From Miami

We've spent the past week trying to wrap things up which is always a test since inevitably you discover more things that need doing or there are delays in the things you are trying to get done. It's been fun being moored right next to Ann & Bruce and in frequent contact. We've shared dinner and happy hours, several running excursions on Miami Beach, we've borrowed their truck numerous times for errands and Bruce has filled in as a tour guide a couple of times so that we could have some fun. One morning we took his Whaler way up the Miami River. It starts out right in downtown Miami where all the "beautiful people" live and works it's way through the guts of the city where cargo ships unload and the river shows more of it's commercial history. Since he did his master's thesis on this river, he can share a lot about it. The weather has continued beautiful and it was nice to be out on the water that way.

We went to Ft Lauderdale one day and Bruce helped us get a good deal on solar panels. It took a while to install them since all the holes needed to be drilled in the arch and then of course the radar mount was corroded in place after 10 years of salt spray but we needed to spin the mount so it wouldn't block the sun's rays. So off to a machine shop to get it freed up. We just got the mount back and everything reinstalled. The new computer monitor came so hopefully our navigation set up will be back to normal. We again realigned the engine and adjusted the shift cable (we replaced this so it'll take a few tries to get it adjusted right) and took a test motor out into the channel, all appears OK at the moment. It's been a real pain in the butt getting the spares for the new engine- of course all the old Yanmar spares no longer fit so we've been selling these on Ebay at a significant loss and have ordered all the new parts once again, of course at full price!

Ann & I decided to look up our long lost cousin Frances, so we had a shindig last night that went on in to this morning...... We rafted all 3 boats together on Bruce's mooring so we could move easily between boats. We didn't get to sit in all the places we'd planned nor discuss all that needed to be caught up on but we made a dent in it. And, just yesterday I had been in Whole Foods and stared at all the beautiful fresh flowers, thinking that I'd like to have some but shouldn't spend the money but lo & behold, Frances brought each of us a bouquet of gerber daisies & plenty of Moet champagne to boot!
From Miami
We walked over to the Parrot Jungle briefly one day and got to see some flamingos. I think they're feeding them food coloring!

We're looking for a weather window now to cross to the Bahamas but it's a few days out. We're much later than we envisioned but should still be OK, tired of deadlines. We won't have much time to be there but we can't wait to see that clear water again and hope our friends haven't moved on by the time we pull in!