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| We had Aquila hauled out for bottom paint while we were in
Key West. Our project list got serious. It's a long one and
getting longer as we anticipate our voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to
the Mediterranean Sea in May. |
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| We spent 6 days "on the hard" doing a lot of
manual labor. I hate living on the boat when she's up on the
hard. We had high winds for a couple of days and while I know it's
ridiculous, I felt like we were going to blow over. Everything was
shaking and vibrating as the high winds tried to rip off the bimini.
The lightning, rain and wind kept me
awake all night. I much prefer being in the water to being on
jack stands. |
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| We took a day off from boat chores and drove to Ft.
Lauderdale to meet Mike's sister Diane and brother-in-law Glen (from
Phoenix), as they disembarked from their Caribbean Cruise. We
enjoyed spending a few hours together and wished they had more time with
us.
After launching Aquila at the boatyard in Key West, we did an overnight
sail to Coconut Grove, Miami. The water is very shallow and we had
to anchor out. We had a long dinghy ride to the public dock and the
weather kept things pretty choppy. I cut holes in a trash bag and
wore it over my shorts to stay dry. Due to us being anchored out so
far, we did not venture out at night. We got to know our way around
Coconut Grove pretty well by bus and on foot during our week there.
Then we headed north to our marina in Ft. Lauderdale a week early when our
generator conked out. (It's always something!) |
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| We were so happy when our friend Bill flew his airplane to
Ft. Lauderdale to spend a few days with us. We were disappointed
that his wife Monica couldn't get time away from her job to join us, but
Bill promised they would visit us when we are in Europe. It was
great to be able to kick back and laugh with Bill. We were on a roll
testing each other on movie and music trivia. One of us would quote
a line, and we'd see who could name that movie first. I got a few
right, but Bill and Mike amazed me with their recall of lines from really
old movies! |
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| We will fly home to California for a couple of weeks to visit
all the kids in April. When we return to Ft. Lauderdale at
the end of the month, we will be in the final stages of preparing for our
Atlantic crossing. So far, we got the generator repaired, the radar
repaired, bought solar panels, bought the materials to make a passarelle
for getting on and off the boat in the Med., ordered an adapter for our
propane tanks to use butane in Europe, stocked up on 3 years
worth of $pare part$, booked a slip in a marina in Spain for next winter,
booked our flights home from Madrid for next Christmas, and a million
other little things. We're feeling almost ready. |
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(next photo album)
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