Returning to Blossom!

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 8 months since we said goodbye to Blossom, tucked up under her shed in Virginia. We expected to be back by the end of March at the latest but hadn’t planned on our lives changing as they did after our return to California!

To make a long story short, we made a quick and somewhat surprising decision (even to us) to move to St. Petersburg, Florida shortly after we returned home last summer. To paraphrase, a friend of ours said, “if it’s meant to be, it’ll be easy”. And with the move, everything just fell into place, including finding a house when we weren’t really house-hunting… And so we started off the year in a new town and a new home where we hope to grow old(er) 😊.  

Our 2017 Cruising Season is going to be a bit different than we had thought as we’ve decided to do some renovations to our house and yard that are going to keep us busy over the next year. We’re a bit too hands-on to leave when there’s so much happening at our new home so we’re going to try to do a little bit of everything. Rather than explore the NE coast we’re going to keep Blossom in Annapolis and poke around Chesapeake Bay throughout the summer and into fall. We may leave her at AYB again next fall/winter and pick up our original plans in 2018. We’ve found a home base for the summer in a key-hole marina that should keep her safe through hurricane season if any storms decide to head north again this year. It’s within a bike/Lyft ride of Annapolis and an added benefit to this location is that we can fly non-stop to BWI. We’re hoping to spend at least 2 weeks a month aboard to give us time to hang on the hook and explore the nooks and crannies with our dingy and kayaks. Though we’ve moved east, we still plan to live aboard Blossom and cruise a portion of each year. We think we’ll be keeping Blossom up north for a few years, cruising late spring through early fall to escape the brutal hot summers in Florida.

So here we are!  We’ve been a bit apprehensive about returning to Blossom after so many months (okay, I’ve been apprehensive, Martin is totally nonplused) – but it’s undeniable that boats don’t like to sit idle and 8 months is very long time. Not sure of what we’d find, we’ve come on a one-way ticket. AYB is a great facility and she’s been under cover in brackish water so fingers are crossed! If all goes well we’ll get her commissioned and around to the dock in the next couple of weeks and then return mid-May-ish for a leisurely trip to Annapolis.

We have our work cut out for us - this is what we returned to…

All windows covered, cupboards open, clothes vacuum packed and humidifier on. The next week or two will be spent putting her back in order. We’ll blog at the end of the week with a commissioning report.

Stepping aboard Blossom truly felt like coming home. She’s a train wreck, but she’s home 😊

Our travels will be a bit more contained this year than in the past, but who knows what adventures await us!