Buenos dias, Miami

OK, so we're liking South Beach a lot. A stupid Tom moment...........I kept seeing "SOBE" on stores and shirts but thought it was referencing a Japanese restaurant chain (it means South Beach). Duh.

We've spent zillions on the boat and are slowly making progress. Autopilot repairs underway, most of the lightning strike damage is repaired. The spare parts I was longing for in Bonaire are all now ordered. The boat is clean. All is good.

Since we hadn't bought clothes for about a year and a half, we've been shopping. I can now go to sales presentations and look like an overweight businessman (hey, I was aiming realistically low). Kirstin has had a slower go of it on the shopping front.......she's found a dress to go to the ABC holiday party.........and 4 other "hottie" dresses. The typical couple doing dinner here consists of a guy in jeans and a tee shirt (usually saying something in English in a crazy font............"Interstate Transportation Since 1946" or something). When English isn't your first language, I guess this is cool. The woman he's with is usually 6 ft tall, about 120 lbs, and wearing a really short dress and really big heels. While Kirstin won't go that far, her sailing wardrobe won't cut it here so we had update things a bit.

We were about to go for a bike ride yesterday when we noticed that would now be impossible......someone stole my bike...........my electric bike. This bike made it from Annapolis to Grenada and back only to be stolen in South Beach the first day I left it in the parking deck. Don't know what they'll do with it as I still have the battery and the keys. While it was locked, I guess the lock wasn't big enough. Next time I'm buying half inch stainless steel chain.

Other than that, we're making holiday plans and catching up on seeing the family. The errand to West Marine got us misty eyed.......all the sailing gear around made us want to point the boat southeast and keep going.............someday soon.