JUST ROSEY HERE

After Atlantis in Nassau, we travelled to a new marina for us... Palm Cay. This is a such a beautiful, quiet place. This is a gated community with many single homes and townhomes for sale. In Atlantis, it can be noisy and crowded. A cabana can be rented for a day for $89.00. This cabana below is free to use by anyone staying at Palm Cay. No extra fee and no reservation required, I loved it!

BEAUTY! Palm Cay Resort and Marina.

This is our view from the restaurant here at Palm Cay, best pizza! Wow... but hey, best view too!

While at Palm Cay Marina, we walked 2 1/2 km to the nearest grocery store, we didn't need much but did need exercise. Off we went with our trusty GPS and grocery bags. Had a great walk.

On our walk this beautiful orchid arrangement showed up in someone's front lawn. These are coming out of the tree in some sort of planter. Such unique foliage here.

This morning left Palm Cay for Rose Island, not too far. Just a short distance from Nassau. We are now anchored out and enjoying the dinghy and swimming. Tomorrow we get the kayaks down from flybridge and off we go.

Paul standing and steering (oops, drinking a beer too?) Just did a quick tour of the anchorage, 11 boats here. 10 are Canadian (1 American).

View tonight from our back cockpit.

Here all Rosey at Rose Island for next couple of days. Maybe some of you have rosey cheeks? hmmmmm.

Hey don't mess with these people! They are serious!

I just love this sign.

DETAILS OF ATLANTIS, NASSAU

We are in Atlantis Marina and walked over the Paradise bridge to the mainland. We went to get a Bahama Sim Card and phone number (no I will not give that number over our blog). We have data on the phone and used as a "hotspot" for this laptop. Here is a sampling of Atlantis. Details that I just love!

The Aquarium here is amazing, spectacular!! The passengers on the 3 or 4 cruise ships do an excursion here to see it! A picture will not show the massive aquarium here. Just imagine all the biologists and specialists maintaining this large aquarium(s).

Imagine sharks, stingrays, and many other fish! These were right by the glass here so I took a picture, without flash is the best.

This Grouper was flirting with me!!

This is specially made tile for Atlantis, wish I could buy this at Home Depot and put in our bathroom.

Hmmm, a craft waiting to happen with all those shells I collect?

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE ROPE!

Yes, with boating there is the good, the bad and the ugly! This morning we had some ugly. First, the good news is we are now officially in The Bahamas, we have paid our $300 entrance fee. We can motor around in our boat anywhere we want for the next 90 days. The blues are extra blue and the weather is wonderful.

This morning we actually set the alarm for 6am. We needed to get fuel at Crandon Marina in Key Biscayne. We know from experience the fuel is much less there than in the Bahamas. Quick shower then off we motor. This is actually the sunrise. I don't remember the last time I was up and ready with camera for a sunrise. Beauty.

As we motor in the marina for fuel at 7:15, our props caught something foreign... and not seaweed. This is a motorboat's nightmare. As we were reversing into the fuel dock, I noticed a long black rope hanging/floating downward into the water. Yikes! I ran to Paul to stop reversing. We could not tell if this is attached to our props or just hanging in the water. Turns out it was wound up tight around the starboard prop. Not good. Here, yesterday we must have maneuvered around 500 crab traps floating randomly everywhere. It was like a minefield out there. Today, no crab pots but something terrible snagged onto us in the marina. This is the ugly!!

Paul put on a face mask and dived under the boat to start the work. If he could not get what we needed off we would be delayed because a diver would have to be hired (one with a nice air hose, and a good looking one I hoped). Luck would have it that Paul's cardio paid off, whew, see the ugly!!

Amazing what a small nylon rope can do .... Paul took many dives under to cut away pieces. Only a very small cut on his knuckle.

We were only delayed for about one hour. We wanted to head into the Gulf Stream and get to Bimini. It is always good to get here before 4pm so one can check in to customs.

Paul is happy to leave Miami area.

Flying fish everywhere, some don't make it to the other side of the boat! This one we discovered after we got to Bimini, I would have tried to save it if I had seen him flying through the air.

BIMINI, HERE WE COME!

Yes, our fridge is packed, the two freezers are full, the pantry has no more room. We have enough wine and rum on board for our 4 weeks of guests. We drove our car to Stuart, Florida to put it in storage, this is on the East Coast. We then rented a car to drive back with. We are now on the hook anchored in the Keys. Our journey has began. Our water maker is making water right now. All is peaceful (for now!).

Testing our water to make sure it is ready for drinking and showering. 

A Cruise RO system, brand new.

Our boat Time Out is registered in Canada as Time Out VI.... there are five other Time Out boats registered in Canada. Each name is unique. To be legal, we had to add a bit more lettering to our boat on the back. Marco Island, FL had to be taken off and in it's place.....

Yes we also stuck a Canada flag sticker! We are now legal.

We travelled about 85 miles today out in the Gulf of Mexico to get to Long Key area here in the Florida Keys. This was not a leisurely drive at all. There were crab pots everywhere. We could be travelling along for half an hour and then boom!!.... about 20-50 pots to navigate through. The auto-pilot gets turned off and Paul steers by hand like an obstacle course. Then the auto-pilot goes back on and we are good for a short time before another cluster of pots are upon us. These crab pots have coloured floaters attached, some are quite visible, bright orange or white but most are the same colour as the water, blue or grey. We were the only boat around but if someone from above was looking down, they would see a boat swerving alot! Always we had eyes on the water ahead. We left at 8am this morning and anchored at 5:30pm this evening, so a very tiring day for us.

Tomorrow off to Key Biscayne area near Miami. The internet should be much better as the two pictures on this post took me 22 minutes to upload. Patience is a virtue! So, more pictures will come.

Did you know that the Florida Keys have never reported frost! I like that!

OOPS, DINGHY MISCALCULATION

TIME OUT is new to us and we sold our old dinghy with our catamaran. A brand new one was needed. After many calculations, sizing, measuring and re-measuring we ordered one. We had it and were anxious to put it up on our flybridge. The crane is there and up it goes! Oops, the crane is in the way somewhat. It can only move inward so far before hitting the side of the dinghy. We wanted our dinghy to sit across the flybridge with the motor on starboard. We measured so the motor does not hang out over the side of TIME OUT. We also measured that the bow does not hang over the port side. This dinghy came just slightly wider than anticipated. All boaters can relate when something just doesn't measure up. Well, another plan has to be thought out.

Our first attempts.

Decided to make a big decision and cut some railings and centre the boat on the flybridge. Sometimes things happen for a reason and this works so much better anyway.

See the railings at the back of the dinghy.... just a couple of hours work.

Cut away boys.

There, much better! Just have to get another flagpole holder as the bow of dinghy is on top of it. Simple fix. This is much better anyway, Time Out will be more balanced when we travel. Looking very good and Paul slept much better. Thanks Dave and Paul!

We are now another step closer to leaving. We are not leaving until ready, no sense rushing and having problems. We must test our brand new watermaker then a few more small things. We have to move our car to the other coast so in April it is there when we arrive back from the Bahamas. Just a few more days. Whew!

"The cure for everything is Saltwater, 
sweat, tears or the Sea"

OUR NEW DINGHY

Our new inflatable was delivered to a nearby marina in a crate. This marina had proper equipment to lift it off the truck. Paul went over to inflate it and put our new 30hp motor on. It is a great dinghy. All boaters need their "taxi" to get ashore when anchored somewhere.

Friends on Daruma, Dave and Traci drove us to Caloosa Island Marina (Marco Island area). This way we can drive our inflatable to our marina here in Naples. It took us 2 hours out in the Gulf. We did see dolphins and manatee on our way into our marina. It will be a much better ride when we have a seat! I sat at the bow most of the way.

Paul and Dave, taken from our flybridge

At the fish cleaning station at Caloosa Island Marina there was an interesting "supervisor" there. I bet he is there every day!

We are days away from leaving this marina and heading south down to the Florida Keys, then await for the perfect crossing to Bimini, Bahamas. That means we have only a few days left to provision. We are left with the freezer and fridge stuff. We must fill up the leftover empty spaces with beer and wine. The Kalik Beer in Bahamas is $65 per case of 24 bottles in the Exumas, maybe $55 in Nassau.

This couch is one of a few. It is loaded with necessities. I have a log book as to which couch has which items. Everything from toilet paper to shampoo to tomato soup. A logbook will exist for the beer and wine etc. Many nooks and crannies to fill up. If there are square inches left over.... there may be room to put another box of wine there. A boater's nightmare is running out of beer and wine (that is what I've heard, has never happened to us).

This is our brand new freezer/fridge. We will start out on our journey with it being a freezer. I fill it with beef and pork and some more beef. We are able to buy chicken in Nassau. I do start out with some but we buy many steaks and pork loin roasts here in Florida. This will be our third time going so I feel I know what I am doing this round.

READY FOR OUR GUESTS
The Spiced Rum you see was $20 at Walmart! Yes, in the USA, alcohol is not taxed!

A blowup fender is the way to go! This heavy duty one took just minutes to blow up (with battery and pump). When not in use, we deflate and put away. All boaters love this kind of equipment.

I know it has been cold up north and here it got so cool look what I had to put on!

ANOTHER NEW YEAR

We left snow and cold to our boat Time Out! We ate, drank, baked, ate some more and visited with friends and family over the holidays. A very enjoyable time. We are in Florida just finishing up our provisioning and boat "stuff".... wait did I say finish up?? As any boater knows (or even a home owner), one is never really "finished". We hope to travel to Bimini, Bahamas in a week or so.

Happy New Year to everyone! May you also be smiling in the new year. Health and happiness!

A few resolutions for 2015:

Smile more
Be grateful for small things
Talk to my parents more
Text less to my kids (it annoys them)
Hug Paul every day
No more dieting this year, an extra 10lbs is not going to kill me
Drink more water and less Diet Pepsi, yes I will try again this year
Eat less chocolate (wait, didn't I just say no dieting?)
Share my chocolate