I spent the last three weeks in Maryland and California and flew back to Florida four days ago assuming we would be able to leave for the Bahamas in a day or two.  I had done all of my preparations before I left to be with Peter for his surgery and recovery.  Mark worked hard while I was gone and finished almost all of his projects.  However, two major problems are now holding up our departure.  First, on the way to the airport on January 15, we were rear-ended in rush hour traffic on I95, one exit before the West Palm Beach Airport.  It took several weeks to get the car owner’s insurance company to start the repairs on our car.  We should get it back early this week.  Second, we are waiting for repairs to be made to our radar and anemometer, both of which were damaged when the mast was taken down.  We have been waiting since the mast was put back on in November to get the repairs done, and now we are getting angry.  Hopefully we’ll get these parts repaired in a few days and be on our way by the end of the week.

The time I got to spend with my son Peter was wonderful. The surgery successfully removed a tumor at the bottom of his spine and then we flew to California for two weeks.  Peter was my tour guide every day as we visited beach towns, tourist destinations like Hearst Castle and Sequoia National Park, a Monarch Butterfly Park, wine tastings, Farmers’ Markets, and many walks on the dunes and various beaches.  Rather than put entries about the visit on this blog, I posted pictures on my Facebook page, the link for which is on the top right hand side of this website and also here. Flying into West Palm Beach last week, I caught this view outside the window as I was watching the sunrise above the clouds.  It reminded me that in a short time we would be passing large container ships like this on the ocean as we cross from Miami to Bimini.

Today, Mark dived under the boat to clean the props.  The St. Lucie River is so filthy from runoff in Lake Okeechobee that he couldn’t see more than five or six inches in front of him.  He’ll finish cleaning the bottom when we get into cleaner water. Mark uses a Brownie’s Yacht Diver Electric System to allow him to breathe air while cleaning the boat bottom or for any other reason we might need to dive under the boat.

One of our recent unplanned purchases (there have been many) was a new XM Radio for the boat.  We have always had an XM radio with a small speaker unit on the boat but it stopped working this fall so we bought a new one. We have speakers in the salon and outside in the cockpit, but had never tried to connect the XM radio to it.  We did that today and now can use the indoor and/or outdoor speakers in the cockpit to play XM stations.  Right now we are listening to a pleasant “spa” station which shouldn’t annoy our dock neighbors.

I was afraid that Sailor might not remember me when I got back.  At first he seemed confused but happily took the new toy I brought him.  Hopefully we will get to leave Sunset Bay Marina this week to begin our next cruise to the Bahamas and Sailor can become a real boat dog.