Well, the charter has been over for a few days, but that doesn't mean all has been fun and games yet... not completely, at least.  

Since our guests have left, my days have been filled with mountains of laundry and miles of vacuuming.  Yesterday alone, I had to stow the boat which is a pretty intense job in itself, but to do it ALONE is easily a multi-day affair.  This isn't the normal stow where I just put vases and lamps on the floor.  Yesterday I stuffed pillows in cabinets with wine and liquor bottles and moved ANYTHING that wasn't attached to the floor to one corner of the room, and taped and tied all the cabinets shut.  At one point, Shelton and Mark laughed at my wild hair -- when I put it up in a half ponytail and let my curls splay out around my head.  I thought it was cute, but they said I looked like a witch.  Jerks.

We have lost some crew members for the trip down to Ft. Lauderdale.  Donna Marie went back home (LUCKY!), Kaki left to drive the crew car back down to Florida, and Tim went on vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  As a result, we got a new engineer, Phil's best friend Boise.  He's British and HILARIOUS!  I love him...  Mark's dad and Chris's sister are also joining us for the ride down.  Chris's sister just got out of culinary school, so she's getting some galley experience on the trip, and Mark's dad is just hanging out.  

I said that not EVERYTHING has been fun and games since the guests left, but that doesn't mean we didn't have a LITTLE fun.  The other night, Donna Marie and I went out on the town to celebrate the finishing of a charter, and we stumbled upon a blues bar that was REALLY cool!  Not only were our fellow crew members there -- Mark, Chris, and Boise -- but they had a Karaoke band!  Anyone who knows me KNOWS that I LOVE KARAOKE!!!  So, I couldn't WAIT to get myself up on stage.  I sang Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats", but I couldn't hear myself on the monitors...  everyone said I rocked it though...  It was SOOOO cool to have a LIVE band to sing with!!!  I've always said that I wanted to be a rock star for about fifteen minutes, and now I have... so I can tick that off my "To Do Before I Die" list...  

We are underway now for New York.  We should approach Chelsea, Manhattan around eight o'clock tonight, and we'll have all day tomorrow in Manhattan.  I'm really excited to see the city, but I have NO clue what I want to do...  I'll be researching today to see what's around the area, but if I have to take a cab, then SO BE IT!