Happy New Year!

First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR!  We hope this finds you all happy and well and having adequately celebrated 2012 and heralded in 2013 in style!

We have had a great few days (is it really five?!) here in Coconut Grove.  Once again, we reconnected with several cruisers from anchorages past and made some news friends as well.  Rob and Lidia (reminder . . . Rob's college buddy and his wife) came down the 2nd day after we had time to get re-situated, the laundry done and other chores out of the way.

As the old saying goes - Make new friends, but keep the old.  One is silver and the other gold.  That little saying just covers it all.  We have such fun from port to port enjoying all of our new relationships, but there's something about "old" friends that just can't be matched.  We spent the last few days with the Clooses just acting like normal people.  Rob and Lidia had a room at the Residence Inn with a nice little kitchen and living area.  We practically moved in, cooking meals there and otherwise "hanging around" - everything but sleeping.  We certainly enjoyed sitting on the sofa, taking long hot showers and not thinking about how much power we were using every time we turned on a switch!  Funny how quickly you forget the simple comforts of the "normal" way of living!

The four of us took advantage of some fun to be had here in Coconut Grove when they held the 30th annual King Mango Strut, a satirical parade through the downtown area.  The streets were blocked off and the locals put a lot of energy into recapping the year's top social and political fiascoes.  We saw General Petraeus, some global warming quips, a little election spoofing, of course some Castro humor and more.  The town gets into the spirit as much as the parade participants and a good time was had by all.

Last night, we enjoyed bringing in 2013 together and Rob and I headed out in the dinghy back to the boat around 1am - with the wind kicking salt spray into our newly showered faces, welcoming us back to OUR new normal.  Rob and Lidia brought the marina shuttle out to the boat this afternoon and we had hoppin' john (the southern New Year's requirement) with Chuck and Stuart (Stuart's a woman, fyi) aboard Long Gone and Rick aboard Nautilus both who we will be crossing with tomorrow.  I even baked a carrot cake from scratch this afternoon to celebrate Cloos's 60th birthday tomorrow - we didn't go hungry!

We said our goodbyes to Rob and Lidia and they headed back on the 4:00 shuttle after which the rest of us put into place the final plans for tomorrow's trek across the gulf stream to Bimini.  Both other boats have crossed before and we're all glad to have company for the journey.  The weather's looking pretty tame and we're not expecting much drama which I, in particular, am very happy to report!

We're certainly starting our new year with a bang!  My camera's charged up and ready to snap my first clear water pictures tomorrow and I'm hoping for lots of great experiences to report in our journey ahead.   Happy NEW Year!