Freedom!

I got laid off. Today was my last day working for Exar. That pretty much takes care of our whole work group. All the designers and test engineers are gone (or going), they only kept a couple of people in sales. For most of them this was a bad thing or at least they feel that way now. For Wendy and me this was great timing and we’re both happy I’m free. Working for Exar gave us some extra money which allowed us to spend more money on the boat because a boat will take all the money you have. On the other hand, work prevented me from working on the boat or cruising full time. So, next week we plan to really start cruising.

Our current plan is to finish up a few more things here in Palm Beach then head down to Miami. From there we will cross over to the Bahamas and sail down to the Exumas which is a chain in the south eastern Bahamas. We hope to leave here by Aug 15 and be in the Bahamas by Aug 20. We’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, Palm Beach isn’t a bad place to spend some time. The diving at Blue Heron Bridge is great and we can take our dinghy right to the beach where we start dives. It only takes us a few minutes to walk to a grocery store. My sister owns a condo about ½ mile from here where we can do laundry and use as a shipping address. It’s all very nice, but it’s not the Bahamas or the Caribbean, so it’s time to move along.

Now our future is sailing our boat, working on our boat, scuba diving and maybe finding a shop in the Caribbean where I can teach scuba for a while. Teaching doesn’t pay anything, but it’s a lot of fun and I get free diving!

Hopefully, I’ll have a little more time to write and more to write about, plus lots of photos of beautiful beaches and underwater creatures.