NEW ADDRESS FOR THE BLOG

Please use the following address for the continuation of the blog.

http://pdqvitabella2blogspotcom.blogspot.com/

Ross

Key Largo

I have tried to upload photos for 3 days and there remains a problem, sorry.

We left Miami, picked up some fuel and made our way south. We arrived in Key Largo and have decided that we will be staying here tonight and tomorrow night. I am in need of a rest and we have landed at a nice place.

I will attempt to get the photo issue resolved, as we have some really good shots of the Matt/Wayne duo ;-).

We will head North on Thursday and have Matt & Wayne in Ft. Lauderdale for their flight home on Saturday.

More later

Ross

with Joe, Matt & Wayne

Miami Vice

I am having troubles uploading photos. Hopefull this will be resolved soon, Sorry.

We are in Miami. We left Ft. Lauderdale and slippd by Port Everglades, where the boat will be put on the ship in early December. We pulled into the MiaMarina right next to the American Airlines Arena. This is a happening place. We had lunch and then jumped into a cab and went to the grocery store.

We are planning to head to Key Largo tomorrow. This will be fun, and there should Blue Water and good snorkeling.

We plan to eat ashore this evening and get a fairly early start. We will need to add fuel before we make the tranist to the Keys.

More later

Ross

with Joe, Matt & Wayne

South = Slow

We slipped the lines in West Palm Beach , at about 10:15 and we arrived in Ft Lauderdale at 4:45. We only made 40 statute miles!. It seems that on the weekends the speed limit on the ICW in Florida is NO WAKE, or Idle Speed. We had a great time last night in W Palm Beach. We found a great Fish restaurant. We enjoyed oyster shooters, shrimp in a garlic saute, as appetisers. Joe & I had Salads and Wayne & Matt had Jambalaya Pasta.



We tied up after the office to the marina closed for the day, so we are taking showers on the boat and will take a walk to hopefully find a restaurant for dinner. If we fail,m I have enough food for dinner on the boat.



We will check out the local marinas tomorrow as well as add provisions. We will then look at the charts to see where we will spend the balance of Matt & Wayne's time aboard. Joe will be with me until the boat goes aboard the ship on the 6th or 7th.



Aboard Vita Bella,



Ross

with Joe, Wayne & Matt

Nettles Island to West Palm Beach

I was up at 0445 and into the shower, I had a date with Joe, Wayne & Matt at the Ft. Lauderdale International Airport at 0710. We were northbound by 0745 and stopped at an IHOP for a little breakfast and continued North. We got to Nettles Island and were on the water headed South in less than 30 minutes. We stopped for fuel about 3 miles south of Nettles and we pumped out the holding tank. I wanted all the room I could get as I am sure there will be a bunch of stuff dealt this week that should be in the holding tank, but we won't go there. I am doing a little laundry, Joe, Wayne & Matt are stowing their belongings and when we are through, we will be heading out for dinner.



This is the 3rd crew change has happened and the Trip South continues.



More later



Ross

with Joe, Wayne & Matt

"Black Friday" stay out of the stores, OK!

Friday 11/23/07 4:41 pm EST Temp 80 degrees.

The winds last night were from the East, and this 11 ton boat bounced like a cork in a dishpan. I was grateful that the winds let up about 1am. I poured a diet Pepsi into a short glass and the Pepsi had whitecaps!

Since the boat survived the "storm" ;-) & as I was listening to the radio, there was great discussion of all of the sales going on at the local malls and speciality stores. I have been wanting to get a printer to leave on the boat, and I got my giddy-up on and drove to Best Buy. Well, it would have taken 45 minutes to see if there was a really cheap one available, so I drove to Wal-Mart. I was able to buy a Lexmark printer, with a scanner for $25.00. It works well and I am now able to copy, scan and print. I will store it in it's original box, as I am sure it would not be working in 30 miles if it were not really well secured. I even got a haircut. I now know why I pay Ralph $20. a $9.00 haircut is really scary!

I am looking forward to picking Joe, Wayne & Matt up at 0710 tomorrow morning ( ;-( . I am not sure why I volunteered to drive 2 hours ( that means I get up at 4:45 am ) to pick them up! I have planned a short day for t0morrow, 44 miles, but we will be in West Palm Beach with many great restaurants and some fun stuff close to the marina.

Once we are all awake, they are flying the red eye & I am getting up a zero dark thirty to shag them, we will have a planning session tomorrow night.

I am sure that the posts of the following week will be filled with pictures that we will all regret, stories that may or may not be true and lots of good fellowship.

BTW, I am sitting at almost 5pm watching the Texas/ Texas A&M football game on ESPN in Hi Def. Pretty cool!

There are 3 other PDQ 34's here at this funky marina. It's really been a good learning experience for me to be able to lean on the owners for information. I really want to thank Henry & Nancy Clews for all of their help.

The picture I am posting tonight was taken by Henry on Tuesday, just before Mike left.

More from down the ICW.

Ross, on a much calmer evening.

Happy Thanksgiving to all

Well so much for sleeping in, I decided that rather than sitting here at the dock all day, I would get up early and drive the 2.5 hours north to Disney World. I was off the boat and in the car by 0700 and arrived at the Parks at about 9:30. They have over 15,000 parking spaces and 26,000 acres within the 4 parks. The Magic Kingdom is much smaller than Disneyland, but Epcot is Very Large. I think that everyone in Northern Florida had the same thought, as the place was absolutely wall to wall people. The wait time for most of the rides was over 2 hours and at 10 am, the fast pass return time was after 6pm. It began to sprinkle at about 2pm so I started the return trip.

Mike Murphy called to tell me that when he got home he found that he did get a picture of one of the dolphins that played off our wake. I am sending it as well as several shots I took today at Disney World. If you look over Minnie's shoulder, you will see the turkey that the President pardoned. It will live at one of the Disney Parks. Lucky Bird!

More tomorrow

Ross