OK. Here's the report on the restaurant from last night - Pia's Trattoria on Beach Blvd (727)327-2190 is a small place well worth a visit. Barb and I ate there with drinks before hand and a half carafe of house white with the meal, a shared appetizer and an entree each for $60! The meal was not only reasonable but excellent! First the bread was served with olive oil and parmesan cheese, hot from the oven wrapped in its own napkin and brought to the table in a wicker basket and the meal just kept getting better. We shared a Caprese salad and had separate entrées. Mine was the lasagne special which was really first rate, served up in its own small frying pan with a delicious meat sauce and gorgonzola substituting for the ricotta cheese that is normal for lasagne. The Pinot Grigio was much more subtle that I have come to expect from this wine, the presentation for everything was superb and the service was informal and excellent. Here is Barb's comment about what she thought about the place and her meal.

"We ate outside in the side patio of Pia's about 20 minutes walk from the boat, had a reservation for 6PM so the heat was gone from the day but we were still in shorts and t-shirts. We started with salads, their bread was warm and tasty, crusty on the outside and soft on the inside served with a small plate with a stripe of parmesan down the middle, crushed red peppers on one side and olive oil on the other, then shared their version of a Caprese salad, Mike had tasty lasagne Bolognese (had gorgonzola cheese instead of ricotta in it), I had a pasta dish with a sauce made from tomatoes and I don't remember what else - neither of us finished our mains so we have leftovers for tomorrow - mine will be good as a cold pasta salad, we had a 1/2 carafe of house Pinot Grigio, and Mike had and Italian beer on tap, and a bottle of still water as opposed to a Perrier to split - all for $60!!!!!!!! Great service in a very pleasant spot - lots of tropical trees and lanterns"

Today I got work done on the anchor chain locker. To start, I opened up the locker and played out all 200' of the chain, simply letting it down into the water ahead of us in the dock. It's amazing what you discover when you do things like that: first, there was all kinds of mud and corruption at the bottom of the chain locker which was clogging the scrubber that was down there and which is supposed to drain off water that comes in through the deck to the bilge where the bilge pump will send it overboard. One problem fixed by simply cleaning out the sump of the chain locker and future occurrences fixed by simply doing what we should have all along - cleaning off the chain as we bring it aboard; second, the hull stringers are in a perfect position to hold a shelf in the forward part of the chain locker for the secondary anchor rode to prevent it getting tangled in the chain from the primary anchor. All I need is a triangular piece of plastic grating. It won't be supporting too much weight even when the rope rode is wet; and, third, the 200' of primary anchor chain is now more like 194' as the last 6' were so badly corroded that I couldn't trust it even only to hold the chain to the boat.

As soon as the sun came out and was able to dry the dampness from the dew off the deck, I was able to cut the hole for the secondary anchor hawser and stow away the anchor rode. I had already repositioned the Danforth secondary on the bow to a more usable position. At some point I will get a second bow roller, one of the ones that come off at an angle, to act as a fairlead for the second anchor. This has made room again on the foredeck for us to put up our folding chairs.

Barb has begun to break out the multiple CDs of Christmas music and started to make Christmas cards so I guess the season has finally hit her regardless of the temperature outside. We have quite a few aboard including some that present the classics in a very musical and fresh format although have to admit it is more than a little weird to hear a recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" all the while lathering on the sun block.

Our good friend Paul Barr from Armdale appeared at the marina just before we had to head off with Bob to get the rental car. We got to exchange contact information and make a tentative arrangement to get together for dinner and the Art Walk tomorrow night. Great to see him and glad he is down here.

Bob came to get us to go fetch the rental car at 2 PM so we had all morning to get some of the work done mostly in temperatures that were bearable. The trip to the car rental was over an hour in traffic and if he had taken that long to come and get us it certainly was a big favour. As it was he was also able to call in a few favours and get us a really great deal on a rental for about 2/3 of what the normal rate would be. We are now car-ed and can get about for distances greater than 1 to 2 miles.

We are getting loads of recommendations for things to do when Kayt and Chris are visiting, the most recent piece of advice is to go on an airboat ride through the everglades - not expensive, exciting and very interesting.