I never thought I would say this but I live on a lake in Ft. Lauderdale, literally. We have been here a full week now and I think it will likely be another week before we leave, if then. We are waiting for the exact right weather to make our crossing over to the Bahamas as comfortable as possible.

One of our goals for Ft. Lauderdale is to spend some time with our friend Pam Wall who is a well known cruiser and does seminars on the Bahamas for all the boat shows. We were going to have dinner with her this week but she couldn’t make it and now she is in Chicago speaking at the boat show there this weekend. She asked us to wait for her to get back if the weather wasn’t perfect for leaving. We decided we are going to wait because having her expertise will make our trip better so it is worth the wait.

While we are waiting we are splitting our time between working on getting the boat ready and going into town to buy things we need for the boat and our trip. It’s a ten minute dinghy ride and then a decent walk to anything you might need. The other day though, we had to go a couple places that were too far to walk. We needed to go to Customs to get our Local Boaters Option cards which allows us to just call into Customs when we return to the U.S. instead of showing up in person. We also needed to go to the SSCA main headquarters to pick up a package we had shipped to us. This was going to take hours by bus and walking. Bill found a car rental place within walking distance that only cost $30 so we went ahead and rented a car. It was a great time saver. We managed to get a lot of our errands and even our laundry done... not to mention a trip to the beach. Yes, it is warm enough here to go to the beach as you can see by the picture above.

Just about every other day we go by dinghy to the restaurant at the end of the last canal on the lake. They charge $10 for you to leave your dinghy there but you can put that money toward food if you eat at the restaurant. Of course we eat that money every day. Today Bill decided he would let me try and start the dinghy engine by myself again. We just bought a new engine because I couldn’t start the old one, only to find that I couldn’t start the new one either! Well today, for the first time, I was successful in starting the engine!! Then I drove all the way to the restaurant, which included ducking under that bridge. I wouldn’t say I did it too well, we went through sideways and backwards, but we didn’t hit anything! Bill said I did OK. It was just like I have my learners permit!

Yesterday Bill made a Look Bucket. A Look Bucket is just a small bucket with a transparent bottom that you can put in the water and stick your head down in it and see under the water. If the water is clear enough. Everyone says we need one. Well, now we have one. We just need a place to use it.

One of the things we bought were recharge kits for our life jacket harnesses. They are supposed to inflate when you land in the water. Bill’s harness was showing that it needed service. We decided to try them out before recharging them so we would know what to expect if we did actually go overboard. Bill took a video of me jumping in the water. The harness worked great, but it took about five seconds before it started to inflate – that is a good thing to know. Check out the video: