This winter, we’ve had some significant and expensive projects. Two months in Oriental, North Carolina, where Liam did his captain’s license course, and we had a new dodger made. Then, Carolina Beach, North Carolina, where Ryan did his scuba certification. And then Fernandina Beach, Florida, where we focused on Ryan’s doctors.

This is the last year that Ryan will be covered by my medical insurance, so we’re doing what we can to get ahead of as much as we can and to take advantage of that coverage. But in the USA, even with great health insurance, it can get expensive. We ended up with $600 worth of expenses for the lab that did the “annual” blood work. Plus all the copayments to the doctors.

And then there was the hope of getting ahead on some of his dental work, but dental insurance in the USA is unfortunate. His estimate from the dentist was $18,000 after insurance paid its part. Needless to say, that one is on hold since they wanted the money up front. I have a feeling that he’ll be making trips to Nova Scotia to get that work done over the next year or three.

Boat-wise, there are still a few jobs that need to be done before we can turn north. We need to change the oil, the transmission fluid, and check on the engine in general. We also need to tie down the fridge, we had a knock down this fall and the fridge went flying so the current solution isn’t going to work moving forward. I want to move a circuit on our electrical panel to a different switch. And we’ll need to have our bottom cleaned.

The plan is to leave, not this coming Sunday, but the Sunday after that, so in two weeks. Plenty of time. But I’m going to try to get everything done this week. Mostly because I’m sure other things will pop up, and if we’re lucky, we’ll have time to rest before our move.

Our move is only a couple of miles to Cumberland Island for a bit. How long will we get to stay there? That will depend on the weather and provisioning. With luck, we’ll be able to relax there and not have any work to do.