September 1 to December 29, 2019 Prep time

September 1 -December 31, 2019

Disaster in the Bahamas
On September 1, 2019, Hurricane Dorian made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane in The Bahamas with wind speeds in excess of 185 mph, lashing The Bahamian islands of Great Abaco (pop. ~17,200) and Grand Bahama (pop. ~51,000). After striking The Bahamas, Dorian’s travelling speed slowed to 1 mph over Grand Bahama, prolonging the island’s exposure to life-threatening storm surges of 18-23 feet above normal tide levels. Dorian is the strongest hurricane on record for The Bahamas and has tied a record for the strongest Atlantic hurricane to make landfall.

We were just sickened by the disaster.  Due to the situation, we will not be able to cross and report in Green Turtle Cay like the previous 3 years.  We will have to rethink our plans.

Prep Time for season 4 in the Bahamas

October 19, 2019, 5:00am- Time to head to Fla to work on GaYa to get her ready for season 4 in the Bahamas.  We stayed overnight in Savannah, Ga after 15 hrs of driving. Steve sure makes it look easy. 

October 20 - After breakfast and another 5 hrs driving, we were able to check on GaYa. She looked good and no mold. We always worry about mold since it is so humid here. Using DampRid helps. One guy at the marina here, told us he had 1/2 inch mold fur in his boat. That would be so depressing. In fact, he said he passed out from all the bleach he used. 

After checking on GaYa, we decided to go visit the grand kids in West Palm Beach since it was Sunday and we can work on the boat tomorrow. Glad we did since it was so nice to see them again. 

October 21- October 22-  After saying goodbye to the grand kids going to school on Monday, we headed out to Fort Pierce to work on the boat. 

Enjoyed swimming at the hotel after a long day working on GaYa

We got a motel for a couple of days. We were just exhausted and drained working in the heat and humidity. After 2 days of hard work, Steve managed to wash the top and sides of the boat and painted the bottom. In the meantime, I cleaned the inside.  We managed to get a lot done in two days. It took a lot for us to go eat dinner since we were comatose after a couple of full days of work. 

Cleaned the cushions at Nicky and Brent's home 

October 23-  We brought the boat cushions to Nicky and Brent's and cleaned them. 

October 24-   We returned the cleaned cushions at the storage bin in Ft Pierce and then headed to Juno Beach to pick up new shower heads for the boat at Scanvick Co.  They were very helpful.  We went back to the boat to install a new water maker.  

We got the boat surveyed for the insurance

October 28-  We went to Ft Pierce to meet Mike Conningham to have our boat surveyed for our insurance company.  GaYa passed with flying colors.  
We  also met up with Darryll from Stingray  about installing a hard top along with new solar panels on our boat.  They will install it while we are back in Canada and hopefully will be all done by the time we return after Christmas.  We also are bringing back our old dodger to get a new one done. Vadeem from Toronto will do it for us. GaYa is getting a new makeover.  

Steve & I

Parker, Lyla, Nicky, Steve and I

October 31- We had a great time at a Halloween Party with our children. 

November 3-4am- Headed back home to Canada and left GaYa in Ft Pierce. 

November 21, 2019- Steve picked up our new dodger  from Vadeem. Can't wait to see it all done. 

December 2, 2019- Daryll who is making our new hard top Bimini sent us photos of the progress.  






December 19, 2019
The hard top Bimini and solar panels are all done.  Can't wait to see it when we go to Florida at the end of the month.

New hard top Bimini and solar panels on GaYa

December 25, 2019- Merry Christmas to all my blogger readers. 

December 29, 2019

4:00am- The truck is all packed up and we headed to Florida to be reunited with GaYa. 

December 30, 2019 - 

12:00pm. Arrived at the boat to check it out. The new hard top Bimini looked good. We unpacked what was in the truck and put up the new dodger. It needs a few adjustments but looked good considering Vadeem copies from our old one. We contacted Seven and she will come on January 3rd to connect the Bimini to the new dodger. 

3:00pm - Left the boat to go stay at our daughter in Lakeworth until the boat goes in the water. 

December 31, 2019

Happy New Year.