Miami

We have spent the last few days mostly running errands.

Usually at night we hang the dinghy from a halyard to get it out of the water and to make it less of an attraction to anyone who would have evil intentions of stealing it.  Around 5:00 a.m. Monday morning when the wind was blowing about 25 knots the dinghy flipped itself around so it was hanging straight up and down instead of horizontal.  In doing so one of the oars was lost overboard.  Monday's project was to find a new oar.  This required finding a West Marine, calling and talking them into taking an oar off a display dinghy, and then figuring out the public transportation system so we could get there.  We ended up taking a bus, walking a few blocks, then taking a train. We were quite proud of ourselves for mastering the system, until we missed our stop on the way back and ended up with an unintentional tour of North Miami Beach.

Tuesday was laundry day.  Gail and I did laundry while Bill and Bob sorted out refilling propane canisters.  When we were walking down the street bundled up against the cold carrying our clothes in sacks we wondered if anyone would mistake us for homeless people and give us money for food.  In the evening Bob and Gail came over for dinner.  I made a chicken pot pie and apple turnovers for dessert.  Gail brought a salad.

(If anyone out there is reading this blog are you interested in recipes?  If so, leave a comment and I will start adding them, or not...)

Today we are finally getting ready to leave for the Bahamas with quite a few other boats.  We have all been listening to various weather sources, researching the weather on the internet, comparing notes via the VHF and it looks like an okay weather window.  Our plan is to leave sometime early tomorrow morning - probably around 1:00 a.m. and head for Nassau which will probably be about a 30 to 35  hour run depending on the wind and the gulf stream current.  If the weather turns bad our bail out points are Bimini and Chubb Cay.  Hopefully the next post will be from the Bahamas.