Author:  Miranda

Location:  Fort Lauderdale, Florida
[26°8′N 80°9′W]

Arrived in Miami from Santiago at 3:50 am and staggered our way back into our homeland.  Being in South Florida is the perfect way to slowly transition from South America back to the United States.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell that we actually left, as we often find ourselves chatting with someone in Spanish.  I only accidentally blurted out something in Spanish twice.  The nice Italian waiter at lunch was sweet, but confused, when I instinctively (but very incorrectly) greeted him with a smiling “Como estas?”  Oops.

We found our hotel and immediately started setting up some appointments for this week.  We plan to see boats that are both for-sale-by-owner and those being sold through a broker.  Our goals for the week are twofold.  We’d obviously be very happy if we found “the one” and started the purchasing process, but we are also here to make connections and meet with brokers in the industry who we can keep in contact with- even when we head back to the mid-west.

We were able to make one appointment for right-away in the afternoon, so after watching our poor Chilenos fight hard, but fall to those tall, Dutch bastards in the world cup (I’ll soon love you again my friends from Holland- but now the wounds are too fresh… too fresh…), we went to The Catamaran Company to see Steve Moore.  Nothing like some delicious pizza and beautiful multi-hulls to raise your spirits after a tough loss.

Steve took us through two boats for sale: a Lagoon 380 and a Gemini 105 Mc.  All parties involved knew we weren’t interested in a Gemini, but Steve was correct in assuming that making comparisons is always helpful and seeing differences in how boats are set-up is great for narrowing down what specs are your must-haves.  The Gemini made is realize that beam, not length, is critical in determining a cat’s interior space and seaworthiness.  The Gemini was only 4 feet shorter, but it was 8 feet narrower, and this made all the difference between our experiences walking aboard the Gemini, compared to the Lagoon.

The Lagoon was turn-key boat, pretty much having everything we are looking for in a cruiser.  We could have bought the boat and began cruising without much work refurbishing and readying the boat.  Being a 2006, an owner’s version, and being so well maintained, made it, sadly, a little out of our price range.  It also might be a little more boat than we need.  It’s not often when a couple gets on a boat and says, “wow, look at all the space.”  These cats are just big!  So much bigger than the monos (of comparable length) that we have taken lessons on or walked through thus far.  We are curious to see how the 35 footers that we are off to see tomorrow will feel.

I’d like to close with a few laughable, yet accurate, observations from an expat without much time in the U.S. of late.

• When did we get robots at the customs counters?  Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but these guys rocked our world.  Did you see that they raise and lower to look you in eye?!  Holy crap!  Like stepping into star trek movie.  Moments like these always remind me of when my expat buddy came back from a trip to the states about two years ago, and said, “Oh my god!  They have this box that records television and you can rewind or fast forward live T.V.”  His Ti-Vo excitement was about 8 years delayed, but so adorable.

• The drivers!  They are so kind, courteous, and generally going the speed limit.  No idiots cutting you off, weaving through traffic, and stopping where never the hell they please. Oh man- we saw our first use of the blinker, and thought it might be the second coming of Christ.  Wow!

• I can wear jeans and a T-shirt and not look like a complete and utter slob.  This is great!  Thanks to good old ‘Merica for setting a low standard on what is acceptable leaving-the-house-attire.

• We can understand all the conversations happening around us- this is really distracting when you’re so used to easily being able to turn out the urban white noise equivalent to cicada chirping.  This goes the other direction as well.  We are often reminding ourselves to talk quieter and watch the swear words.  We constantly forget that people can actually understand us here.

• When you accidentally use the metric system and a fellow citizen looks at you like you’re a terrorist.  Geez.  Step down buddy.  Calling it a meter stick instead of a yardstick is just as accurate.  And we are consistently off by a factor of 1.6 when estimating driving distances.  Hmm.

• Service!  Picture our surprise and child-like excitement when someone actually used a blinker… well, multiply that by a factor of 10 when the waitress actually stopped by after our food arrived to “check in.”  Glorious!!  And did I mention free refills- I think we’ve died and gone to carbonated-beverage-heaven.

It’s good to be home ladies and gentlemen.  Good to be home.