Still in Miami Beach

There is a beautiful weather window to the Bahamas today, and some of our friends have left to take advantage of it. We, unfortunately are still here. We are not ready to go, we should be, but we're not. Serena's cold finally caught up to me right after the last blog entry, and put me on my @$$. Serena finally got over the cold 2 days ago, and then put her back out, so she is even more layed-up than she was before. And people laughed at us because we wanted to go cruising as soon as possible, before our bodies started to break down and prevent us from doing it. Well, its starting to look like we might have been too late. All kidding aside, this cold has really put a damper on getting jobs and provisioning done for the trip, so we decided to just hang out in Miami for a little longer. Its not like its snowing, or something!

So the last few days have been very uneventful. We managed to go to the grocery store a couple of times, but not for provisioning, mostly for already cooked food, chicken and coleslaw. Who wants to cook when you feel like crap and the temperature in the boat is already pushing 30 deg. C. We went for a walk one day, and had lunch a little spot, just to get off the boat and do something different. We did a couple of loads of laundry another day, because I made a mess when I dropped the groceries in the bay, then we had a day and a half of rain which made a mess of the boat.

After the rain, the poor dinghy had about 60 gallons of water in her. It was apparently a record rain fall for Miami, and we had over 3" over night. Anyway, I had to go bail her out, but spent a long time playing in the fresh water. It was like a big bathtub. Went for a quick dip in the bay, and rinsed off back in the dinghy. Sick or not, I gotta be me. Lucky for me, my friends on Anthyllide decided that photos were in order.

Yes, I had shorts on. Hard to tell in the picture, but they are there.

I am pretty sure that the dinghy sitting this low in the water, is because it is full of water, but there could be a little extra weight from the little guy in the front.

I wish my camera took pictures this good. Our friends labeled the picture, "toosexyformiamibeach". I'm not so sure I would agree, but if any of the ladies out there find this intriguing, send me your email and a picture of your boat. You never know when Serena is going to get sick of the "Polar Bear", and kick me out.

Miami is tourist hell. They are everywhere. If you can dream up some kind of tour that could be put on here, it already exists in at least 4 or 5 different places. The aqua bus tours above are all over. The pirate ship below, and those rental jet skis by the dozens. The waterway here is so busy, that the only peace is during the week, late at night. Otherwise its like being in a washing machine with all the wakes. I am sure everyone has heard of "no wake zones", where boats must keep they're wake to a minimum. Well, I think our anchorage is a "maximum wake zone". It must be. We watched a large power boat yesterday slow down to the point that he was throwing the absolute maximum wake that he could, and it was a big one, 3-4 foot rollers, big boat. Then just as he passed the anchorage, he dropped down to idle reducing his wake to nothing. Our friends with a 64,000 lb boat were getting tossed around. Vita was getting thrown off a cliff. Rude seems to be too soft for these guys, but I can't come up with anything else. I must tell you though, its a good thing I don't have a gun on board, because I would be in jail, and the subject of an inquiry.

And these bad boys below are part of the reason there are so many tourists. We have seen up to 7 of these cruise ships tied up in Government Cut at once. Just for reference, the bridge in the foreground below has a clearance of 35 feet under it, how tall is that floating shopping mall!

Anyway, nothing too interesting again, aboard the sick ship Vita. Just recuperation, and wait for the next weather window, which looks to be at least a week away. We are not completely without things to do though, as we have found a problem with out current battery charging system. The charging system, using the solar panels, with the occasional engine top up, has been working great up to this point. But we have discovered the flaw. After several days of overcast skies, and with us being layed-up, we use way too much power, and don't produce enough. Its been almost a week since the batteries were fully charged, and that's too long, its too hard on them, and it reduces their life span. Luckily, it was kind of planned for while we were at home, and we have a high output Balmar alternator in the boat, waiting to be installed. So today's project is to plan the installation, go buy whatever parts I need, and then install it today or tomorrow.

Maybe this week we'll finally get a chance to explore Miami Beach, and we'll have something fun to report. Take care everyone, and have a great New Year.