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!!

Fort Myers con't, con't...Spring Training!

Fort Myers con't, con't...  Go Jays Go.

I'd like to be clear.  I'm NOT complaining, but Wow!  Hot.Hot.Hot.   Sorry, just had to get that out of my system.  We're sweltering in front of fans and I'm dreaming how lovely it would be to roll around in fresh, cold snow  (Not Jeff, he says if he sees snow on our drive north he's turning around).

I just wanted to update my post from the other day to share some of the awesome pics Jeff took at the Blue Jays Spring Training game yesterday.  It was a great game, even if the Twins stole it from us in the last inning with a final score of 4/3.  It is a good sign for the upcoming season that all the Jay's starting players were resting and it was still a good game.  Lots of young pitching talent out there! Check out the action.....

Three more days and our journey home begins.  Thanks for reading!  We've  had more than 30,000 page views on this blog and it will be a great souvenir for ourselves of our travels.

Life in Fort Myers...continued

Our time in Fort Myers is drawing to a close.  Actually, it should have drawn to a close a couple of weeks ago but we've become so nicely settled in here that we keep delaying our departure.  While Fort Myers is a great place to spend time we'll never get used to the constant sirens, shootings reported on the News (several a week) and the bridges over the river being closed because of "jumpers" (two since we've been here).  Pretty unsettling for two small town Ontario bumpkins.

Not to say we're not having a blast! (no pun intended). Lots of golf is being enjoyed and my game is starting to pick up a bit.  We drove up to the Port Charlotte area to visit and play some golf with Paul & Mary, friends from our home marina back in Canada.  They are down here for several months in his motor home.  We've enjoyed many dinner gatherings, regular visits to the local nature reserve with the camera, both spring training and college level baseball, surprise visits from folks on vacation from Ontario.  Lots of fun!  But that's one of the advantages to staying put in one spot for awhile.  People can find us!

It's been a fun stay but we'll be outta here next week (we mean it this time) to head up the Caloosahatchee River (say that five times fast) to Glades, a boat storage facility in central Florida. There, we'll have Gran Vida hauled, washed and tucked in for her summer nap.

For us.... road trip.... yay!!!!  We'll head north in the Mustang with stops in St. Augustine, the Barrier Island of North Carolina, and Brooklyn NY.  Lots of fun things planned.  We should be back in Canada mid April, just under the wire to keep our U.S. stay under six months.

Life in Fort Myers

We've settled in nicely here at the Fort Myers Yacht Basin, which is a municipal marina right in the centre of town.  What a nice place to call "home" for awhile.  We're docked between friends Joe and Connie on Chesapeake and Janice and Russ on Dream Chaser and there are plenty of other friends scattered around the marina.  Life is good.  Pretty routine but very, very pleasant with lots of fun thrown in the mix.

We've reverted back to our regular "snowbird" lifestyle.  Jeff's done the bright work on the boat (which looks fantastic!) and now is working on waxing the hull,.  I'm making shade curtains for the cockpit and cleaning, organizing, and cooking my little heart out (which is fun for me).  Jeff golfs regularly with Joe, Janice and Russ and on occasion he and Joe slip out in the evenings to partake in some billiards.  I go to the local pool for lane swimming and Connie and I go to Tai Chi and Yoga classes. We gather every afternoon around five for docktails and often play a bit of muckers on the grassy area beside the boats.   There's lots of events going on in this town so we're kept well entertained.

I took a girls' day and drove to visit one of my co-workers from the school board, Lorrie, at her condo.  A lovely lunch and walk on the beach was enjoyed.  It was fun to catch up.

Marathon to Fort Myers

Marathon

We had planned to move on but we ended up staying tied up to the mangroves in Marathon for a while longer.  The winds picked up again which would have made travelling uncomfortable. Since we are not on a schedule or had anywhere in particular we HAD to be we figured, what the hey, and stayed put.  It turned out to be a fun stay!  There were about twenty boats tied up in Sister's Creek alongside us and we enjoyed their camaraderie.

Marathon is a crazy place to spend time as a boater.  It's just sooooo crowded!  They have two dinghy docks to service the large mooring field and all the boats anchored around waiting for a spot.  It's great fun to watch people park when it's so crowded.  They just line up a spot between two dinghies and hit the throttle.  Sometimes they make it in successfully, sometimes not so much!

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We finally got to meet Randy and Sherry from the boat Priorities. They are good friends of our friends Jim and Mimi, who we travelled with a great deal on our loop trip.  When Jim and Mimi weren't with us, they were often with Randy and Sherry.  It was fun to finally catch up.  We'd heard so much about them.

We spent our time in Marathon visiting with friends and exploring all the little canals and lagoons.  One day, after dinghy 'sploring looking for a good manatee picture with not much luck, we tied up to Randy & Sherry's boat for a visit.  I climbed aboard and Jeff, still in the dinghy, turned around and there they were!  Two big ones coming right for him and then under the dinghy!  I could see them quite clearly from up on the boat.  They are such magnificent, gentle creatures...  even if they do look a little like cucumbers.

Tavernier

Not being ones to pass up on an opportunity for a good visit with friends, we eventually cast off and made our way to Tavernier to catch up with the crew of Fugitive, our Ontario friends Brian and Janice.  We anchored in a little bay in about three, yup, count 'em, THREE feet of water, surrounded by liveaboards.  We were warned by some of the other boaters that the bottom was loose mud and didn't hold well. There were some of those seemingly ever-present strong Northerlies forecasted to be blowing in so we were a little nervous but Gran Vida, once again, held well.  She's awesome.  After a great evening with Brian and Janice, complete with a very impressive light show (had to be there, Brian got a coo,l high powered flashlight for Christmas), we were off at first light in the morning to make our way to the Everglades National Park.

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Everglades National Park

We spent the next several days exploring Everglades National Park.  First stop was Flamingo, right on the most southern tip of mainland Florida.  One would expect to see, um, lots of Flamingos there? Not to be.  Apparently there are no wild Flamingos left in Florida as they were wiped out in the early 1900s (they're still in the Caribbean and Mexico though).  But we got lucky!  Apparently, much to the excitement of park staff (and us!) two Flamingos just happened to have dropped in and were spotted in a quiet corner of the park. Off we went! (a little bit of Jane Hathaway from the Beverly Hillbilly's lives in us.  We love this stuff).  To get there we had to dinghy a long channel (with dolphins swimming along right beside us. I could have reached out and touched them. what a hoot!) and then row the rest of the way in the strong winds, as combustible engines are not allowed in this section of the park. Despite Jeff's valiant effort rowing against really strong winds and the heartfelt encouragement of the "coxman", we ran out of water and the dinghy pretty much hit bottom.  Darn.  But we did see them from a distance.... we think....

Don't laugh.  Despite our determination this is the best picture we could manage.  Most of the pink birds here are Roseate Spoonbills, native to Florida.  But to the naked eye we could see one was a different shade of pink and bigger.  That was the Flamingo we figure...  That's our story and we're sticking to it!

After much dinghy 'sploring in the mangroves over the past few weeks looking for a crocodile we finally found one swimming just outside the visitor centre in the park.  Jeez.  You can identify them by the pointy snout and flat head.

We made our way north to Shark River and then to Everglade City, where they were having their Seafood Festival. Great live music was enjoyed.  We eventually plotted north and ended up anchored just off the southern tip of Estero Island, where Fort Myers Beach is.  We dinghied the five miles or so up to visit friends we had made there last year and, of course, check out a few happy hours with them.

We were the only boat in our large anchorage, which was open to the west.  We knew a storm was possibly blowing in from the southwest but we figured we'd be slightly protected there. What's the worst that could happen?  (Oh, never mind).  On the radar the storm looked a little north of us and there was only a fifty-nine percent chance it would hit us at all.

Well, winds change.  We got hammered.  At about five in the morning we lay awake side by side with eyes wide open and lightning crashing all around us. The boat was bucking like a bronco.  It was one of the few times I felt nervous on the boat.  But storms are storms. They happen on land or at sea. In a situation like that we usually feel safer anchored out in a big anchorage. The boat can swing with the wind and even if the anchor does drag a bit it usually will catch again. There's nothing around us to bump into!  It passed.  We were fine.  

We arrived in Fort Myers to the welcoming greetings of  tons of friends. This is a popular marina and we were glad to see so many familiar faces. We're booked in here for a month, which will give us a chance to get a few boat projects done, catch up with friends and just relax.  Perfect. Sounds like a Gran Vida to us!