Goodbye, Paradise!

St. Lucia – Miami -- Brunswick March 2009.

Left ;( Paradise-St. Lucia on another bright, sunny, lovely 80* day. Won’t go into the yucky long, long lines in Miami. Got to our hotel (Airways Inn…)- we had checked in there on our way to Paradise and parked our car.
Then we went to the in-house Sports Bar!! (yes, us!) had a really good hamburger for my birthday meal !! Left bright and early the next a.m. Had to stop at Ft. Lauderdale at Sailorman’s, and at St. A at Sailor’s Exchange of course!!! Raced to our mail forwarding place in FL and got there just in time to pick up our mail (they are very good, by-the-way, if you need such a service. )
Then on to Brunswick, GA and our boat!!! (Now or Never! in case you forgot :) ) Got the few essentials aboard and went directly to Fox’s for pizza!!! We don’t eat out a lot, normally, but after a long drive, Fox’s has a GREAT thin crust cheese pizza!! And it’s become a ‘tradition’. Nice. Next night we were lucky that our neighbors Charles and Jo Ann (s/v Osprey) were aboard and joined us for drinks. Such nice people. Next night our old friends from s/v Nootka Dancer, John and Helen from Ontario (whom we met several years ago at BLM and hope to ‘buddy’ with to the Bahamas next winter) visited for a wonderfully long evening . . . Three ‘successful’ projects on our boat for Peter!! Stayed an extra day to complete all. A nice lunch with Charles and Jo Ann. Evening chats also. Gosh they are really nice and I want to thank JoAnn especially because her gentle encouragement and lovely compliments have done more for my flagging ego than ANYTHING. Thank you, lady! You sure did good, Charles, she’s one in a million and deserving of your cherishing. :) Then we sneaked away to a ‘local’ place for fresh raw oysters!!! Super!
So next a.m. very early we started our trip HOME! Of course our trip was lengthened because of our very EXPENSIVE!!!! stop at Harry’s/Whole Foods in Marietta just outside of Atlanta !!!! I offered to get a job to pay the bill . . . but what wonderful ‘stuff’ like veal chops, rack of lamb (for Matthew’s birthday lunch), lovely lamb chops, bright-eyed red snapper, even fresh smelt!! (don’t think the smelt compare to morning-caught ‘flying fish’ from, Castries, St Lucia, W.I. tho).
not to mention the cheese and olives :) Love it!!!! However, too many choices. Think Sherry (from Alesto II) would maybe understand :)