Hangin' out in Dinner Key

Wow, time flies by. We got here Monday evening and it’s already Thursday. We are staying fairly productive though. We had a great sail down from Ft Lauderdale on Monday. 10-15 knots of wind from the West, adn we really made hay. So here we sit.

Yes, we have missed a few decent windows to get across to the Bahamas, but we had one final task to complete. If you remember back before New Years, we had to send our fluxgate compass back to Maretron for repair. They unfortunately sent the new one to our old home address, so we had Joan and Byrd sneak over and grab it off the porch when UPS delivered it, and they forwarded it to us down here. Where, you ask? That is certainly one of the many dilemmas for homeless people. Mail service and reliable internet connections have been our biggest irritants so far. Thank goodness, though. We are fortunate they aren’t things like bad weather, engine problems or stopped up heads, so I’m not complaining. So we had the bright idea to hook up with my former work colleague that lives in Miami. He agreed to collect some mail and packages for us and meet up with us when we got here.
So yesterday, we had Lorenzo out to the boat for lunch(I grilled some burgers on fresh Kaiser rolls from Fresh Market- they were awesome) and we caught up on what was going on with him and us. We even talked shop a little, but not much. It was great to see him, and hope we will stay in touch. (‘Zo- I’ll be expecting a comment posted from you).
So we got our compass back- looks like whatever afflicted our old one was terminal. Maretron sent us an entirely new unit. I feel better. Took about a half hour to put it back in, and it is back online. That will help with the chart plotter orientation and will keep our radar overlay function working spot on.


So this morning, I got up to listen to Chris Parker(the Bahamas/Caribbean weather guru) to start looking seriously for a good weather window. . Looks like early next week at best. Actually yesterday was a decent day, but… Additionally, Friday looks OK, but we are hoping the crew on Las Sirenas are coming south from Ft Lauderdale to catch up with us, so we can all go across together.

We took Bella in to shore and found a great park. We tossed the Flippy Flopper for a while(she got bored and hot pretty quick, but Carryn and I tossed it for a bit). WE grabbed a sandwich at Fresh Market and headed back to the boat. I’m not sure what came over me, but I decided to suit up to clean the bottom of the hull. I had started cleaning it back before we left Savannah, but the water was 52 degrees and I nearly went into shock, so I only cleaned the prop and the thru hulls. I checked the water temp here and it is 71 degrees, so I donned my shorty wetsuit and grabbed my scraper and brush and eased in. Brrrrrrr, 71 is still frigid. I remember swimming in Las Moras Springs at our ranch in W Texas at 68 degrees as a kid, and never flinching. Now, I worry about hypothermia in anything below 80!! Ahhh, youth. We were bulletproof back then. So anyway, I worked over the hull and boy did it need it. Now I realize why we could never break 6 knots of speed through the water. I had a half inch of fuzz covering the entire hull. What a shame. Almost 400 miles and we were dragging 40 square yards of shag carpet along with us. I look forward to seeing the improvement when we take off from here.

So, a productive day. It’s 4pm, and time for a well deserved cocktail. Carryn already has a jump on me. Unfortunatly, no pics worth interest today. Wish I had have thought about it while cleaning the bottom- I could have tested out our waterproof camera.

We're heading in to Coconut Grove to get cash out and use the public library internet connection to post this. Last night we used the fast connection to make some calls using our Majic Jack and Skype. We looked pretty goofy setting up office in the picnic area.
Until next post---(we love to get your comments)