It was great to be home in Nova Scotia and now it’s great to be home on Madcap.

We had a smooth trip south and arrived at Fort Lauderdale about 0015 hrs Thursday morning – just in time to pick up our rental car before the office closed. Jim managed to stay awake as we drove north but we were both very happy to tumble into our berth when we reached the marina at 0300 hrs. It was a cold one too – the temperature was in the 30’s F and we piled on the blankets and plugged in our little heater.

We put our socks and shoes, long pants and sweaters back on when we got up at 8 but managed to lose most of them over the course of the day (replacing them with sandals and t-shirts of course!!)

Rather than get straight into boat work, we decided to take advantage of the car, and make a run down to Stuart to visit Steve and Sandi (Yonder) and what a good decision it was. Along with their friends, Gail and Al, from Fort Pierce, Pete from Port St Lucie and Joe (Gemini) on his way to the Bahamas, we gathered on the lovely patio of Sunset Bay Marina as the sun went down in a gloriously vibrant show of colour. Gail wanted us to experience Planet Ozone (planetozone.net) so we piled into cars and drove down Highway 1 a couple of miles to this fascinating gas station/deli/café. It is a “green” building with a marvelous variety of tasty products on the grocery shelves and delicious, affordable items on the menu. Do pay it a visit if you are in the Stuart area – we dined on lamb, chicken, grilled shrimp with veggies, rice and lentil pilaf, wonderful fresh tasting baba ganouj and tabbouleh. It is easy to eat healthily with examples like this.

Friday brought a trip to Publix for reprovisioning, and because we are in healthy, simple food mode, it didn’t even cost us as much as I had expected. I was comparing prices between this Publix and the one in Fernandina Beach though, and things are more expensive here. At this point in other years, we were packing the boat with every snack, specialty food and paper product we would need for 3 months in the Bahamas, but this year is different. We’ll be in the US for several weeks yet, and have many more opportunities to top up the larder. I do believe we’re done for now – the lockers are full and I have all sorts of possibilities for a varied menu.

Jim got to choose the protein for tonight’s dinner and arrived back at the cart with salmon – so roasted potatoes, green beans and poached salmon followed by a couple (maybe more like a small handful) of Mireille’s chocolate covered blueberries made our first onboard dinner of 2012. We’re off to a good start!

The last of the boat jobs (for now) will get done on Saturday and we’ll head out the inlet and down to Lake Worth on Sunday. Jim is fashioning a rail mount for our outboard motor and I am sprucing up the hand rails on the cabin roof. The weather warms every day, the winds are light, and we are set to get moving.