those who opened just for us, on demend. "Open sesame" you ask the bridge master, and amazingly enough, tragic stops, just for us...

Sweet! 

Our first important destination was cape canaveral, where we finally reunited with our dear friends from Bendecida. 

Bendecida, a beutiful leopard 43 were our body boat from st. Lucia to Grenada and throughout the huricane season. 

When the season ended and we turned north, they (together with lucky 7) went west. 

We haven't seen them since and the reunion was as great as could be. 

We ended up spending 3 nights in the slip right next to them and went to visit the kennedy space center together. 

Happy times! 

Bendecida were sweet enough to come visit us here in st augustine over this weekend, just to say 'see you later' not goodbye...

Good luck our friends, with going back to land...

Fast forward ...

The boat is listed with a broker, looking good and all systems are go. 

Almost everything is off the boat now, but still needs to be loaded into the back of a car...

We have downsized our life into a 37 foot boat, and now we're about to squeez it into a minivan... Doable? 

We are lucky enough to be able to spend our last few days in St. Augustine with our friends Alan and Becky (Alan was the delivery captain who helped us deliver our first boat to road island and then to Puerto Rico and we have stayed good friends) 

Out plan is to clean her up and on Tuesday hit the road heading to Boston. We hope to visit some friends along the way, and of course back in Boston before we fly out and then...

We have a one way ticket to Israel...

Where we are still clueless as to where we're going to live or work...

Are you in Boston just before the 13th? Are you somewhere along the way? 

Are you back in Israel? 

Or are you still on your boat, still living what now even to us seams like a dream?

Where ever you are, may you keep smiling and may we soon meet!

- the (not so) Floating Eliases