There hasn't been a lot going on the last week. With Serena sick, and provisioning, doing laundry, and shopping, there hasn't been a lot of fun stuff happening. Hopefully it'll pick up after we are feeling better. We would like to do some sight seeing, go to the beach, and maybe take a dinghy ride through the canals. Not to mention spend some time with our friends. We are avoiding them as much as possible right now because we don't want to get them sick. So we have been limited to chance encounters in town and the odd dinghy-to-boat chat. We did manage to get the the diesel topped up, the gas for the dinghy, water, 8 cases of beer, a go-pro camera for taking Bahamas underwater video, look out youtube, and enough food to feed a small army,"forever". I wish we could say we were done, but there is still a pile of stuff to buy. Mostly limited to refrigerated and/or fresh foods, however, fumble nuts, aka "me", dropped a pile of groceries into the bay yesterday, so we need to re-buy those too.
I wish I had video to show it, in fact I would have like to see it myself, but we'll all have to settle with an explanation from my view point. And lets face it, this had to happen sooner or later. I had dinghied back to the boat with yet another load of groceries, there was a lot of chop in the anchorage, so it was a little bumpy, plus it was raining, so I and my cargo were getting wet. I handed everything over the life lines into the cockpit, no problem, then it came to the big bag, weighing 70 - 80 lbs, so a two-hander. I tied the dinghy to the boat so that I could use two hands to lift it, and just as I got the bag up on top of the lifeline, the painter let go and the dinghy pulled away from the boat. So, down goes groceries and Rob towards the bay. Serena and I have still not figure out how I managed to stay in the dinghy, the only thing that I can figure is that my body decided that it wasn't going swimming, and reacted appropriately. The groceries however did not get so lucky. I managed to get up and grab the bag, lifting it into the dinghy before it sunk to the bottom, start the dinghy motor and head back to the boat, but a lot of the groceries did not survive the saltwater swim. So, I need to add some items back to the list, brown sugar, white sugar, powdered potatoes, pasta, lots of pasta, and a few other things. Out about 40$ and a couple of pride points. Next time I'll open the big bag and take out the little bags one at a time.
Other than that, relatively boring. It has been hot. 30 deg. C. most days, or close to it. Today a norther, (air mass from Canada), has come in, so the temperature has fallen off a bit, its only 26.5 deg C. in the boat. However, because we are not accustomed to the heat, we have really been cutting back on the dirty laundry. Mind you, the cloths we do wear are good for one wearing only, and when we take them off we just tell them to go put themselves in the dirty cloths bag. Most of them are pretty good, but sometimes one or both of my socks will get a little rambunctious, and we'll find them hiding somewhere else in the boat. It adds to the enjoyment of living aboard, kind of like having pets.
Speaking of pets, here are the two "pretty birds" that live on MV Barbara, with our new friends Ken and Barb. Serena made a comment that one of them would likely bite her, and Barb reassured that they wouldn't. Well, she got bit, or rather mouthed(beaked) by the big green guy. Apparently he was enjoying his new perch and it was his way of letting her know that he was not ready to go back onto the cage. Ironically it seems like everything in nature likes to take a nip at Serena. It makes sense to me, I've always found that she tasted kind of yummy.
Here is my little pet. I didn't bother to give him a name since he had obviously been dead for about three days when I found him on the back deck. He must have landed on the boat during our overnight to get here. Our first flying fish, you can't save em' all.
While in Miami, on a boat, this bridge is very important, as it is the road way to the grocery store. And no, its not the one on top, its the one underneath. In fact there are two of them. This little canal allows us to take our dinghy right to the Publix Grocery.
And this is the second bridge on the way. I checked, no trolls.
There are a lot of man made islands here, and lots of little canals and man made lakes to explore, with lots of little bridges to go under. Perhaps when we are feeling better, we'll pack a lunch and check some of them out.
One day while dinghying back to the boat I found this message in a bottle. My first clue should have been the screw on metal cap which wouldn't survive long in salt water. But I opened it and read the little note. Some teenage girl was bored, and jotted down some nonsense, rolled it up, stuck it in a small whisky bottle, and tossed it off a pier. I threw it in the garbage so as not to disappoint the next finder. But it did get me thinking, wouldn't it be neat to throw one into the gulf stream and see where it gets. After all the gulf stream makes it to Europe. Now to find a bottle that can make the trip.
That's it, that's all. The crew of Vita is sitting back on this beautiful Christmas day. We are running the engine for a bit to make up for some of the loss in our batteries. We would like to dinghy over and say Merry Ho Ho to our friends, if the winds will let up a bit, but otherwise its just chill. We might get an opportunity Saturday night to make the jump to the Bahamas, but until then we'll just sit tight and try to get well.
As I was proof reading this entry, Santa showed up in the form of Ken and Barb, with a little goodie bag. They were dinghying around to all the boats handing out little bags of goodies for the cruisers. I wish we had of thought of that, it would have been nice. Oh well, there is always next year. Thank you Ken and Barb.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all, "an absolutely fantabulous" New Year.... Kisses and Hugs.
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