Ready…Set…

We returned to Canada and WW immediately went into high competency mode. He made an offer, replied to a counteroffer, set the wheels in motion. He arranged for the boat to be pulled out to have her bottom painted and a couple of minor repairs done. He worked on registering her as a Canadian boat and changing her name to Django, which meant determining there were no liens on her in Denmark and…well, all sorts of paperwork. He filled in forms preliminary to getting us and our boat out of the U.S. and into the Bahamas. He created an itinerary and sail plan. He prepared a detailed crew list, for which he was sent information from Frisha and Whit (for those who don’t know: my sister and brother-in-law, both experienced sailors who will be crewing with us over to Nassau and the Exumas). He toiled over a hot Internet and a hotter fax machine for days.

I shopped for basic over-the-counter medical supplies, and made an appointment with my GP, who had agreed to write prescriptions to meet our cruising needs. Alas, I will not be able to see him until February…of course. I wrote and sent the Epipheration 2008 and started the blog while preparing hearth and home for three weeks of abandonment. I deposited the dog with Lorna.

It was a couple of fairly intense weeks, with our departure set for January 24. On the day before we left, we lunched with WW’s parents and, that evening, Dan and Genevieve (for those who don’t know: my older son and his girlfriend) took us for a bon voyage dinner at a Tibetan restaurant. Both meals were very pleasant.

We flew out from Montreal (our previous flights had been from Burlington, Vermont) the next afternoon. Lorna very kindly drove us from Hudson to Dorval (and vouchsafed to us her rum punch recipe...which is AMAZING). We arrived in Fort Lauderdale at about 10:30 p.m. WW had booked us a hotel room for our first night. Apart from the vomit in the breezeway deposited by the alcoholic midget who was in the process of being evicted from Room 200, it was quite a nice place. In the morning, we took our last hot shower for some days to come, then breakfasted on the patio, looking out at the Atlantic. It was behaving nicely under a gray sky, 12 knot airs, and coolish (for Florida) temperatures. Then we loaded our rental car with a careful selection of our worldly goods and set off to meet Mike (the broker) at his office. Once various papers had been exchanged and compulsory chat completed, we headed to our new home.