12-23-09 We left Las Olas Marina, Ft. Lauderdale yesterday noon and went down the ICW to North Miami Beach. We dropped anchor with two other boats in Maule Lake just off the ICW. We will make our way to Miami Beach from here to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day we will sail out Government Inlet and cross to Bimini.

12-26-09 Alice Town, North Bimini, Bahamas. What a ride! Hauled anchor in Miami Beach at 7:00 pm Christmas Day and took Government Cut out of Miami Beach across the Gulf. The Southwest wind was with in the beginning and some chop but the winds soon turned North, Northwest and the chop became an all out falling sea. Anyway, the three boats traveling together made it across to the channel into Alice Town safely. However, one of the boats lost his engine before entering the channel. They tried unsuccessfully to sail in and ended up dropping anchor. During the anchoring process, Cal caught his thumb in the chain. He has been airlifted back to Florida to have reattachment. TowBoatUS towed their boat into the anchorage with the rest of us in Alice Town. We'll hang out here with them until there is a conclusion. We dropped anchors here at 8:00 a.m. Bill cleared us through customs and we are flying the Bahamian courtesy flag! After some rest, tomorrow we get to enjoy this beautiful place.




12-27-09 I'm glad to say Cal underwent surgery and will be flown back to his boat this evening. Timing is everything and the fact that the power boat coming in behind Cal owned an airplane and his pilot was available to pick Cal up and take him back to Florida; then a hand surgeon was on duty at the hospital to perform the reattachment within the critical time period; and finally the pilot will be flying Cal back to the boat tonight. There is no airport on this small island of North Bimini so the seaplane will land here in the channel where we are anchored. We walked the length of the island this morning. All the shops were closed as it is Sunday, but all the churches were in high gear. The islanders are very religious Baptist and we witnessed a revival meeting. Whew, I bet they are tired and need a nap after church! We walked back down the back side of the island which is all sandy beach. We were gone 3 hours, but saw the island. We were back on the boat when a Palm Beach couple here for the week with their dog Amber dinghied over to tell us a fishing boat has just come in to the government pier with fresh fish and they held up a "lobster." So we investigated and found fishermen from Nassau who sell wholesale but didn't find a buyer for all their fish so here they were. Dad "negotiated" two "lobsters" and another variety of snapper for $25.00. Fun talking to them. They are experiencing the high cost of overhead to fish too. We went back to the beach and met some other boaters from Annapolis and got to see our dogs enjoying the water. Skipper wades; Lilly (surfer girl) went in once and after that decided that wasn't her thing (she is a puppy); Sadie wouldn't come out. She was in heaven. After a dinghy race and bumper boat competition with our friends from the Release, we decided to do some touring in the dinghy and educate ourselves on the water depth. First off Polarized lenses and then remembering our reading, we set forth to distinquish the deep water from the deeper water and the coral water and grass water. After this big day we are sitting on the back porch with a drink and enjoying the warmth.

12-23-09 We left Las Olas Marina, Ft. Lauderdale yesterday noon and went down the ICW to North Miami Beach. We dropped anchor with two other boats in Maule Lake just off the ICW. We will make our way to Miami Beach from here to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day we will sail out Government Inlet and cross to Bimini.

We are in Miami Beach tonight anchored.  We wish everyone a Merry Merry Christmas and we will be back on line ASAP.  Love to all.

I'm Dreaming of A Snow Goose Christmas.....

This is LILLY 'the surfer girl' and SADIE

& Skipper hunting the wild Greco.

It wouldn't be Christmas with out the tree!!! [ I wonder what Santa is going to put under there??]

Christmas Boat Parade

Here are some lights on a nice WARM night in FL

a beautiful CHRISTMAS tree...

Our RENTAL car

party BOAT

i can't imagine how long it took to do this!!!

the end

Christmas Florida Style

Renee will be attaching pictures I have uploaded of Christmas in St. Augustine and the Las Olas Ft. Lauderdale boat parade. The boaters had quite the time. We had friends over, grilled dinner and watched the decorated boats go by. Fun evening. We have been preparing the boat and provisioning for the crossing to the islands. Now it is a matter of waiting for a good weather window without any northerly winds or winds over 15 knots. We have crossed over to the Las Olas Marina slip which is really quite a reasonable facility. The beach is across from the marina and the local transit takes you anywhere you want to go. The weather has been in the 80's every day and sunny. We are thinking of all of you during the Christmas season. Thank you so much for keeping in touch and following us in our great adventure.

12-12-09 Geoff the good news is the outboard is working quite well now. It likes to ride on the stern of the Snow Goose and likes to be very dry. Great huh for a water animal. Yes, the starter again. We have a mechanic coming aboard on Monday for a look see at the overall engine before we cross that Gulf Stream to Bimini. We'll let you know how that goes. Actually, the engine has been just fine working away every day down the ICW. It is a bit dirty running however and we think a little tuneup might be due. It will be good to pull those sails out again.

12/12/09 Hello from sunny Ft. Lauderdale. Warm and wonderful! We arrived yesterday after going under 4 more bridges (we did 5 bridges the day before in seven miles). The bridges all have timed openings that sometimes we were able to make, sometimes not and we would go around in circles for 30 minutes. One of the bridges was stuck in the down position, so we did a pier side pit stop that involved a couple of Margueritas. We were lucky enough to pick up a mooring in Ft. Lauderdale outside the Las Olas Bridge at a municipal marina at a decent rate. We will hang here until we are ready and the weather suitable for our crossing. We are looking forward to a Christmas boat parade tonight. We have a ring side seat. I will send pictures.

Dec 4th We anchored in Titusville FL within view of Cape Canaveral Space Center on December 3rd. We had hoped to see a rocket launching but it was rescheduled due to weather. We had a beautiful day with the sail up along the river populated with wildlife preserves, dolphines and fishing camps. There were manatee protection areas all along, but we have yet to see one, nor have we spotted an allegator or pink flamingo. For that matter, the crab still hasn't hoped onto my dinner plate, however Bill keeps trying. We woke up this morning to a light rain, but decided to take off anyway. By 1:30 the rain took on a serious note, so we anchored outside of Melbourne, Fl with fellow cruisers we've met along the way. The shoaling along the ICW persists and the waters are shallow. It really is difficult to get used to these large bodies of water with only 6 or 7 feet depth. The cruisers all keep in touch during the day on the VHF radios, and when we come to an anchorage it is always fun to see who joins you, and try to remember when and where we last saw them. The boat now looks like a Chinese laundry with our wet clothes hung and the propane lantern going to dry them (and provide reading light). The plan is to head for Vero Beach tomorrow. We will be Bahama bound soon!

Dec 7th Rain or no rain, we pulled out of our Melbourne anchorage and headed for Vero Beach on the 5th. The weather declined by the minute and it rained so hard you could only see 150 or less feet in front of you. The Coast Guard released weather info about winds gusting to 50 knt - see safe harbor. Well, there was no safe shelter in the shallow waters so we along with two following sail boats continued on. During a thunderstorm we lost satellite - YIKES! However, a follower did not, and took over the lead. Our electronics came back on within minutes too. The Coast Guard then released tornado warnings from 11 a.m to 3 p.m. However, still not place to go except trudge on. Anyway, long day but safe ending in Vero Beach Municipal Marina. We rafted to a Maine boat, Hook, a Morris built boat out of Southwest Harbor, with a young couplo and their two little girls. We were on No. 1 mooring and aptly put because we were the two most beautiful and smallest boats in the harbor. Again, we did the dry out clothing thing, and gave ourselves Sunday there in the harbor to recoup. Bill and friends got the !!!!!! outboard going while we played with the dogs aboard and so we took the dighny into the big city on Sunday and shopped. This morning, Dec. 7, we headed out again traveling the Indian River with the low water alarm beeping at us continually, but we had the good fortune to be following a huge barge and tug plowing the way. The weather turned into Florida weather - 80's - and partly sunny and we had a nice wind to help us along as we were bucking the tide most of the day. We dropped anchor at 4:30 pm in Hobe Sound along the ICW. We will be down in the Palm Beach area tomorrow.

Dec 8 we played the bridges to North Palm Beach and dropped anchor just after noon. We took the dinghy down a small channel and tied up along a fence, then walked into a plaza area and got groceries.

Dec 9: Hauled anchor (having trouble with the starter) and decided to play the five bridges down the ICW into Delray Beach Marina and hopefully find a mechanic to look at our starter problem. The day again was beautiful, warm, in the 80's and just fueling our fires for the Bahamas. As we go along the ICW there are areas where there are channels that jet off toward the mainland where residences are built with their docks. The channels are sometimes shallow and sometimes deep enough that we see sailing vessels outside of homes. What a life! I think we have decided to jump off the mainland in Ft. Lauderdale for the Bahamas. Ft. Lauderdale is coming up next once our starter problem is resolved.

Pictures from the ICW

OK - Trying this again. Can you add a comment so I know that the link is working that would be helpful. THANKS!

View photos here

Dec 1 - Tuesday The wind was blowing and the current and tide was running hard when we left St. Augustine. Help with the lines got us off the dock safely and the rest of the day was beautiful sailing. It was in the 70's all day and sunny sometimes. The waterway was just beautiful with nice homes and lots of bird life, and of course our dolphin followers. There were three gigantic stocks standing in the top of some trees - quite a silly sight. The water was shallow today in many spots. Among the shallowest was entering Daytona Beach under the bridges. We are anchored in the harbor. Bill has given up crabbing and broke out the fishing pole. I reserve comment. Our fellow cruiser in the anchorage is taking his dog in the dinghy for a little land time - there is lots of barking in anticipation. We spent yesterday enjoying the day in St. Augustine. I took pictures of the "Old Town" historic section with the Christmas lights illuminated. I will try to label pictures posted on the blog in the future. I'm still in the learning stages. The pictures are all sights along the ICW and our marinas and anchorages. Whenever we had white knuckle moments passing a barge or a cruise ship or when we were anchored with a beautiful sunset or there was wild life, I took a picture. I hope I can figure out what goes where when we put everything together. Tomorrow is supposed to be a weather day, so we may just go as far as a marina and safe harbor.

Dec 3 Happy Birthday Greg! We pulled into a marina in Daytona Beach yesterday morning to ride out a high wind and rain storm. Took the bus into the city and bought a new grill for the boat along with groceries. Finding the bus stop and then the bus took a few phone calls but we made it. Today is cloudy but warm and the wind has calmed so we'll leave and head toward Vero Beach.