…to DC! Oh, wait. Nevermind.

Welcome to Boat Life 101:

Lesson 1:  Plans are fluid.

Lesson 2:  The worst thing you can have on your boat is a schedule.

Lesson 3:  Live by the weather.

A few of you may know we had planned hoped to get Sabrina to DC before we headed south for the winter.  Well, that’s not gonna happen. 😦

We stayed in Baton Rouge for several extra days to have a more restful visit, see more family (including the new baby!), see the migrating wildlife at the Lakes and to attend a cool tailgate party at the LSU Foundation building overlooking Tiger Stadium.  Woo Hoo! Geaux Tigers!

A migrating flock of about 300 white pelicans arrived at the University Lakes while we were there.  Here are a few articles about them. 2013 Reveille Article   They’re back! (2017)    Pelicans just chillin’  WAFB video of them returning  They come to stay for the winter and are local celebrities.  There were also a visiting pair of rosette spoonbills as well as the more typical cormorants, swallows, at least two species of turtles, little cattle egrets, big egrets, herons, mockingbirds and other unidentified ducks and fauna.  I am loving the wildlife there. I took what I thought were a few decent pictures of the wildlife around the Lakes until I saw pictures from the Louisiana Nature Photographers FB page or in the articles above.  I’m gonna need a bigger lens.  How far away is Christmas? hint hint

But, staying ate up days that could have been used to prep Sabrina and get her to DC.  There’s a Nor’easter coming in this week and made traveling yesterday inadvisable.  That only left two days to get the roughly 102 nautical miles to DC before the really bad weather and a social event Sunday evening.  Certainly doable, but leaves no room for weather or mechanical issues.  And that just adds a layer of anxiety you don’t want on a boat.  With the temps dropping we needed to use the onboard heat.  Little snag there.  Nothing major, but took a little while to figure out and boom! your travel window is too short.  We could still do it, but the weather there is just going to be cold and rainy.   So, we’ll hold off getting to DC by boat until we come back up north in the spring.  Sigh.

We’ll take that time to take care of a few things at the house before closing, see a few people by car, etc, etc. Then, we plan hope to head south for the winter next week. Keep your fingers crossed!

Kitty