No more South Beach for us!

OK, we have had enough of the dirt, noise, sirens and tour boats which one has put up with while living in the middle of a busy city.  Nati's decks are filthy.  You could clean them everyday and you would wake up in the morning and they would be dirty again.  Just think……we have to breath the same air!  It sure doesn't do you any good, that's for sure.

So……

• Nati has her new 200 feet of chain installed.  Its looks and handles great!
• We have new jam cleats installed on the mast for the lazy jacks that should speed up working with the system.
• We are fully stocked (we have lots of stuff!) for the Bahamian crossing.  Now all we have to do is get there.

Right now we are anchored back in No Name Harbor.  We had to get out of S. Beach. It's so much  quieter here.  If the window to cross happens soon we are staged in a perfect place to head over.  If we have to wait too long we'll go down Biscayne Bay to hide out.  NO MORE Miami!

Take a look at our neighbor the other day.  It's a new way to do the "stand up paddle board".  Look close…..the picture isn't great but that is dad with junior on his shoulders.  Notice the lack of any life saving apparatus on them!!  Where is the safety patrol when you need them??  The other picture depicts all the "stuff" they brought with them for the day.  They have a center console boat, 1 SUP, 1 jet ski (which by the way only goes in tight circles, mostly around sailboats nearby) and a couple of other float type toys.  So I was very happy for them to leave at sunset……

Heading west towards Miami!

Stuff, everywhere

The next picture is of one of the tour boats.  20-30 feet across ours bows give them plenty of room for a mistake.  To think the person driving this boat is a LICENSED CAPTAIN!

LOOK OUT!

Enough venting.  I better get over to the clean beautiful waters of the Bahamas.  Gringo land is getting to the both of us…

Don't worry…….the Bermuda Triangle does not have us!

We are "caught" but not by anything as cool at the BT.  Instead it's the north country and Anne is trying to take care of a bunch of issues that are going on up "north".  That means we haven't crossed over to the Bahamas yet and Nati is still in South Beach.

If we had anything new to update you with, it would be posted.  Instead, a number of new projects and just the other day we bought 200 feet of new chain for Nati.  This way, if we ever get to go somewhere other than the east coast of the US, we have sufficient rode to anchor.  We keep thinking/hoping that it will (going somewhere that is) happen.  We just don't have the magic answer right now.

We did make it to the Miami Boat Show last weekend.  Saw a bunch of new boats and "stuff" to buy.  We were pretty good though and didn't spend too much money.

So……stay tuned, we'll let you all know when we head over.  It has to be soon……winter can't last forever!

Still here!

For some strange reason a lot of people think we have crossed over to the Bahamas already.  We should be across according to our schedule (oh no…."the schedule!") but for some reason, and much of that has to do with the horrible weather for crossing the gulf stream it hasn't happened yet.  South Beach isn't the worse place in the world and we have been getting a lot of little projects completed.  Right now there isn't any option to cross for the short term so…………here we are watching the crazy people in Miami.

The Super Bowl yesterday was good but once again, our team messed up at the very end and let those cheaters pull it out.  This plane kept going around and around us yesterday morning so I'm as suing a very big fan of the Patriots lives near us.  It wasn't us!

On the way north from Marathon last week we happened upon a few more friends from the Chesapeake.  Clint & Terry have recently bought sv Finding Balance.  They had a trimaran up north and moved south a year to two ago.  I bet they are not missing the cold weather up north.

In addition we have met up with Victor & Kathy on sv Raisa right nearby where we are anchored in S. Beach.  They were our neighbors up in Pleasure Cove Marina and they are doing quite well this winter.

All in all there isn't much to report.  We are ready to head east when possible but there is no sense to rush it. We both want to sail over and not just motor straight into the wind.  We'll see…..stand by.  In the meantime there could be worse backyards to have……