GOODBYE, FROSTY!

   

Our excursion to the frozen northland has come to an end.  A five inch snowfall welcomed us to Columbus.  Another several inches were falling as we left.  We said goodbye to Frosty and battled slick roads and darkness, driving a whole 30 miles per hour for the first two hours.

  Faster than the 5 knots I expect when sailing, but a lot slower than the 70 or so MPH our tiny Chevy Spark could deliver.  1050 miles later, we had our celebratory arrival rum at 2 AM.  How wonderful to be back in South Florida.

    Since we still had the use of the car for several more days, we went shopping.  I had to introduce Kathleen to my favorite supermarket, Papa’s Meat Market.  I had discovered it years earlier, by accident.  Claudia and I were arriving by car in Ft Pierce.  Naturally, we were looking forward to the customary rum drink.  Alas!  We had no limes.  Papa’s was the only market that we passed as we came into town.  Such serendipity, what a terrific store.  Fresh vegetables, tropical fruit, specialty meats especially suited to Caribbean cuisine, tripe, chicken feet, cows’ feet, etc. If you are so inclined, you can even get a smoked goat’s head!

  None of the customers speak English; Haitian Creole is the predominant tongue with Spanish a close runner-up.  It was heaven for a foodie like me.  Although, I still don’t know what you do with a smoked goat’s head. I must admit, I have butchered dozens of goats but never thought of smoking the head!   Jamaicans apparently use it to make Goat Head Soup, a party dish served at weddings and other social occasions.  Apparently it goes well with alcohol!  Uhuh.

    We got back in time for the New Year’s Eve celebration—dinner at Harbor Cove and party at the pavilion where we counted the seconds off

as 2013 approached.  Fun and silliness

and perhaps a bit of confusion since at least one person seemed to be celebrating St Patty’s day.  Well, anything goes on New Year’s Eve, even green hats!

    So, anyway, with shopping done all that remained was to do a couple of boat projects, chief among them being the leaking water bladder under the V-berth.  I warned Kathleen to cover her ears since I knew that a significant amount of cussing would be necessary to extract the bladder.  The prognosis for repair?  Not possible.  Well, the prognosis was possible, but the repair not.  As a consolation, I was able to stop the leak on the sea water/ice box drain spigot.
    Finally, the moment we had awaited since before Xmas.  The BB King concert was terrific.  He still has a powerful voice and of course, his music on Lucille is incomparable

We sacrificed a good weather window for heading down to Ft Lauderdale.  I’m sure we’ll get another window but we may not have the opportunity to see BB King again.