Problem with COUNTA "NOT" counting empty cells

Hi,

I am using two dynamic lists, one is dependent on the other. The dependent list has some empty cells to seperate different catagories. The dependent list looks like this:

Fruits
Apple - Blue
Apple - Red
Apple - Green

Melon - White

Banana -Yellow
Banana - Green

Since this list is a dynamic dependent one, I had to use OFFSET, INDIRECT and COUNTA formulas. The COUNTA messes up my list because it counts non empty cells. The drop down menu it looks like:

Fruit
Apple - Blue
Apple - Red
Apple - Green

Melon - White

Because the COUNTA ignores the two empty cells seperating the categories, it effectively cuts the two last entries from the drop down list. I could remove the empty cells and skip the seperation of categories, but I prefer not to since I want the xls file to be as user friendly as possible. This means that I also have to use dynamic name ranges for easy update/adding new entries. I was hoping someone could give me some tips to how to solve this issue. One solution I was thinking of was to count cells untill two emtpy cells in a row is found. But I don't know if this can be done in function form.

The formula used in the dynamic dependent list is:
=OFFSET(INDIRECT(SUBSTITUTE($A$2;" ";"_"));0;0;COUNTA(INDIRECT(SUBSTITUTE($A$2;" ";"_")&"Col"));1)