The “ready” plan was to pull up our anchor and head to Miami on Saturday.  Then the mail we had forwarded here didn’t arrive.  We were waiting for, among other pieces of mail, the calendar pictured at the left.  Couldn’t resist it when I saw it on amazon.com.  Each month has a photo of an underwater scene. Since we had to stay we took the trolley to Publix and did a little more shopping.  That was followed by more cleaning, more organizing, and more planning where we are going to go in the Bahamas.

Today we were back at the dinghy dock, picking up our mail and riding our bikes to run a few errands.   Tuesday looks good for sailing to Miami.  We’ve done this many times and it’s an easy sail for us.  Winds are out of the southeast, but only 6-11 kts.  For us to sail, and not motorsail, we usually need at least 20 kts.  We have our choice of several anchorages in Miami which are popular for crossing over to the Bahamas.  The wind and sea conditions on Wednesday look favorable for going to Bimini. We’re still not sure if we will stop there, or go on to Nassau to check in with immigration.  Another thing on our list to do was to gather all the documents we’ll need to show officials in the Bahamas and make copies of them.

As we pull out of our anchorage in Miami, we’ll call Sprint and put our phones “on vacation.”  In place of that, we have a MagicJack phone which depends on an Internet connection.  With our new wifi extender, we can reach wifi connections up to 5 miles away.  We also have a phone which works in the Bahamas, thanks to good friends Gavin and Alice.  I’ll miss using our Sprint EVDO for getting online, as it’s been very reliable and fast wherever we have been. 

Our last item to check off as we leave Ft. Lauderdale is to fill our fuel tank and the 4 five gallon diesel containers we carry on long trips.  We’ve arranged to meet a Peterson Fuel Barge at 8:30 am just outside where we are anchored.  Their fuel is almost $1 a gallon cheaper than the marinas.  We also have to get gasoline for the dinghy motor.  Unfortunately, that is over $4 a gallon at marinas, and about $2.50 at local gas stations.  However, the marina gas supply does not contain ethanol, which can ruin motors used on boat, so we have to avoid gas stations. Hopefully we’ll make the 9:00 opening of the 17th Street Causeway Bridge and be on our way to Miami.

After we took long showers and did some laundry at the marina tonight, we took the one mile ride on the dinghy back to Lake Sylvia.  The water was as smooth as glass.  Usually in the evening we wear light jackets in the dinghy, but tonight we were wearing shorts and no jackets as it was still in the 70’s at 10 pm.  We couldn’t help thinking of our friends and relatives who are in MInnesota.  Their forecast is for snow this week, under one foot accumulation, and below zero temperatures.  I’m sure it is beautiful, but we’re happy to be here with temperatures breaking records in the 80’s.  In fact, south Florida had the warmest temperatures in the country today.