Here's what you missed since December 2nd

24 hours of on/off downpours, giant margaritas, beach/bikes, jellies, a wedding, Spanish invasion, a birthday, West Marine/Costco, Walmart/Home Depot, more beach and a trip to the top of the mast!  I suppose some details or explanations are in order?  I'll try to be brief and let the photos do the talking--don't count on it though ;-)

So Tuesday it basically rained...all day...15 minute down pours from a line of storms literally going due west from the ocean over Ft. Lauderdale.  No where else, just us, all day.  Oh good, last one...no wait, here comes another one...I spent the time finishing the third Outlander Book, Voyager.  I honestly cannot tell you what Mark and Jon did but I'm sure it was productive and fascinating.  Unfortunately the rain caused us to postpone a planned dinner hosted by Island Khaya.

FINALLY the downpours took a break long enough for us to get off the boat and forage for margaritas!  We made it to the Rock Bar just in time because another downpour started as soon as we got our drinks.  (and had we not postponed dinner with Riaan and Brenda, we would have been in the middle of the ICW/New River when the skies opened up) We were the only ones there--save four gals enjoying drinks outside.  We ate and drank our 2-4-1s while chatting with Lacey the bartender.  She gave us a lot of good information on places to eat and bars over Las Olas Bridge...off the typical tourist main drag.

A break in the downpours

Tut Tut, looks like rain

Tut Tut, looks like margaritas!

Hello rain

And then it poured all night with some major winds...all night.  But the boat did get a nice rinse!

Wednesday the sun was out and it promised to be a nice day so the boys got the bikes and I grabbed my beach bag!  They took off for West Marine and Sailorman and parts over the 17th Street bridge.  I walked along the beach for quite a while just meandering down the shore line, observing/avoiding the jellies--lots of jellies and miscellaneous sea oriented critters and such.  I had planned to plop down and get my Vitamin D infusion for the day but ended up walking for about 1.5 hours and then caught some rays only for around 45 minutes.  While walking south, I saw a couple taking what I assume will be photos for their holiday cards?  On the way back was when I saw the wedding on the beach with the 'guest' that made me chuckle. That evening we had a fantastic dinner on Island Khaya with curried beef and delicious cinnamon sauce covered dumplings.  Such a treat and such a dear couple.

This gang owns the beach

No touchie!  Man o' War...ouchie

He must have eaten too many tortilla chips like I did the other night

Moon and bit o' Moon

Not a jelly :-)

Broken coral on beach with his friend jelly bit

Line of mollusks - couldn't figure out if that was wire or some type of dead coral

They don't judge, pigeon/seagull love

Dead coral-wish I had picked it up

OMG!  Look at this amazing and clearly 100% natural formation!

I was keeping an eye out for gnomes too haha.  Holy Crow! What is she doing to that man right there on the beach?! I just notice that!  Naughty granny.

Mr. Gull was not impressed with the tree photo shoot

She get married.  Married?  Yes, married, sheesh.  This picture with that dude makes me laugh still.

Thursday was a super important day--Mark's birthday!  Happy Birthday Mark!!!

We even had our own Spanish invasion in his honor.  Now that was interesting...HUGE Tall Ship just sitting on the other side of the bridge.  Me to self:  huh, they have 15 minutes until the bridge opens...whoa they are getting really close to the bridge...oh they reverse fast...huh, so why didn't they go through the bridge?  Mark and Jon start to watch too and we finally figure out that they are docking at our marina but I know the marina office doesn't open until 9 so bummer for them...then along comes the dock master.  Wait, is he pushing on the boat like a tug?  Well this isn't going well.  Oh man, that current and wind is pushing them dead straight into the bridge, disturbingly quickly...whew they reversed again.  Oh they are going to try to turn around...there?...to dock on their other side?  Oh crap, they are heading right towards the bridge again, OMG, like really fast this time. So of course we grab cameras and are ready for video of a massive Tall Ship slamming into the bridge...while speculating about if it's privately owned and generally being amazed at how big and impressive it is.  Mind you, this has now been probably two hours so far and they are still where they were when we woke up...drifting disturbingly and dangerously fast and close to the bridge then backing themselves up again.  And by the way, the dock master realized that his tiny little boat was NOT going to do anything to turn this ship around.  Ah yes, here comes a boat from TowBoat US...this was Matt in this boat as we learned from listening in on the radio once we found their transmission channel.  He had zero luck and it was a repeat of the previous two hours...about 30 minutes later, here comes another TowBoat US boat with George at the helm.  Those two fellas spend the next hour plus trying to figure out how to turn that boat around and finally found a plan that worked involving bow and stern lines from the ship to their towboats and George pulling around the bow while Matt held the stern in place.  Now you have to understand that the stern is so high that when the wind caught it broadside, it pushed the boat right towards the bridge again so this was no joke work for these tow captains.  Meanwhile, we learned that the ship was El Galeon...one of two Spanish ship replicas that live in Port Canaveral and are crewed by an all Spanish crew, including a very 'in charge' woman at the helm.  El Galeon was here for tours and holiday festivities while her sister is on the way home to Spain.  Ok so anyway, after more harrowing attempts to turn the boat and it getting the stern stuck in mud, they finally got it turned and pulled her to the dock.  This whole thing took about four hours and there were about 10 times when I was convinced that we were going to witness a hell of bridge accident.  Way to go TowBoat US...they got a tour of El Galeon once it was tied up--well deserved reward for their efforts.  It's crazy to see this thing right next door--we are really excited to take a tour tomorrow!!

Soooo, that is super close to the bridge, like super.

So they finally started turning it.

And literally four hours later, she was pulled to the dock.

Gorgeous and quite impressive!

Mark got a special birthday omelet then he and Jon set out for a bike ride for a birthday beer over Las Olas Bridge at the Tilted Kilt for the wings, of course.

Awww, she's not so bad after all...sorta.

I did not go and took care of boring things like health care and dental coverage for 2015.  However, I was informed by Mark that the Tilted Kilt also employs men...in kilts...and I missed it.  He said, "Did you know they have men in kilts here?"  I replied, "Clearly I did not".

Then we went out for a birthday dinner at Rocco's Tacos.  We had a good time and enjoyed a shot of Don Julio 1842...so good, so smooth.  Then the most bizarre things happened...like I am still wondering if it actually happened.  We were at the end of the block and one of the lot attendants comes running down (literally) saying "give me back my cell phone" and "I saw you over there" and "I'll call the police" and "please just give it back".  Apparently (???) for some reason his cell phone was in some box near where we locked up our bikes.  But I didn't see a box or a phone or anything and was not at all amused or pleased to be dealing with this.  Mark was nice, I was mean...I'm sure that comes as a huge shock to you all.  His coworker came down to find out what was going on and then the guy started walking away saying "sorry...sorry".  And then they went back to the lot.  Um WTF was that?!?  And before you ask, no we did not steal the guys phone, I swear.  Happy Birthday Mark from your partners in non-crime!

Yes, we are THAT cool...cough cough

Birthday Taco Boy

It was dark and I forgot to turn off the flash but there's our bday boy

Super optimized shot at Rocco's (I'm obviously plotting a cell phone heist)

Friday we picked up a rental car and spent the day going to Just Catamarans to 1)pick up bikes and orders that Riaan and Brenda sent there 2)pick up stuff we had there 3)attempt to get some solid information about when we could be there and start work.  Items 1 and 2 were covered but item 3 is still a little up in the air with the owner saying "see you Monday" and the office manager saying "Uh, I'll call you Monday morning and will know more by Monday night".  After that, I had completed the "expectation reset process" that I go through that takes me from being a major grumpy 'B' to a reasonable human being (ish).  Mark is pretty anxious to get there and get work done but now scope creep and "Ft. Lauderdale prices" are weighing on him, rightfully so.  But we agree that we may as well enjoy being 'stuck' where we are...still I'm ready to leave here after over two weeks.  Oh so then we met up with Riaan and Brenda to drop off bikes and go with them to West Marine and Costco.  It was a full day (10-5) but I enjoyed driving a new Civic.  I said running a bunch of errands all over the place in traffic is something that I know how to do and am good at so I felt like I contributed.  We'll be heading back to Costco tomorrow to finish our American gluttony provisioning...and they better have bakery samples out this time dangit!

Awww, pretty way to start the day!

Saturday, today, whew...are you even still reading this?  I wouldn't be, I tell you that for sure.  So this morning, I saw the sunrise and the weather was amazing.  We tied the dinghy to the mooring ball and went over to the pump out dock to take care of our 'personal business' and fill up on water.  We were back on the ball at 9am and ready to have a good day full on water and empty on poo.  Jon planned to stay and do a dinghy patch project, Mark was driving with Riaan and Brenda to Home Depot, Walmart and a marina to buy ethanol free gasoline.  I was going to jog, do laundry and go to the beach.  I accomplished my missions and exceeded expectations by also returning to being a brunette and going to the beach two separate times!  Yay!!  I will admit to you all that I did my hair in the marina bathroom then folded laundry with the cream on my hair covered with the CVS bag.  Oh I'm a keeper alright!  Mark got back in the afternoon with some shopping items of his own--filet knife, gloves, candy, paper towels--and the three of us walked to get burgers on the beach at Atlantis/Beach Bunnnies.  Good burger I thought, super nice waitress.

Nice to see a sunrise

Burgers baby!

 When we got back to the boat, Mark and Jon prepared to send Mark up the mast to change our anchor light from a wattage hog incandescent (25 watts) to a skinny LED (1 watt).  Up he went, up up up...64 feet yikes!  Jon had the hard job of wenching him up, I was the back up but really didn't have to do anything.  Mark did a rigging inspection on the way up and changed out the light...got a nice shot of the boat too!!

Light bulb shaming

That line needs to be replaced...still

The Man!

Ok, here we go

Up

UP, eek that is high

Up, double eek that's high

Made it!

Hellooooo down there!

It works--of course! Captain Mark rocks!

Oh and the moon put on a little show for us and that was way cool!

And there it is, you are caught up.  Tomorrow we are getting up early and getting to Costco in the am so we can be back in plenty of time for a tour of El Galeon!  Sorry to drone on and on; between you and me, I have two hopes 1)that even half of what I wrote above actually happened or happened the way I wrote and 2)that this is one of the last blogs from here.  TTYL!  XO Suzanne