It's a Dog's Life... All About Martha

Fort Lauderdale - HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!!

Yep!  We're still in Ft. Lauderdale!  For Sebastian it's been almost three weeks living on the boat here in FL... and for the rest of us, two.... waiting for Miss Martha, our terrier-beagle-dalmatian (?) mix breed dog to arrive.  She finally arrived two days ago in Ft. Lauderdale thanks to Rolando who had kept her at home for the last week and drove her down from Chicago to Orlando where he was going to Disneyworld with his family.  For those of you who missed the story, the woman Martha was suppposed to stay with for the year in Chicago was not able to take care of her after all... and we only found out about this two days before Karla leaving to FL.  Unfortunately Southwest Airlines does not allow dogs as cargo, so we had to kind of scramble to find an alternative for her.

Anyway, Sebastian drove up to Orlando to pick her up and Martha has been on Begonia for the last two days.  At first quite tentative getting on/off the boat and dinghy... she now is a little sailor, an integral part of the crew and feels more and more confident every day in this new surrounding. 

I really wish we can take her with us on the trip, but with each country having a different regulations for "importing live animals," it would prove quite challenging.  In what I have researched, one needs to provide a health certificate -  provided by an internationally certified vet - that is no more than 10 days old at each port.  Vaccinations cannot be more than 30 days old, or your dog can be quaratined... some other countries quaratine the dogs right off the bat.  Too complicated.

We have enjoyed having Martha here these days though... just chumming around with us like she normally would, just under closer quarters and sunnier conditions.  Today, the 31st, she flew off to Argentina with our friend Eduardo who will be taking care of her while we are away.  I sure hope she doesn't lose all her English!  Instead of "bow-wow" she will be saying "guau-guau!!"

Just to get her to Argentina, we were required to get a health certificate in the States which then had to be taken to the US Dept. of Agriculture in Miami for an official stamp.  As my father says, "you must REALLY love that dog!"

It has been quite an odyssey for her/us, but she will now officially be a world-travelling canine polyglot!

OK... enough about the dog.... onto our trip... it looks like the weather will be favorable for us to leave on the 2nd or 3rd of January.  First stop:  Bimini, Bahamas!  We have been provisioning (fancy nautical word to mean "stocking up on food!") little by little every day, fitting cans and things underneath the settee in the main galley, and underneath all our beds.... we realized we have so much more space than we thought we would to store food, which made us doubt if we've bought enough food... so our plan is to go out once more and buy more stuff.  Mainly: crackers, cereal, rice, pasta, canned goods, etc. I am hoping that we can really catch some good fish on our trip so we don't have to rely on canned goods all the time. Other sailors who've done similar voyages say to make sure to provision in ports where you can; in other words, take advantage, because it can be complicated to provision in other places.  Apparently food on the islands can be quite expensive since generally canned goods are imported and there is not a large selection of vegetables locally grown.  We have experienced this in Bahamas where we've been a large sum for a very sorry looking tomato.

Today we had some other visitors on board:  Alejandro Sanchis, a friend of Sebastian's from Puerto Madryn, Argentina and Chicago, came with his son Luca who's 5 and got along spectacularly with Sofia and Benj.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!  We will blog again in the new year!