Our stay and all the hustle and bustle in Ft. Lauderdale came to an end this week. My parents had just left to return home, when Benno removed a couple of mast brackets and the antenna arch from the pilothouse roof. Then he worked on the logistics of taking our pilothouse door off. The powder coating was flaking off from seven years of exposure to the weather, dunking with saltwater on the way to Cape Horn and being baked in the strong Caribbean sun. Thanks to the Internet, we had dug up a suitable powder coating company here in Ft. Lauderdale. This company had in-house sand blasting and would do the blasting and powder coating on the same day, keeping in mind that we only have one entrance door. But, for goodness sake, they wanted the stuff at their shop at 6:30 a.m. Man, this disturbed our routine, being on a leisure cruising boat, when you have to get out of the sack at 4:00 a.m., dismantle the door, take off all the hardware, hustle the stuff into the dinghy, drop the skipper off to get the already rented rental car, then get to a dock where you could load the car with the stuff, and it's low tide, which makes it more difficult. But hey, we managed. JAS Powder Coating did a good job. By nightfall we had the door back in place while the other items could wait for reinstallation.

The picture above is of the wheelhouse arch after the powder coating and before we mounted it back onto the roof with the Furuno GP-37 GPS antenna to the left,
the Wheeler award winning police speaker in the middle, and
on top of it the amber strobe light which we can exchange for a blue bezel (as a pirate deterrent)
behind the strobe light: the Wirie wifi antenna for Internet access, and
to the right: the JRC-NCR 330 Navtex Receiver antenna.





Not always having a car at our disposal, we make good use of it when we do rent one. So the day after, we thought we do a little shopping at Wal-Mart Super Center. It's not a good thing to do that on an empty stomach, so we stopped at Lester's Diner, where we enjoyed a good solid brunch. We had never eaten there before and as it seems to be a landmark here in Ft. Lauderdale, we thought we'd give it a try. The place was packed while we were there, which is always a good sign for a restaurant.





At the Wal-Mart Super Center we couldn't help it, but had to take a picture of the guard tower of Broward Sheriff Dept. at the Wal-Mart parking lot. This is something we Canadians do not see back in Canada. After doing our "little" shopping, I sure was glad that our car was equipped with a large trunk to hold our purchases. Just imagine if we'd gone shopping on an empty stomach!

A couple of days ago, Benno started to reassemble the antenna arch while I stayed in bed with some kind of stomach flu. My mind was not focused on writing a blog while I was unable to keep any food down and my tummy sounding like the Howler Monkeys back in Panama. I concentrated mainly on negotiating the quickest way to the bathroom.
Now that I am feeling better, the captain has got some of that what ailed me for a couple of days and is eying the Imodium. Oh well, the mounting of the arch and wire reconnection can wait until Benno is well again.