Welcome to Fort Lauderdale - Next Stop the Bahamas

We pulled into our slip at the Las Olas Marina here in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Thursday midday. We went through a record number 15 bridges on Thursday!  The last one was the busiest and we were happy to get tied up in our slip soon afterword.  We did laundry and waited for our friend Mike to get in Thursday night.  It's been awesome having company onboard.  Mike's so excited to get fishing. He brought three offshore rods meant for large fish like Mahi, Wahoo and Tuna.  They caught quite alot of fish the last time they came down so we're hoping it's a repeat of last time.

Today we went grocery shopping to provision the boat.  This is only about a third of the groceries we bought.  Two weeks on the water is a long time and its not as though there was a convenience store every few miles.

On our way to the grocery store we placed a few tracts which was fun.  The Bouldevard along A1A here in Fort Lauderdale is busy with lots of people, nice restaurants and hotels.

The guys also started putting together our ditch bags in case we need to abandon ship. 

Mike with his Ditch Bag

We have an EPURB (emergency beacon which sends a signal to the Coast Guard), Cliff Bars, a satellite phone, GPS, water, flare kit, signal flares, fishing supplies, and life jackets.  Though I'm sure the list will grow as we think of additional items.  Don't worry the chances of needing these items are slim, however it's always good to be prepared. The sat phone is a nice extra to have.  We can actually receive emails on the Sat phone and it doesn't cost us anything, though it costs us to send a response. So if you decide you would like to send us an email(which we would love!), don't be surprised if we can't email you back very quickly. To send an email you go to www.iridium.com. In the right hand corner you will see "Send a message to a Satellite Phone".  Enter our satellite phone number 8816-2345-0955 and then your email and message.  You could even call the sat phone but it would cost you approximately $10.00 a minute, yes, that's no lie.  $10.00 a minute!!!!  Crazy! Therefore, we will not be making friendly chit chat with our sat phone (our plan includes 60 minutes but it's about $2.00 a minute), it's for emergency and updates only.  We'll try to update a few key people who will let everyone else know where we're at and how we're doing.

I'm hoping to have internet access at least a couple of times in the Bahamas, but we just really don't know.  We'll just have to see what happens.  So, until then, please keep us in your prayers and we'll keep you in ours.  We look forward to getting settled on St. John and seeing all the friends.  As they say in the islands, "Soon Come!"

Safe journeys,

Camile