Daisy doesn’t know what is in store for her, but she’s happy to be blocking the air conditioning under the salon table, her favorite spot. 

On Monday, we finished last minute chores such as calling the bank and credit card companies to let them know we’ll be in the Bahamas.  Also, we put our cell phones “on vacation” and left a recording saying we are out of the country and not to leave a voice mail message.  We will be using our MagicJack which requires us to have an Internet connection.  We put everything away on the deck, took down the hammock, tied up the bikes, strapped down the extra fuel and water containers, etc.  We did a final few loads of wash, mailed some letters, and checked off a variety of phone calls.  I downloaded a program to our computers which will protect us when we are using wifi.   We’ll be doing everything online, so this was essential.  Hopefully, that together with our new wifi extender will enable us to safely and successfully use the Internet. 

The weather conditions look good for us to leave early tomorrow with SE winds at 7 to 12 kts.  Seas are two feet or less.  We won’t get much help from that wind, but we also won’t be heading into strong winds.   The conditions tomorrow in Bimini, where we’ll check in, are for a high of 80 degrees, clear, and southeast winds.  However, there is a chance of thunderstorms for the rest of the week, so we might be waiting there for awhile before we continue on. 

We came back to No Name Harbor yesterday afternoon.  The harbor was packed with locals tied up to the cement dock.  It was a bit noisy, so we took the bikes and rode into Key Biscayne.  We want to be here, rather than Marine Stadium because it is closer to getting out on the ocean.  Today there are only five of us in the harbor. 

Mark went up the mast today in the bosun chair and put up lines to run our quarantine flag when we arrive in Bahamas waters and then once we present our paperwork to immigration officials, replace that with Bahamas flag.  When you are in a foreign country on a boat, you must fly the flag of that country at a higher level than your own country’s flag.

Hopefully the next entry in this blog will be that we are actually in The Bahamas.  We are leaving at 4 am Tuesday morning.  It’s a 50 mile trip, so we should have no problem arriving there in daylight.