When I talk with people they wonder what happened to our blog. Ok, Ok I've been horrible at writing since we left the Bahamas.

I'll try and make a long story short. We have been stuck in repair land. Several things have gone wrong since I last wrote. The new refrigerator compressor we put in just before the Bahamas quit working on the way back from the Bahamas. So, after working with the manufacturer and the installer we finally got it working with a new one. The installer gave up on it and I continued to work the problems. It turned out to be a wiring issue. Wonder why the installer couldn't figure it out?

When we left the Bahamas for a night sail back to the U.S. we almost had a catastrophe. In a 25 knot wind sailing at about 9 knots we hit a reef. We ground to a fast stop and with each wave we were picked up and deposited in another spot on the reef. After about 4 times we were tossed into deep water again. We scrambled about checking the bilges and we saw no water coming into the boat so I decided to continue onto the U.S.. The water here in the intercoastal water way is riled up and hard to see in. When I got my new scuba gear I went down and took a look at the keels. We took our a large chunk of both keels when we hit the reef. The day after Christmas we hauled out for a 10 day repair. $10,100.00 worth. Ouch. But I must say it's better then what it could have been.

I've learned a great lesson. Don't ever trust your charts in the Bahamas. We marked the spot we hit on the GPS and there is no sign of trouble on the chart. We had followed the channel all the way out to the last marker before we turned towards the U.S.. Oh well, some lessons are expensive but no one got hurt and the way the boat is made with deap keels saved the boat.

As soon as the boat got back into the water we noticed the rudder shaft on the port side was leaking a lot. So it was back out of the water to fix the rudder. That only took 1 day and only $150.00 in labor.

Our plan to go to the Bahamas again was off. Time was running too short because of our plan to go to South Africa in late FEB. I think we are quickly learning that it doesn't pay to make plans too far in advance because MURPHY lives on all boats. (Murphy's law).

Hope everyone is well. We will write when we return from Africa.