Warmer than you!! Well most of you anyway.

Now that the Holidays are behind us - it's

Catch-up time.

The sun is setting,the anchor is down and now we are ready to celebrate the Captain's birthday.

December 21, 2013 - 50 miles north of St. Augustine, FL.

Happy Birthday Baby!
Love, Deb & Izzy

Izzy is in total party mode.

We decided St. Augustine would be a good place to stop and shuttle our car down from Beaufort, SC.  Pretty town and even prettier at Christmas time.  

Our welcoming committee.

Then it was a hop, skip and jump down to Daytona Beach to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at Halifax Harbour Marina with this puffed up Southern Santa.

Christmas Day was beautiful, so we decided to hike over to the ocean.  

Joni, this one is for you - The Pier at Daytona Beach - we have lots of fond memories here.  The surf and tide were both high so didn't see too many cars driving on the beach.

Izzy loved it - "let me loose".

She settled for a walk on the beach, however, we didn't make it very far.  Right after I took this picture we were stopped by the beach patrol and very kindly told - "No dogs on the beach" - I guess there was a sign, we didn't see it.  Wouldn't you know, just as he's telling us we need to get off the beach, Izzy decides to do her business.  Thankfully we had a poop bag. 

We are currently on the T dock at The City of Titusville Municipal Marina - this is our beautiful view of the Indian River.  Decided to spend a month here touring the Space Coast and getting a couple of projects done.  Of course we have retrieved our car from St. Augustine and have acquainted ourselves with Home Depot, Lowes, Publix and Anytime Fitness.  We have not toured this area before and looking forward to seeing the Kennedy Space Center and the Canaveral Seashore.

The hole on the left of the cabinet was where our TV was previously.  We had some de-lamination occurring on the rest of the cabinet so decided to expand the entertainment center and replace the teak veneer. The support pole on the counter was also a problem.  Asia Boat Builders, Krogen's yard builder in Taiwan in the 90's, for some reason had placed the post, which is directly under our mast up top, over the TV cabinet which had no support causing the countertop to sag in this area.  The previous owner had placed an additional wood 2 x 4 (right of the wine bottle in the picture) to support the mast.  We have talked about having another spindle post made to replace the 2x4, but it seems other projects got in the way.  The captain is pondering a possible solution to eliminating the second post (2x4) completely.  He put his builder's engineering thinking-cap on.

More on this project to follow. And, hey, how big is that TV and how many calculations will it take to make the load point work?How many drawings to determine where the support should be? 

Here's a kicker - we knew a front was coming along with a couple of days of rain which would delay the project.  Rick remembered that 13 years ago when we got Broulee the previous owner "claimed" he had another set of custom cockpit curtains stored under the queen island berth.  We've moved them around alot, but never actually unwrapped them to look at them.  The previous owner had a second set of screened curtains made for the cockpit and for many years (when traveling in buggy areas) we used them.  We decided to dig the second set out from under the bed and see if they fit the toggles from the other set.  A perfect match - brand new, complete with Isinglass and screens.  Because we bought the boat in the Philippines we are guessing the previous owner did not want Isinglass to trap heat in an already warm location.  Project can now continue in Broulee's workshop.

Izzy and Deb are enjoying walks in Sand Point Park south of the marina and all three of us enjoy the off leash dog park just north of the marina.  We celebrated New Year's eve with our friends Ron & Paula, KK Dovekie, and Janet & David, KK Sofkin at the home of Ron & Paula.  Good to see our  travel buddies again, it was great to talk about our travels in the Caribbean.  

Happy to be here - not looking good for Minnesota.  The Govenor has closed schools on Monday and temps are dropping Sunday night to, -50-65 degrees below zero windchill.

Weather map for tomorrow in Minnesota:

On a warmer note - received this pic from Deb's beautiful nieces.  All of them together (with their dogs and Loren) for Christmas 2013. Izzy was sorry to miss this party, as was I.