Lessons learned

If you have a boat or are buying a boat in south Florida, especially around FLL, get ready for a shock. There is a sort of a "marine industry mafia" attitude here. Everybody in a long chain of suppliers, contractors and the boatyard have to receive their kickbacks. You can find your own contractors, but if the boatyard does not like them or they aren't paying off the proper people, they won't be working on your boat. In a nutshell, after about 3 or 4 people get their $300 or more, a little job that should have cost $1000 will end up costing 2x or 3x as much. If the boat is in the shape to run and you need a fair amount of work, take it north to either Stuart Florida or even Savannah. The trip will save you thousands. Anyway, for the good news, I got the 21kw generator taken out yesterday and I am putting in a 10kw genset. Shielded, it will be quiet and will burn much less fuel. Well, as we press on, it is time for the plumbing and air conditioning. I'll let you know how I get screwed on that:)
Have a tropical day!

Ahhhhhh paradise:)

In this case, paradise means powerwashing the bilges. I do not know if you have ever had the indescribably joyous experience of cleaning the bilges of a steel hulled boat but, when and if you do, I will be overjoyed to get a slime by slime email about it:) BTW, since I am supposed to offer some tiny bit of information that may help future cruisers, if you do powerwash your bilges, DO NOT pump them out with the onboard pumps. Use a portable 110 pump and just run a hose overboard. If you try to pump all that crap out with the onboard pumps, when you are done, you might as well throw them away, and they are not cheap. Thus ends the reading of the gospel of the day:)
This really is a lot of fun. Sally and I live in a tiny motorhome with a Basset and a Beagle. The shower and bathroom are about 100 yds away but, one of the benefits of being a guy is you can just pee off the boat:)
Tomorrow, two people that we called are coming over to see about some work on the boat. We got tired of all these contractors in FLL trying to sell us top of the line, overpriced stuff so Sally called the Captain of a boat that she knows in Oregon who has quite a rep around FLL and he gave us some numbers to call. His wife told Sally to "Use our name like a gun". It turns out that works pretty well. So now we should start making real progress. Well, I guess I will go out and start cutting angle iron out of the place that used to be the galley. Have a tropical day:)