EXUMAS TOMORROW

We are with son Ben and wife Sam along with their friends but not in the Exumas as planned. We have been at Rose Island near Nassau snorkeling, kayaking, swimming, beachcombing and lots of reading! The weather is not being cooperative for us to continue to the Exumas. We are heading out again tomorrow to give it a try as the wave height will be better and the wind is coming from a different direction. This morning we arrived at Atlantis so there is much to do and see here. I am using their computer here as I sit and do laundry. Any boater knows if there is an opportunity to use a washing machine, use it while you can.... and internet! I am connected to the big wide world out there for an hour or so. I will google the news and see if I missed anything important.

Did You Know.. there are 700 Islands in the Bahamas and over 2000 Cays.
The Bahamas gets 315 days of sunshine.

WE MADE ATLANTIS, NASSAU

Yes, we are on vacation mode. We traveled the 150 miles from Bimini to Nassau last Tuesday, a very long day but so worth it. We had to continue when the weather was in our favour. We anchored at Rose Island in daylight (I was worried we would be late coming in through Nassau Harbour). The pillows are fluffed, sheets freshened and the fridge is full once again. We have son Ben and wife Sam along with two of their friends here from the cold, cold north. We splurged and sitting cozy at a slip at the Atlantis Marina. Unfortunately, no internet at boat, sitting at the lounge here and can't post a picture. We venture again tomorrow to the Exumas, to Norman's Cay if the weather is in our favour again!!

We won't have internet until a few days later so please have patience and I will post a few pictures for that posting.

I heard that our Sastatchewan province was the coldest place on the planet on Wednesday!! I wonder if they will advertise that for tourists. I am sure the travel agents are booking travel to sunny destinations this winter from Canada. Stay warm and give a hug to all.

Whipee and Wahoo

The sky this morning when we left
Key Biscayne, beautiful!

Yipee we are here in Bimini, Bahamas after a very long and tiring day and Wahoo is what we got to eat. Now.... for we Canadians, what the heck is a Wahoo eh? Well, it is a very large fish (50 to 100lbs) and if you catch 10 of them, you start giving away steaks!! Yep, here at Bimini Big Game Club (a Guy Harvey Resort, look him up), there are anglers galore. They leave at day break and come back after lunch, crack open a beer and start filleting their “catch”. Well, we lucked out as we arrived at 1:30pm after an angler caught his 10 Wahoo. It is an awesome fish as I tasted it already in butter. Mmmmm. And we take anything free that we don't have to work at like filleting, that ugly work! We froze 4 steaks for when Paul's sister and brother-in-law come in a couple of weeks.

This is one of ten fish the boat owner caught
The local Bahamian fillets them all for him

Paul cutting "steaks" out of the Wahoo
Four steaks in freezer for later
Sauteed rest in butter to add to a wrap

We will not make it to Staniel Cay to pick up our guests so we will make other arrangements for Friday. No one messes with Mother Nature. And as any boater knows we are NOT suppose to have a schedule, oh well. We will fly our son and wife in along with friends where ever we are.

Paul is having a stiff drink after a day morning of extreme navigating!!

We will crack champagne in Nassau as friends gave us a bottle for Bimini but our journey is not over until Nassau.

A female caught the record holder, see link.

http://www.fishingheadquarters.net/184lbalworew.html

p.s. no internet for awhile now!! no posts!

GOOD INTENTIONS FOR GETTING THERE

This boarder came by this afernoon
I hope the dog is enjoying himself
I didn't see a tail wagging

Did your mom ever say “if at first you don't succeed, try, try again”? And again, and then again tomorrow. Well, tomorrow is the the day we try again. The wind speed has been checked twice, the wind direction, the wave height, the timing between waves and every other kind of weather check that a boater goes through. We are now ready!! Hopefully, when I do a post again I am posting that we are in Bahamas.

We are anchored here in Key Biscayne near a sand bar that every boater in Miami knows about. So, about 100 boaters were anchored near and around us. The great news about boating is if you don't like your neighbours (or their very loud music), you pull your anchor and leave. Yep, we were one of the ones that pulled our anchor after lunch as a very rude boater came in and thought all the other 99 boaters should listen to his music … I am not embellishing, this is the whole truth. I did play my music loud for about ½ hour to no avail, they did not get the hint.  

This is what we saw from anchorage
Miami's skyline in the background yesterday
Palm trees in the foreground

"Cruisers don't have plans, just intentions"

THIRD TIME'S NOT THE CHARM

Thought you may like this picture
There are a lot of different kind of "boats?" out there

"Third time's the charm" ... that is the saying. We tried on Monday to travel the Gulf Stream to Bimini, we tried a second time on Wednesday and then once again yesterday... all times we turned around and have landed back in Key Biscayne. Now it is a waiting game, Paul checking the weather (yes, I say every hour) on many websites, he checks wind direction, wind speed, wave heights and how many seconds between these waves. This is our life right now while anchored in a small bay surrounded by mini-mansions. It is actually very cool here for Miami area. We put the heat on in the boat this morning!! I am in sweat pants and Paul has a sweater on, but tomorrow will be a much warmer day.

Our guests that are first to arrive may have their plans disrupted. But they say no worries, they will come to warmer climes to where ever we are. They will leave snow and cold behind and swim in blue waters where we are!

Stay tuned to our adventures!

"Bills travel through mail at twice the speed as cheques"

BIMINI WAS A NO CAN DO!

We left Ft Lauderdale inlet for the Atlantic to cross the Gulf Stream at 7:30 am Monday morning. Try to imagine you riding the “underground, subway or tube” without a seat, holding the steel bar, going around bends, stopping and going, bracing with your feet with salt spray in your face. After three hours you would be tired and asking the pregnant lady for the priority seat you gave up... or you would get off at the next stop immediately even if it is not your destination. At least you did not stand next to a hairy man sharing your steel pole with a sleeveless top and tattoos with body odor right next to you. The next stop is nice but you feel defeated and wanted to continue... this was our journey yesterday. After 3 hours we made an executive decision (we both have voting rights) and turned Coyaba for Key Biscayne, south of Miami. We have never been here, it is beautiful but it is not our destination. We arrived here around 2pm!! A very long day, 2 gravols (anti-nausea pills) later we arrived at the Government Cut here in Miami. This is the shipping area, and I do not mean the cruise ships.

We will have a short trip when the time comes for us to venture to Bimini again as the route there from here is more direct and the stream is in our favour as it will add a couple of knots of speed to our cat.

We have many little things to do on the boat as we wait for the weather “window” again. Paul bought a seat for the dinghy with a back etc. so that needs to be installed, we are anxious to make water in this clearer water, we have a cleat leaking at the bow into a hold and the list is neverending on a boat. We do have our internet and a few good tv channels. A bad day at the boat is always better than a good day at work. (Paul wavered on that saying though hahahaha).

I did take some "kewl" pictures so see below if interested.

This is one of many container ships
on our way into Miami downtown.

Many containers, many from China, surprise?

Seeing Miami from our flybridge
as we came in early afternoon

See the big "boat", this is just one of many.
Miami is a boater's paradise!

This is the sunset we saw after
a rough day at sea, a calming effect!

Anchor A mechanical device that is supposed to keep the boat in one place (see dragging). These devices are sometimes used to submerge expensive anchor lines and chain when used without proper termination at both ends of the anchor line.

Astern A type of look. Your spouse gives you astern look when you attempt to buy things for your new boat OR if you are yelling instructions about anchoring!

BAHAMAS TOMORROW!!

This is what we see downtown Ft Lauderdale tonight

They don't call it Sunset Bay Marina for nothing,

We departed Stuart yesterday morning with a full load of provisions, diesel, gas for the outboards, and drinking water! We only went to Lake Worth for the night and this morning decided to see what the “outside” looked like down to Ft Lauderdale. Well, after 3 minutes out there we turned around came back into the ICW and ventured the whole way to Ft Lauderdale on the ICW. We wanted to avoid the 23 bridges we have to wait to open (on the hour/half hour or on the quarter and 45 after)!! We squeeze under just a few (we need 20ft) however we lucked in..... there was a sailboat being towed by TowBoat U.S in front of us and when he requests an opening he gets it, no waiting for the scheduled time. Of course we request the bridge masters if we could just follow through on this opening and they obliged. We probably saved 2 to 3 hours of travelling time. We are sitting in Ft. Lauderdale and the New River Municipal Marina. This marina is the one we stayed at last year, it is terrible navigating up this very narrow river but very inexpensive compared to all other marinas in the area. It is right downtown.

We will be leaving here before 7:30 am (the bridges don't open after that time for 2 hours as it is rush hour here on New River downtown area, good thing we research this!!). We are heading to Bimini Big Game Club, go through customs, then next day off to Chub Cay... which is the longest day of about 8-9 hours. I actually pull out the crockpot that day and have dinner cooking all day, don't you all love the crockpot??

We wish a son a Happy Birthday on the weekend (means really he is older but really means we are that much older!!) I hear it is Spring there in Ottawa, Canada and snow is melting, not fun for snowboarding for skiing. Where ever you arel, we wish you well and thank you for following.

This is how busy it is here coming into
Ft Lauderdale

This is a Sunday and many boaters out enjoying a day in the sunshine!

Everything will be alright in the end, and if it's not, it's not the end.

LAST CART TRIP DOWN THE DOCK

TODAY was the last cart full of “stuff” for Coyaba. We have been here one week and Paul has come out with me everyday to help provision and today he said “I can't believe it! This is the very last cart I have to bring from the car to Coyaba”. There were about 12 cart loads this past week!! We are ready to leave when Mother Nature allows. We will sit here at Sunset Bay until Sunday then off to Lake Worth; Monday, Hollywood, FL, then God willing, we travel the Gulf Stream on Tuesday for Bimini! Of course as any boater knows, one should never have a schedule as Mother Nature does not. We have guests arriving in Staniel Cay, Exumas January 25^th, so ideally Coyaba should be there.

Our stuffed fridge, every nook and cranny
takes on new meaning when you're boater

BROMELIAD is my new “pet plant”. Remember last year's journey I had a mini Palm Tree, well I am nurturing a different plant this time. The plants are very unique and beautiful down here compared to Ontario's growing season for the summer. The “garden centres” are always open here!

A colourful plant, reminds me when we
went to destination resorts

Hull speed

The maximum theoretical velocity of a given boat through the water, which is 1.5 times the square root of its waterline length in feet, divided by the distance to port in miles, minus the time in hours to sunset cubed.

Jibe

Course change which causes the boom to sweep rapidly across the cockpit; also, frequent type of comment made of observers of this manoeuvre. 

Lanyard

A light line attached to a small article so that it can be secured somewhere well out of reach.

MÉNÀGE À TROIS TWO THUMBS UP!

I am not normally a red wine drinker but loved the taste of this one. Paul was label buying and lucked in on a good wine. In Ontario, this is an $18 wine but down here it is about $11. We went to a store called Total Wine just up the road from Sunset Bay here and this is heaven for wine lovers. Every kind of wine is in this one location, aisle upon aisle. Needless to say, we are stocked up for the next 14 weeks as we are having company and they drink wine!

Every day we are driving to a Wal-Mart, West Marine, ABC (the Florida liquor store), a Publix (grocery store) then getting a cart to take everything from the car to our boat. Many trips later we are near the end. Other boaters are doing the same as sometimes I cannot find a cart.

We have reconnected with people we met last year travelling and look forward to meeting more.

Hot and sunny here in Florida!

LET 2013 BEGIN

BEFORE 
on December 27th in Ottawa, Ontario
Needless to say the snowboarder in the family
loves the snow

This is the back of our son's truck,
I know he would appreciate everyone to see the amount
of snow he had to clear off

AFTER
This is now with an umbrella drink

WELCOME 2013. Did you make any resolutions? Paul and I have arrived on Coyaba here in Stuart, Florida. We travelled on January 1^st as it was the least expensive day to travel. We are now provisioning the last needed “stuff”. For example, beer, wine, chips, dips and lots of sunscreen... and as one son said “please mom, store some Aloe Vera on board”, which I now have.

It is hot and sunny everyday. I will have time to enjoy the weather when all the work is done on board. Paul keeps mentioning food items he would like and I literally do not have any more square inches to spare to store more pickles, hot sauces etc. The rolls and rolls of toilet paper we bought today took the remaining room!! No boater (or a house) wants to run out of that stuff!

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts, so when customers got unruly the bartender would yell at them. 'Mind your pints and quarts.' Hence the phrase 'Mind your P's and Q's"