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Day 38-41 – August 20th to 23rd
Monday, August 20, 2007
After
our wild and crazy day yesterday at the Brunch that turned into
dinner, more cocktails and a swim in the surf of Fort Lauderdale
Beach, we were ready for a day of nothing and that is exactly what
we did. Nothing. Well, I did some laundry, wrote more of my story
and pictures but other than that – nothing. Salty didn’t even want
to do anything, if you can imagine that. Actually, on one of little
walks around the marina grounds there was a long stretch limo at the
dock waiting for the handsome couple walking down the pier and Salty
went right up to the door – ready to hop in. So, you see, he didn’t
even want to walk, he was ready for a ride. We’ve been monitoring
the progress of Hurricane Dean and are relieved to find that it is
heading far more South than originally forecast and this will be
much better for us in our trek homeward. The winds and waves are
still quite strong here because of Dean, so we will have to wait
until at least Friday before we can head out safely. The forecast
for Friday now is for 5-10 knot winds and seas 2 feet or less which
is exactly what we will need to get going. After being slugs all
day, we did manage to get our act together long enough to go out
AGAIN to a spectacular Asian Restaurant – everything from Thai,
Chinese, Sushi, Japanese – “Coco” Asian Infusion. We’ll be going
back there before we leave Lauderdale!.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Salty and I went for a walk on the beach early this morning
and he didn’t even get in! That’s a first – he really doesn’t like
the big waves and they were crashing in pretty hard this morning so
I guess he thought he’d leave that for another day. We passed
several “Sea Turtle” nesting mounds that were cordoned off with what
looked like crime scene tape – I guess you can get into some serious
trouble if you mess with them too. Seeing as how Salty wasn’t
interested in the beach, Barry and I took a stroll down it after we
went for a great lunch (again) at the Oasis Café. While having lunch
we watched some very brave guys still out there with their personal
parachute that pulls them along over the waves while they fly over
the surf. They are the ones who own this crazy “beach buggy” Jeep –
something out of a surfer movie, I thought. By the time we hit the
beach, it was full of tourists sunbathing and “trying” to get in the
water. The Beach patrol had been out earlier to put up orange
caution cones in the areas where people were not allowed to enter
the water because of the waves and undertow. Actually, there had
already been a fatality right in this area yesterday where an
individual went out farther than he was supposed to and got pulled
out in the riptide – very sad. You always need to remember the power
of the sea. We walked up the beach past all of the souvenirs shops,
various restaurants and bars and decided to go to Hooters – it’s on
the 3rd floor of the Beach Shops building overlooking Fort
Lauderdale Beach. There are several bars, restaurants and shops in
this complex. Hooters was packed (as per usual) so we decided to go
one floor down to a different bar for a drink before heading back.
As a business owner, it must be terribly frustrating when you have
hardly anyone in your establishment and Hooters is PACKED at the
same time of day – and Hooters has nothing more going for it,
right??? We cleaned up and went out with our friends Gary and Joe
again, off to Rosie’s Restaurant – fabulous place! One couple we met
at the “Brunch” last Sunday were going to be entertaining there
“Davis and Dow” or better known as Julie and Kelly (www.davisanddow.com).
They are also fabulous – great Jazz entertainers. After another fun
day and evening we head off to bed for a nice night’s sleep – NOT!
Why do the Air Conditioners always crap out in the middle of the
night? It’s 3:00 am in the morning and the A/C’s decide to shut down
– so, we are up out of bed, Barry is down in the engine room with
the water hose from outside (with special attachment) flushing out
the A/C water tubing that goes to the exterior water intake pipe and
I am on the dock hosing out the A/C filter of all the debris that
collects in there. That didn’t work entirely but we were still able
to run just one A/C unit (we have 5 on the boat) in our bedroom
until the morning when Barry can investigate further – great.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Needless to say, we were up early this morning after never
really going back to sleep after our fight with the A/C system the
night before. Barry tried flushing out the A/C tubing one more time
but it just kept blowing back at him which confirmed his suspicion
that there must be something (like a plastic bag) that was stuck in
the intake pipe. That, of course, means we now have to get a diver
to go down and check the intake pipe and remove whatever is stuck up
in there. Typically, there is always one or more divers on any given
dock, doing maintenance work, scraping the bottoms of boats and
pulling plastic bags off of intake pipes but do you think Barry
could find one on this dock? NOT! He at least put out the word to
the dock personnel and was able to put in calls to a couple of
divers – then we just waited…and waited…and waited. Do you have any
idea how hot it can get in that boat when the A/C’s are off? It was
cooler outside on the aft deck than it was inside – at least there
was a breeze and the shade of the hard top, along with the fans
blowing directly in our faces. Yes, Salty had one blowing in his
face too! A diver finally showed up around 2:00 pm, put on a mask
and snorkel and had the Publix bag off the intake pipe within a few
minutes – a silly little Publix bag can cause a whole hell of a lot
of heated frustration, I can tell you that. He then suggested that
we get the bottom scraped as there was quite a bit of build-up of
scum and barnacles (good salesman) and then the negotiations begin –
starting at $300.00, Barry finally agreed to $150.00 so maybe he
wasn’t such a good salesman after all. After a sleepless night the
night before and a long hot afternoon, we were in no shape to go
anywhere, so we just stayed in and had a great dinner of ribs and
taters – yes, I cooked in a coooooool galley!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
We have pretty much made up our minds that we will leave
tomorrow, Friday rather than Saturday as the winds and wave action
have been forecast to kick up in the Gulf by Monday. We’d rather be
out of the Gulf and home before that happens so we spent a good part
of the day cleaning inside and outside, packing up the aft deck
furniture and getting ready to roll early Friday morning. It was HOT
out there today so being inside cleaning and organizing didn’t seem
too bad to me. Barry cleaned as much as he could on the exterior of
the boat and charted our way back on the GPS and Garmin so we’d be
good to go. He managed to get out in the afternoon to walk Fort
Lauderdale beach one more time before we left but I was quite
content to stay in, read some of my book and get ready to go out to
“Coco” one more time with Gary and Joe. Who was there interviewing
to entertain, but our new found friends Julie and Kelly so it was an
unexpected pleasure to have seen them again too. It will be
difficult to leave this place – we’ve had such a fantastic time!
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