Grant likes the word "Bimini," it sort of rolls along. Let's hope he also likes the place!

We finally met Chris and Joyce, an adventurous couple with a bright spark of determination in planning their "going cruising" adventure. They took us to breakfast at the very delicious Blue Heaven on Sunday, early enough to actually get both a table and parking... it was a pleasure meeting them at last after communicating over sailblogs :-)

Well, we had thought we'd start Monday, but the kitty cat decided to get sick (um, actually, she ate masking tape and then stayed up most of the night barfing) on Sunday night. Monday we kept the car hours longer in order to get her to the Cruz Animal Hospital just north of mile 27... they took an X-ray and determined that yes it's bad for her to eat tape, but she'll probably recover. They also gave us some Cat Lube, which is a "tasty" (to cats) brown alimentary paste to help cats pass things they ate that they were not supposed to eat. And they recommended wet food for a while to help the process, which she apparently is really enjoying! We could not believe it, she actually willingly went into her carrier for the return trip to the boat, without being trapped into it. Very impressive.

When we did return the car, Roger (of the wonderful Flicka, JoHee) offered to lend his jeep to our efforts to get back to the marina (thank you, Roger!), and Ginger of Gypsysails, who was doing her first day on a new job, actually came out to the airport as soon as she got off work and picked us up from the rental return lot! How cool was that! She and Maury were headed over to Jon & Renee's boat for a dinner with Jon (Renee is north right now, helping her daughter through an illness), and she still made time to be our angel -- thank you so much, Ginger! Which turned out to be even better, because the taxi company that had said it would have a driver call us apparently forgot all about us: beware of Four Sixes, they do have some drivers with Navy base access, but, as happened today, they can just space out instead of getting back to you. My guess is that calling them back would have gotten results, but by then Ginger had called us and was on her way over. May the sun shine and the gentle breezes blow whenever Gypsy Sails! Actually, on all ya'll, what a wonderful bunch of people we have met at this marina.

All of that cat-tivity meant we didn't start our trip as planned in the afternoon to make a "shakedown" jump to an anchorage nearby, so we now plan to leave Tuesday morning early and just keep on to Bimini. That way, we sort of stay with the weather window rather than losing it. It closes behind us back here in Key West, but extends nicely into Thursday and even Friday where we are headed.

Wednesday 2/8/12
morning
Light and variable winds with smooth seas. Small short period wind waves.
Winds: N 4 to 6 knots
Seas: NNE 2 feet at 9 sec.

Afternoon
Light winds with a slight chop. Small short period wind waves.
Winds: NNE 6 to 8 knots
Seas: NNE 2 feet at 8 sec.

A really nice graphical representation of the weather window is available by clicking the Florida-to-Bimini box on the map at http://www.passageweather.com/ and then selecting "animate" for either the wind or the waves. Of course, by the time you read this, weather in that box will be different... so to summarize, today's is pretty good, very low wave heights and light winds predicted all day. We're wishing for luck, and to stay ahead of any exciting changes...

Creature Alert
Sunday night I spotted a very strange sea creature by our dock: about 10" long and with two diaphanous elegantly-spotted brown "wings" in the water, it looked like a cuttlefish with very elongated propulsion. I'm going to have to look that one up. It was full moon, and the critter was hunting in the light from one of the dock lamps. I suppose it might have been an upside-down cuttlefish... do they ever hunt upside-down? The following morning there were large tarpon hanging in the still water by the docks, 4-5 feet long, motionless and huge-scaled, between 2 and 4 feet below the surface. It was a great 24H for spotting sea life in the marina! Maybe due to the change in wind? The full moon? The very still surface?