Cruisers understand that plans are always tentative.  There are many different ways to express this, one being that on a boat your plans are written in sand.  Another is, “The most dangerous thing on a boat is a schedule.”  This refers to never leaving a safe port in unsafe weather conditions just because you have a schedule you are trying to follow.  My favorite is one friends on Mirasol, another Lagoon 420, use.  Whenever they say they are going to do something, they end the statement with......”or  not.”  Our plans should have been that we are going to the Bahamas....or not, because we are not going.

The time has run out to go there and enjoy our time without worrying about getting back before hurricane season.  Most cruisers in the Bahamas are already on their way back because often they will wait for a week or more for favorable weather to move on to the next stop or to make a crossing.  Instead, when Mark returns to Florida tomorrow, we’ll get a few things done and then leave here on Friday to head south to the Florida Keys.  There are many beautiful stops to make between here and Key West, although we might not go all the way there. We’ll have places to snorkel and also many areas where we can use our kayaks.  We have passed through the Keys twice, on our way to Texas and on our way back through Florida to Charleston.  Both times we couldn’t enjoy the trip because our purpose was to get to a destination.  It will be fun to just meander from anchorage to anchorage and explore.  With our new shorter mast, we can now cut across to the west coast of Florida at Marathon, about half way to Key West from Miami.  We’ll probably go under the Seven Mile Bridge and start up the west coast to Everglade City.  We hope to meet up with friends Lynn and Shelley on Anything’s  Pawsible (another 420) when they return from the Bahamas and go home to Marco Island this month.  Depending on the timing, we could also travel a little farther north before returning to the east coast and then north to Stuart, Florida by June. 

While we are disappointed to have missed two cruising seasons in the Bahamas waiting to have the propulsion conversion done, we will look forward to going there next November.......or not.

While Mark has been in Minnesota moving our household goods out of his garage into a storage trailer, I have been cleaning the inside and outside of Seas the Day.  Even though Joel and Bertrand, the Frenchmen who worked on the conversion, were extremely careful, dirt from being in a boatyard covered the decks.  We have numerous methods to remove stains from the white deck, but I resorted to scrubbing it with Mr. Clean erasers and Soft Scrub.  That’s a lot of area to clean, but most of the boat is now sparkling white again. 

One thing we will have to do soon is move some heavy items to the back of the boat.  With the many pounds of hybrid components removed we have lost a great deal of weight....all in the aft area.  If you look closely at the two photos you’ll see the back of the boat is several inches more out of the water than the front.  Look at the navy blue stripe that has “Lagoon” on it and notice how much farther out of the water it is at the back.  At the present time one water tank (about 40 gallons)  is empty and one fuel tank only has about 20 gallons of fuel (out of a capacity of 80 gallons) in it, so that is 100 gallons of liquid weight we can add towards the back. 

When Mark left, I had him put one of the kayaks in the water for me to use as we are in a very calm part of the New River, with much less boat traffic than we had in our previous location.  However, I have not had time to go out yet. 

We are in a wet slip at Lauderdale Marine Center (photo above) and it is one of my favorite marinas.   There is a guard at the gate 24/7 and cars can only enter with an electronic passkey, unless someone has put their name on a list.  Another guard regularly travels around the marina in a golf cart.  It is a huge marina and boatyard, but extremely well lit at night.   In addition, it is beautifully landscaped, has a great “Captains’ Lounge, the grounds are kept very clean, and has the best laundry facility we’ve ever had.  Our slip is a few steps from all of the amenities.  The people in the office are great, as is the whole staff here.  The transit rate is only 80 cents a foot, but for catamarans it is $1.20, still cheap by south Florida standards.  That means we pay $48 a night, plus electric.  This, however, is one of only two marinas we have ever stayed in that charges extra for catamarans.  The other was in Galveston, Texas, right after Hurricane Ike passed through and destroyed some of the marina property.

Our very good friends Mike and Nancy on JMJ, yet another Lagoon 420, are moving off their boat and back to San Diego.  We’ve known them for the last year when they bought their sailboat. They had seen our website and contacted us with questions while they were looking at Lagoons.  During the last year, our paths have crossed in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Charleston. They have decided to sell their boat because Mike is going back to work as a physician.  They have spent the last few weeks at Lauderdale Marine Center with us, as they made their boat squeaky clean for potential buyers to view. New owners of JMJ will be lucky to get a very well outfitted offshore cruising boat kept meticulously clean by Mike and Nancy.  Cruiser friendships are not written in sand.  We always part company with cruiser friends without saying goodbye, but rather safe travels and hope to see you again soon.