Update 27.5.2010

Well it looks as though we will be back in the waters of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida today , after 3 weeks of the boat sitting in a boat yard. doing maintenance, complete sanding back of the hull and hull repainting, engine and electronic maintenance etc.

We are now stocking the galleys with heaps on long distance food....everything in America is so full of sugar no wonder they all have bad teeth and are overweight.!

A typical breakfast ( not for us I might add ) is pancakes cooked in heaps of butter covered in sweet sticky maple syrup....then 3 cups of coffee with more sugar....or as we found out in the motels we stayed in on our incredible journey down over 37 bridges to Key West on the weekend cover the pancakes with hamburgers and cheese and more sugar.

Anyway we are stocking up on all healthy stuff.....lost of frozen veggies and we will do a meat order today.

Mick tells us we must allow 1 pound of meat per person per day, so given we will be at sea for 40 days until French Polynesia we will need 90+ kg's of meat........that’s half a bullock. The Americans call there beef cuts a different name to us.......and they cut it in a different way.......

I am hoping that I will be suppling heaps of fish to our diet...Mick and I are have been getting our fishing tackle all ready.

Remembering we will be travelling at 6kts and not able to stop in a hurry like Reel Lady ....(Island Voyager weighs in at 90 tonnes ) we will be trolling lures with 3/8 inch rope. They will have 250lb traces on them finishing with 170 lb standard wire....then our lures.

We expect to catch 50 kg+ Wahoo..(big critters with very sharp teeth ) Yellow Fin Tuna up to 60 kg and smaller Dolphin Fish ( Mia Mia ) up to 40 kg.

All great eating and very healthy..( no sugar )...in fact as the fish will be so huge we will just cut a fillet off them and let them go!!!!!

It will be great to be up and away....life in a boat yard has its moments......we are locked in from 6.00pm each night. Mick and I have found a way to escape, we jump in the rubber duck and travel down the canals and find some nice little waterfront bar or restaurant!!

Talking of canals the real estate market here is interesting...we heard some horror stories last night in a restaurant....beach side homes that sold for $600+K 4 to 5 years ago now being sold by the banks for $80K......

Canal homes here in Palm Beach Gardens are down form $3ml to around $700K.......I am now thinking Oz real estate is so overpriced.....values have been underpinned by capital growth expectations, greedy developers and supply shortages created by greedy buyers........mmmmmm........best not to tell to many people that one.

Our passage from Miami will take us down along the northern shore line of Cuba.....interesting.....but better than our old proposed passage taking us to the western end of Cuba.

We will be going down the 'Old Baham Channel'.....this takes up within 10 miles of Cuba....actually inside their territorial waters...but there is heaps of shipping using this passage so they don’t seem to mind.
There are some stories getting around about Cubans boarding the vessel and demanding money etc but the US have planes etc patrolling that part of the world daily so a phone call on the Sat phone will bring in a couple of F18's.(hopefully). We have our Australian flag flying at the moment but we think we might change it back to a US flag when we go past Cuba....they seem to like Americans now but not sure if they would even know what an Oz' Ensign looks like.

All being well we will be sitting in the Panama Marina have cocktails watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.....

More news in 10 days.......
Rick