BRRRRRrrrrr

We heard how bad the weather has been in Ottawa... and here I had to wear a long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt and a jacket! But I never put on gloves or my Ugg boots that I see locals wearing, brrrr for here. Today was sunny though! Paul and I went shopping in the morning together and bought a great kayak. This is a Mantra that seats one, two or even three people. This is fantastic for what we want it for. We will put on the roof of the rental car tomorrow morning. I will then take a pic. I'm sure it will get lots of use. The store Sport Authority is like a Sport Chek in Canada. The kayak did not "break the bank" as we were afraid of, so we are smiling. We did a Home Depot, West Marine, JCPenny, Macy's and a Kohls.... we are looking for flavors for our Soda Stream... and stores are lacking so we are running around to these stores to their "home department". My first time in a Macy's and did not look and anything else except Soda Stream.

We bought a "ditch box" which was a $8 tool box at Home Depot. This is a box we grab in case of an emergency and have to leave our boat in a hurry. Every boat should have one. I will load it with bottled water, protein bars, flares, the sat phone will go in, whistle, flashlight, glow sticks etc. We are always about safety on the boat. We are in calm waters in the Bahamas this year and probably next (maybe venture to the Turks and Caicos next winter).

I was at a CVS Drug Store yesterday and got three $10 gift cards. She gave me one of those store cards similar to Shopper's except no info is given .... so I took the card and the cashier said what happens is once in a while a random $10 gift card will be issued right on the spot (what are the odds of that?). I said okay, so she prints out my receipt, and I thought she was going to go crazy!!! You just got three $10 gift cards on your receipt. I HAVE WORKED HERE FOR 4 YEARS AND THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED. She was so excited for me it was like I won at the slot machine and the people behind me were open mouthed. I took the 3 cards once the supervisor came over and signed off on these cards and went back today to get Paul those expensive Mach3 razors.... which I needed help as it was some complicated secure system in the aisle to retrieve these expensive razors.

Paul is getting his fishing rods tomorrow at Wal-Mart and other final things like gas cans for the dinghy. We will be doing our last provisioning (like Tostillos and Chips.... take up so much room in a cart). We will load up the fridge too as we tentatively want to leave Stuart on Friday morning. Seems far away but so close for us.... maybe Thursday. Right now the open waters are calling for a small craft warning so we will see if we actually go out to the Atlantic to go to Miami... it would save so much time and give us some more experience. Going the ICW to Miami is slow as there are so many bridges to wait for openings or have scheduled openings. I remember waiting 3 hours in Kingston, Ontario on the St. Lawrence River waiting to enter the Rideau Canal .... with 3 young boys that were bored to death!

When I bought the blades of Paul I impulsed and bought 3 bottles of wine for $10... where in Canada can one do that???

We love hearing from everyone by comments or by email. We don't have "friends" yet down here. We hope you are all well where you are reading this from... Ottawa, Cranbrook, Victoria, Chemainus, Bahamas, Prescott, Huntsville, Toronto area, Duncan, Arizona, and Germany!

When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness
Nicole Kidman