Heading Home... Road trip!!

Haul Out

All good things must come to and end and the winter of 2015/16 has been a good thing.  What a great time we've had!  We managed to check off lots from our "wanna do" lists, including lots of good golf, traveling with friends and spring training.

We traveled forty miles or so up the Calooshahatchee River to a boat storage yard.  It's in a pretty remote area and we saw at least five alligators along the way. Our haul out was scheduled for 8:15 the next morning so we tied up to the dock overnight, keeping a careful eye on the water with every big splash we heard (probably just fish jumping, right??) and enjoyed our last barbeque supper in the cockpit at sunset.

In the morning Gran Vida was hauled and after a good cleaning, organizing and fussing over we tucked her in for her summer's nap.  Fingers crossed, she'll be fine, albeit a little dirty, when we return to her in the fall.

Road Trip

We decided to make the most of our drive home with a road trip.  On the itinerary were the Barrier Island of North Carolina (looking very forward to driving them with the top down on the car) and a stop in the Big Apple to visit my niece and her husband, Rachel and Bartek.

After a day and a half of driving and much anticipation we were so disappointed when we heard the weather forecast for our day on the Barrier Islands -- rain, thunderstorms and high winds.  Ugh.  As we waited for the ferry we could see the storms rolling in off in the distance.  In a way we were excited about being out there on the big ferry in some weather, hoping for an exciting ride, but we were hoping they'd be over by the time we arrived on the island.

The sky did open up just as we were pulling onto the ferry and it poured.  The winds were wild and for most of the ride they were so strong that when we went outside to the "sun deck" we had to hold on to the railing with two hands.  It was awesome to watch as the storm rolled on past to reveal blue skies hiding behind those big nasty clouds. The weather is often quite readable when you're out on the open water.  Bye-bye storm.  Thanks for the good show.

Once we got off the ferry and onto the island, away from the open water and wind, it got quite warm.  Zzzzzt.....  down went the convertible top.  The weather was absolutely perfect for a drive, about twenty-two degrees (for our American friends that's about 72 degrees Fahrenheit) and sunny.  Whoo-hoo!  We were pumped!

The Barrier Island are a chain of very narrow island that jut out into the Atlantic along North Carolina's coast.  As you're driving there are sand dunes on both sides. The Atlantic Ocean is right there on the right, putting on a big crashy show in all that wind and Palmico Sound is on the left, calmer but often more visible as the dunes aren't quite as big.  Here are a few highlights:

 To transverse the islands it took two different ferries (the first trip was two and a half hours long, the second one an hour), about two hours of driving time, and lots of pit stops to check out various lighthouses, museums, beaches and shops.  We were surprised to see a snow plow, well, a sand plow I guess, clearing the road.  What a wonderful way to spend a day!!