Florida Bound Soon...

As we wrap up our time here in Warren, RI, I want to take the opportunity to thank a number of people that have helped us and offered us advice for our upcoming journey. Thank you to Harbormaster Matt and Deputy Dan for letting us use the transient dock and moorings during storms that have hit the area and caused even the river to be a bit on the choppy side. Thanks to Jason and Mary for advice, helping to put our sails up and letting us feel like we actually can make this trip without issue. Thank you to Bill and Donna for helping us out with getting an outboard for our replacement dinghy, being just generally cool folks to talk to and hang out with and giving Ringo plenty of treats. Thanks to Mike for being a real sport and ferrying us back and forth until we had gotten our replacement dinghy. Thanks to Jan over at West Marine in Newport for the assistance she provided when I accidentally got charged Sales Tax on the dinghy and also needed to return a light for the dinghy without issue. Thanks go to various others that it would take me a while to list here, but are no less important to thank for making us feel at home here in Warren and helping us in many assorted ways. We will miss everyone here, but will definitely return for at least a month time we come up to New England. To anyone not in Warren, but at least in New England, why not stop in Warren, which has many "Best of Rhode Island" shops and restaurants, as well as one of the nicest small libraries I've ever seen. We will likely depart on Monday the 18th as it looks like the weather all along the east coast will be beautiful for most of the week, with the exception of the end of the week having some showers down near VA and NC. But we can deal with a little bit of rain if we're going to have decent weather the rest of the time. Our plan, for those wanting to know is to leave early morning Monday, head through Block Island Sound to Long Island Sound. Down through the East River to New York Harbor. Follow the coast of NJ down to Delaware Bay. From there, head to Chesapeake Bay and pick up the ICW(Intra-Coastal Waterway) going down the Dismal Swamp Canal(really a much nicer area than it sounds) on to Elizabeth City, NC where cruisers can dock for free for 48 hours and we'll rest there. From there, we'll make our way down the ICW the rest of the way down to Florida. Overall, it should be somewhere between 1-2 weeks for us to get to Florida since we'll be mostly going the ICW and will be taking our time since there is really no rush. When we get to Florida, we plan to look up our friends that we have down that way and have a wonderful offer from Paul and Francesca to tie up on their dock for a little while. Looking forward to the journey as much as the destination. Hope all are well and we'll be sending Spot updates to Facebook for everyone so you'll know where we are along the way.