It was a dark and stormy night...

Yes, I was growing up in the Snoopy days and that was my favorite comic, with Snoopy perched atop his doghouse with his favorite hunt and peck typewriter, writing his great American novel.  It was all I could think about today.

The Miami area was peppered with storms, some of them severe, so I wasn't sure if our scheduled diver was going to be able to come this morning to replace the zincs on our boat and the kids' boat, to clean the dinghy bottom, and to clean the bottom of the kids' boat. He had to cancel on Tuesday because the waves were so high in the anchorage that there was no way to safely do it. Having a 23,000# bucking bronco crashing about right over your head is not exactly the best way to live long and prosper.

This morning he made it out to the boat on the shuttle and was able to get started before the first storm (which he cleaned right through, oblivious to the pounding rain), and 2-1/2 hours and two other squalls later was finished. At $2 a foot I may never do a bottom cleaning again. We used a company called A-1  Boat Care LLC out of Miami. Freddy is from Colombia and I had the additional pleasure of being able to practice my Spanish while he was here. He was thorough, polite, fast, and very reasonably priced. I highly recommend him if you're in the area and are looking for a bottom cleaning or zinc replacement. I was going to take more pictures of Freddy and his equipment but it rained so hard the whole time that he was here and I still don't have a waterproof camera so I hid under the dodger. 

At least for the moment, for the first time since Tim left 8 days ago, there is no wind at all. None. Zero. Zilch. We're bobbing around hitting the mooring ball and the dinghy alternately, the full moon is shining brightly on the water, and I believe I just might be able to sleep. Which is good, because tomorrow the wind is supposed to be right back up there 15-20. The trials and travails of cruising...