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July 22^nd, 2008  We just got back from a week-long visit in California with my family.  We stayed at my sister's (Mary and Charlie) house and had a wonderful time with such gracious hosts.  It all started out with my sister picking us up at the Burbank Airport and then a trip to their business.  I call it a destruction business.  Its mainly tearing something down and hauling it away or leveling it.  Calls for big trucks, loaders etc.  Another part of the business is racing and doing custom machine work on other race cars.  They race NASCAR in the California circuit and surrounding area.  So they use a big truck to carry the race car and equipment.  Nancy loved it.    Car and driver, our nephew,  Jameel. 

Then it was off to see Mom and Dad.  They live about 30 minutes from the business and my sister threw the car keys to me and it was my turn to fend off the LA traffic.  My sister had printed out maps of the area and Nancy proved to be an excellent navigator ( I had left my GPS at home even after Nancy suggested bringing it).   

The next day we visited with mom and dad again then had dinner with my Aunt Bunny.  She lives in the opposite direction (Pasadena Ca.) and Charlie drove.    The whole gang was there.    Ok, left to right  Mary (sister) Syd (close friend of my Aunt), Charlie (Brother-in-law), Matthew (nephew), Jameel (nephew), Me (me), Bunny (Aunt) and finally Nancy (Wife).

Next day we went to my niece's house (Malaka and Kyle) for a visit with them and their kids (Kienan, McKenzie, Kiera, and nephew Josh).  That evening we all went to the park for a free city concert, No Duh was playing, they are for the younger crowd.  Seemed like the whole town showed up for the gig. Here we are with our grand niece McKenzie,    and the little show off, Kiera.      Ok, we will try this again,  from left to right, Kiera, Nancy, me, Mary, Kienan (in front) Josh (hidden behind) McKenzie and Kyle.

The next day Mary had everybody over for a pool party.  The younger generation (baby included) spent hours diving and splashing in Mary and Charlie's pool. The next day we went to my nephews' (Matthew and Jameel) home.  They bought a fixer upper and did it turn out great!   Nancy and Mary really liked the bar.    With help from their dad, Matthew and Jameel took the sheetrock off, added a roof, and rebuilt the whole house.  Charlie built the bar and did other work of course along with my sister.  Anyway the project was a great success.  I loved it.   The boys did their own interior design and it was very impressive. 

The days are getting mixed up in my mind but we had lunch at Mom and Dad's one afternoon and we took mom and dad to the VA center for some blood work on another day and had our final visit that day.  We were going to see them one more day but I got sick (my sister shared her cold/flu with me as a good sis should) and didn't want to take any chance of getting mom and dad sick, so we said our goodbyes over the phone.

July 9^th, 2008  We have been very busy socializing.  First to drag us away from the needed work on the boat was Far Niente (Jay and Diana).  They were hungry and wanted to eat, so eat we did.    Then Veranda (Bill and Christy) stopped by with Molly Brown (Phil) and stopped us from doing any boat work.    Bill closest, Phil the furthest away.    Nancy, left, Christy, right.  Then Sapphire (Mike and Kathy) called and wanted to eat.  So everyone went to Pirates cove.    Left to right, Jim, Nancy, Diana, Jay, Mike, Kathy, Christy, Bill and not pictured was Phil who has a J. O. B. and showed up later.  Also not pictured is Madcap.  They never showed up.  Something about being on a mooring ball in New York Harbor.

BOAT WORK:  Nancy did some more work on the bimini and has a lot of it done.  Just the back zipper to put in (and a few more things that go with that).  I installed the new Blue Sky solar panel controller and remote.   I still have the new 130 watt solar panels to mount.   After that was done I cleaned all the electrical connections in the bilge.  Boy, does it corrode a lot in salt water.

The main sail has been taken off so it can be modified to accept the new track system and Doyle Stack Pack.  It should be installed next Wednesday. 

July 4^th, 2008  Party, Party, Party.  That's what we have not been doing.  Work is slowly progressing on the boat.  It seems that there is just not enough time in the day.  We did go and have a great time with Jim, Beth, Mike, Kathy, Dave and Deb.  Deb is Mike's sister and Dave is her husband.  They drove down from Michigan to visit and do a weeks worth of sailing, followed by a tour of D.C.    Lets see, left to right, Dave, Nancy, Mike, Kathy and Deb.  Ok, so we are at the local Tiki Bar.  I didn't get a picture of Jim and Beth , Madcap ,this time.  I had taken the battery out of the camera to get it charged and when we left to meet them I grabbed the camera, sans battery.  We met the group at Pirates Cove for boat drinks and dinner ashore.  Jim and Beth continued their journey back to Nova Scotia the next morning.  Wonderful friends and we will stay in touch with them as Jim goes back to WORK and begin their cruising again in another year.  These are all special folks whom we met in the Bahamas and will always stay in touch with.

Trip to Florida:  We have been watching the house market in Florida ever since friends Brenda and Ladd told us that the market was tumbling and tumble it did.  An interactive map of the U.S. shows Florida is one of the areas with the highest foreclosure rates.  On our trip back to the slip we looked at possibilities for a purchase all along the east coast and found that indeed, Florida had the best potential.  While in Florida, after we left the Bahamas, we did look at some condos to get an idea of what was available.  This is our thought process.  Buy low, sell high.  Well it is a little more than that.  We did see the potential as an investment property.  We are also throwing away money to have our things in storage when that money could be going toward a home.  We also need to get out of the hurricane area of the Bahamas every year.  We thought that a condo would be the way to go.  We could leave it without worry during our extended periods of cruising.  We looked at the best areas and decided to purchase in the hurricane box but leave the boat at Jacksonville FL or north to meet insurance requirements.  So we picked an area that would be a few hours drive to the boat (Jacksonville-north, (a type of drive that we had done for 8 years when we were living in Oklahoma City and had the boat in Texas)).  We had stayed in touch with our Real Estate agent via e-mail as he kept us updated on new market entries or condos that we had looked at that dropped their asking price since we had been there.  Prices on some units had fallen over 50%.  One new unit we looked at was in a complex that had sold condos previously for $245,000.00 and now the asking price is $99,000.00.  It is still high on our list but still it didn't say "buy me".  We decided that a road trip back to Florida was in order, so last Monday we grabbed the cats and took off.  Its a 14 hour drive to the area that we are looking and we pulled in at 10:00 pm.  What a day.

The drive took a little longer that normal because Nancy had found a Marine Dealer in Virginia that was selling outboard motors dirt cheap.  We stopped in there and she bought a little 2.5 hp Suzuki that we will use as a backup motor and one that she can load on the dinghy by herself and visit neighboring boats.  There were a few boats in the Bahamas that couldn't use their dinghies because their outboards failed.  Its like being trapped on your boat unless you like a very long swim to the beach.  Anyway, she got a 4 stroke motor that weighs 27 pounds.  Nancy is a happy girl since she got it for $300.00 cheaper than another motor she was looking at. 

So back on the road.  We had arraigned for our Real Estate Agent to take us to 7 more places including one that Nancy had found on the internet that the Agent didn't know about (it had just been posted and had not reached the MLS site yet).  We met him at noon and started our marathon viewings.    There were several that we liked and a couple that were really bad.  When we got to the one that Nancy had found on the internet it said "buy me".  It had the largest floor space of all the others we had looked at and was listed at a price that out agent was nervous about.  He said "red flags" and he would do some research.  It turned out that Nancy saw the reason on the spec sheet that nobody had noticed.  "Foreclosure" was the word and a bank was now the owner and wanted to get it off the books.  So we offered a ridiculously low price and the bargaining began.  Offer, counter offer, offer, counter offer, offer, counter offer.  We have now reached the minimum that the bank officer was authorized to go and we have given  our final offer.  The bank officer that can accept our bid is gone for the weekend and we will hear Monday.  If we don't get it we go to number two on our list.

So goes the days.