Merry Christmas 2018

This is our fifth season in the South on Gran Vida, and other than one unfortunate trip home at Christmas for a sudden family funeral, we've spent every Christmas here in the South on the boat.  And I've never quite gotten used to it.  There is just something weird about listening to Christmas Carols while sitting in shorts in front of a cooling fan.

As usual, we were treated to a pyjama clad Christmas morning video chat with the grandkids as they opened their presents.  Such a cozy scene.  Hugs were shared through screens from fifteen hundred odd miles away.  With a fire crackling in the fireplace my daughter turned the camera to give us a glimpse of the wintery wonderland in her forested yard.  I so much wanted to be there and go for a walk in the woods after a morning playing with the kids.  I could almost hear that snow crunching under my feet.  Sometimes I miss winter so much.

As I'm sure is obvious, I battle homesickness this time of year.  We enjoyed phone calls and texts/emails with family and friends, all which helped to get me through.

It was a glorious, sunny day here in Florida and we ended the day with a dockside, pot-luck get-together in the warm sunshine with other boaters and lots of laughter and comaraderie. My attitude was quickly adjusted.  Perspective gained.

We have so much to be thankful for.....

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas 

and much peace, happiness and health in 2019.

Getting Stuff Done

We've been pluggin' away getting a few things done on the boat.  Jeff was busy down in the hole in the floor:  he installed two new batteries, tightened up some belts, changed some hoses, etc etc.

We replaced these old stained curtains, circa 1979, with....

...new blinds

 We completed some regular maintenance.
Here another coat of cetol is going on the bright work.

Provisioning is complete.  There is NO room on this boat for anything else.
  We have enough food/supplies on board to last three month...we hope!

We have about a week to go before we blast off so the pressure is on to get a few last minute jobs done.  I'm half way done sewing new drapes for the glass doors and Jeff's been buff and waxing a little bit each day.  Then some last minute organising, put the car in storage, and we're outta here!  Likely, we'll be heading East to await our weather window to cross to the Bahamas....  but one never knows for sure until we're doing it.

With Friends Like This....

Jeff's sore sternum is healing up nicely but as expected it's taking some time.  We've set aside six weeks for convalescence and we have two more weeks to go before, if all goes according to plan, we shove off from the dock.  We suspect that he has damaged his sternum somehow, but he never did get it X-rayed, arguing, vehemently sometimes, and against all logical advice, that there was nothing they could do but recommend rest.

Friendly Tip:  don't bother arguing with a Canadian of Scottish descent.  Holy hard-headed!

The heinous faucet that Jeff landed on, square on the chest.

It was very painful at first, especially when he coughed, and we were all concerned.  But four week in Jeff is getting up and about a bit more and getting some projects done on the boat.

With all the sensitive, caring friends around here, they somehow never seem to tire of gleefully reminding him to be careful!  Note the pics below:

Friendly reminder

Joining friends for a bloody mary fest on their flybridge.....

They had ALL the faucets on the dock covered with chairs...  just in case Jeff tripped again.  Jeez.

Some mysterious prankster covered the faucet outside our boat with an old life jacket

Nice that he's well enough that it doesn't hurt tooo much to laugh.

Six Mile Cyprus Slough

One of our favourite things to do is get up early in the morning and head out to one of the local nature refuges in the area, Jeff, with camera in hand and his big lens on.  Today it was Six Mile Cyprus Slough (pronounced "slew").

This area is actually a storm run-off area but they've given it back to mother nature.  It is very swampy and there are several natural ponds and an old quarry pit where two alligators are in residence, Big Al and Stubby.  Stubby got his name after a tangle with Big Al where his foot (paw?) was bitten off.  They now usually stay on opposite sides of the pit. Winding through it all is a several mile long boardwalk so one is always perched up above the swamp with great views.

We just love these nature areas, with their almost church-like feel, at least to us.  We find if we just sit quietly for a few minutes the place comes alive with birds, reptiles, various mammals...  once even pigs (although we hear they are escapees from a local farm).

Pileated Woodpecker

We chuckled when we learnt the name of this bird is the:
Immature Night Heron

Baby Copper Mouth Snake - highly poisonous.  We wondered where mom and dad were.

We wondered what all those pointy things were. 
We found out they are Cyprus knees - part of the root system of Cyprus trees.

The Skateboard Tragedy

We were chatting with a group of local boaters on the docks.  One of the children of a liveaboard family, a little eleven year old girl, went scooting by on her long board.  She shouted something cheeky to her mom as she was zooming past and her mom chuckled and taunted back that karma would get her for that.  We all had a laugh.

The guys.  Plotting their rescue.

Not ten seconds later that little cheeky monkey was back in tears.  She had lost control of her long board and into the water it went. (We were impressed with mom's abilities and took note not to ever cross her!)

Boaters quickly gathered, poking around with boat hooks etc, trying to find it.  It was in about six or seven feet of very murky river water.  No luck.

The next day a bunch of guys spent quite a bit of time strategizing and dragging anchors back and forth in the area it was last seen, trying to hook it.  The poor little girl was inconsolable.

Hooray!!!!

Eventually a diver who was in the marina cleaning boat bottoms volunteered to have a quick look. Mom explained that she couldn't afford to pay him.





It took about half an hour but he saved the day!  The little girl was delighted!  The guys plied him with free beer.

I just love a happy ending.

A Little Close for Comfort

We were walking the dock here at the marina one day just checking out the boats when we saw, right in the marina, a great big wonkin' gater.  He (or she) was just hanging out, eyeing us with steely eyes, right beside the very low dinghy dock.  It certainly didn't look too shy.  What a surprise that would have been for a dinghy pulling into the dock.  It must have been about ten feet long!

Wow!  Alligators are common on the rivers and they are usually shy and stick to themselves.  We see them sunning on the banks or floating in the river, but we've NEVER seen one in a marina before.  We wondered if someone was feeding it. (later, someone told me that a couple of dufusses were feeding it cheesies).

Later, while doing laundry, I noticed some action going on over by the local floating hair salon.
The salon is in a houseboat right here in the marina. The women were coming out the back door, with hair in various stages of "doing", snapping pics of a smaller gater, just floating there beside a piling, not five feet from the salon door.

So that is two of them.

The alligator catcher was called, a trap was set, but as of yet nothing has been caught.  Which is good news for the gators, as they would probably be destroyed being now comfortable around humans.

I'm hoping they got smart and went back out into the river where they belong.

Stuart Visit

 Yep, we're still here in Fort Myers.  Like I said before, if you're going to be laid up somewhere, this is a pretty sweet place to be.  We've got lots of friends here, there is always something going on, the weather has been good - vacillating between cold fronts (sweater weather) and heat waves (sitting in front of a fan).

Jeff's still pretty sore but he's moving around more and we're getting a few things done.

Grant, Cindy, Susan, Jeff

Grant turns the big six-Oh

We drove to Stuart on the East Coast to visit with friends Grant and Cindy (M/V As the Crow Flies) to help Grant celebrate his 60th birthday.  They had just received very bad news regarding their engine.  This, after just pouring a whole bunch of money into their boat for new tanks and various other repairs.  They were all provisioned and set to cross to the Bahamas with us when a little anti-freeze leak, on investigation, morphed into a whole other problem, requiring a new engine rebuild.  YIKES!!

We had intended to cross to the Bahamas with Grant and Cindy in early December but between Jeff's injuries and Grant and Cindy's mechanical problems, all plans have been rewritten.

This bad engine news arrived the day before Grant's 60th so that put a damper on the celebrations. There was no way we were going to let Grant celebrate his 60th without us.  It didn't take them long to shake it off and get with the birthday programme though. Things grew back into perspective and a great night was enjoyed, with lots of laughs and good cheer.

Mechanical problems and travel logistics will be sorted out.  The priorities of friendship, health and living life to the fullest quickly became the focus.