Cruising the ICW - Little River, SC to Marthon, Fl - Cool Change Travels & Adventures

The End of a Wonderful Journey

2017-03-28T17:14:00.002-07:00

After seven winters of cruising all over Florida we have sold our boat, Cool Change. Our last journey took us down (north) on the St. John's River from Sanford to Jacksonville and then south to Daytona , revisiting much of our favorite Florida scenery. One last time, we would like to take you along with us on our travels.

Sunrise at Monroe Harbor Marina where we docked for three months
this winter. The town is friendly old South with plenty of conveniences
nearby, including many good restaurants within walking distance.
Having family and friends an hour or less away in Orlando,
The Villages, Apopka, Marritt Island and Cocoa was an added bonus for us.

A common fresh water bird along the St. John's. This particular guy
perched atop our bow light and posed for several photos at Hontoon Island.

Same type of bird, different place.
I watched this character for about ten minutes as he worked
to extract the meat from a shell on the docks in Sanford.
He was very determined and was eventually successful.

Lake Monroe's Riverwalk is one of the most scenic and easily accessible
walkways we've encountered on our journeys. Colleen especially liked the many park
benches, placed just where she wanted them,
and the good public bathrooms along the way.

I love the reflections of posts and birds in morning's still waters
along the Riverwalk on Lake Monroe.

In mid February the boat was shown to a prospective buyer. He came aboard and looked her over from stem to stern. A few days later we received an offer from him. It was rock bottom and we agonized over what to do. Our broker suggested a counter offer, which we did, meeting halfway between the offer and what we wanted. We chewed our fingernails for a couple of days and then the broker announced that the buyer had gotten cold feet and had backed out. Phooey! We continued with our plans to leave Sanford and pulled out on February 25th.

Here's the captain, expertly inching his way out of the marina.

And we're in the river.

Wayne's cousins, Victor and Barbie, live just a few hours away from Sanford, in Astor.
Their home was our first stop on the trip north.
Barbie always feeds us well and Colleen appreciated using their
washing machine and dryer one more time.

Victor and Barbie, a few of our favorite framily members
(that stands for friends who are also family). People like this
may also be referred to as "friends-in-law."

On February 26th we continued our journey north.
The boat was running perfectly and there was lots of sunshine and sights to see.
Notice below the interesting counterbalance that helps this railroad bridge
to operate.

Trains can be the bane of our existence on the water. We often
have to sit and wait for long periods for the railroad bridge to open.
On this day we waited for not one.......

but two trains coming from opposite directions with a forty
minute span between them.

We saw extensive damage from Hurricane Matthew
this year. Here you can see clumps of trees that were snapped off
or uprooted in the storm or blown sideways from the winds.

On February 27th as we made our way toward Doctor's Lake
west of Jacksonville, our broker contacted us again.
Same original buyer with the same original low offer. We thought for about
two seconds and then said, "We'll take it!" We'll continue on to Daytona and
complete the sale from there or from home in North Carolina.

The St. John's creates many lakes as it makes its way north.

February 28th brought us to and through Jacksonville. This is a city of bridges
and, thankfully we had an easy passage through them.

By March 1st we were dealing with some blustery, chilly winds coming from the south into our faces. A nostalgic view of one of our family's favorite destinations, St. Augustine, reminded us that this will probably be our last time to see this old American city from the water.

Castillo de San Marcos
This winter Colleen learned that her family has deep roots
in this historic city.

Downtown St. Augustine

The Bridge of the Lions opens for us one final time.

Passing under Colleen's favorite bridge,
we're nearly to Halifax Harbor Marina in Daytona Beach,
our final destination.

Cool Change, spic and span and ready for her new owners.

We've had a wonderful journey over the past seven years, seeing parts of Florida both familiar and new. We've survived a bit of wild weather events but mostly we've feasted on sunshine and gentle breezes. We've savored our time together, never being more than forty feet apart from each other and always moving at slow speed. It's been a treasured time and we thank you all for taking the trip with us, for commenting on our adventures and commiserating with us on our repair excitements.

Lots of people are asking what we will do next. Well........we're getting a dog.

Colleen and Wayne

Goodbye, dear friend

A Last Video Tour of Cool Change

Jan 4th - February 24th

2017-03-02T13:22:00.002-08:00

Second installment - Winter 2016-2017

We've had a busy winter this year, having a chance to see lots of friends and family members and do some fun things in Central Florida. The good news for us is that we've had a minimal number of repairs on the boat, although we know that when we do have repairs, it adds to the entertainment value of our blog for all of you. We're relieved, though, that repairs have not featured prominently in this winter's activities.

Winter with friends and family

Colleen, June and Sandra have been friends for around forty years,
ever since we were Orlando neighbors. We haven't changed much?!

Hal and Young are friends from North Carolina. We were so pleased that they
came to see us while visiting Hal's sister nearby. The Korean meal we ate, featuring Korean
barbeque, was uniquely delicious.

Korean barbeque - cooked by Young at our table

One night we got together with some treasured longtime boating friends
from our Florida life - Richard, left, and Jim..

Pam, left. and Shaula

Mary, Marla and Colleen - a nearly sixty year friendship.
We have changed quite a bit since we met in 1958 in elementary school.

We docked in the town of Sanford for almost two-and-a-half months. On February 25th we pulled out of Sanford's Monroe Harbor Marina and started on our way to move the boat to Halifax Harbor Marina in Daytona, Florida. The trip by cafr is 39 miles. By boat it was a trip of 220 miles and 5 days. Cool Change is still on the market and we feel it will get good exposure in Daytona.

New dinghy photos and story of sale

In our last blog post we told about our new dinghy. Well, we have sold it after only two months ownership. We were informed by our boat broker and our prospective new broker that the new dinghy added little value to our boat when sold. It would just "Go with the boat". So...we listed it on Craigslist and sold it in three days. The dinghy was soon on its way to the new owner and the cash was dropped into the hole in our bank account.
The lift system shown here has been removed to be sold separately.

Finally got the perfect dinghy setup - NOW GONE

Repairs

Who says there have been no repairs! We have been chasing the cure for the port motor overheating when the RPMs are over 1800. It has rarely been a problem for us since we usually travel at less than that. Wayne began taking apart the seawater cooling system section by section looking for the cause, At the 4th stage he found that an old sacrificial anode had broken off and was lodged in the water exit atop the aftercooler case. This blocked about half of the water flow. No problem at low speed. But it was if we wanted to put the boat up on plane - problem.
That is the culprit lying loose in the cap in the photo with the correct anode shown also.. Lesson, when an old anode is removed and there is nothing left on the stud, remove the cap and look for pieces that may have broken off.

Meeting up with our old boating club at Hontoon Island

In mid January we took a weekend boat trip to Hontoon Island and met up with the Central Florida Cruise Club, our boat club for many years while we lived in Florida. Wayne entered their chili cookoff and won the grand prize! Friends Roger and Marcy traveled with us to Hontoon. Our friends, Jim and Shaula, joined us there and our middle son, Patrick from Boston, came to see us with his (and our) friend, Jason. Colleen took a several hour long hike with Jason and Patrick, all the way to the Indian mound deep in the island's palmetto jungle. What fun! Puff! Puff!

Wayne's winning chili concoction

Chili - 10 to 12 people

2 lbs ground meat

1 cup water

1 can chili beans

1 can Hormel chili with beans

1 can pinto beans

2 cans diced tomatoes

1/4 cup taco sauceq

1/8 cup Olive oil

Oregano 1 tsp

Pepper to taste

Salt 1 tsp

Bay leaf 2

Minced Garlic 2 tsp

Worcestershire 2 tsp

Old bay seasoning 1 tsp

3 stalks celery

2 medium carrots

Bell pepper - red and green

Chili powder 4 tsp

1 can Tomato sauce

1 large onion

Cumin 1/2 tsp

4 Yellow chilis

1/4 cup sugar

I'm sure you recognize them by now - our old friends Roger and Marcy

Marcy knows there is nothing better than an afternoon
nap on a boat beneath a homemade quilt.

Wayne, Colleen and Patrick
We loved having a visit from our boy.

Jason - Patrick's friend and one of our
honorary sons

Family Roots

We mentioned last month that we have roots in this part of Florida. In early February Wayne dragged Colleen kicking and screaming to the Sanford Historical Museum. Turns out the museum has lots of information on Colleen's Leonardy branch of her family and the museum staff was thrilled to meet a Leonardy descendant. They generously shared their research. Colleen has also contacted the author of a book about this branch of the family. Latrell Mickler agreed to meet us in St. Augustine for lunch and we traveled there with two cousins, Midge and Tony, and all had a good time hearing and telling family stories.

Colleen's great aunt Herberta Hathcock Leonardy
was the first woman admitted to practice law before
the US Supreme Court on April 17, 1930.

Farmers in Sanford first planted celery in 1896.
The crop was so successful that a nickname for the city was Celery City.
The columns on the Sanford Historical Museum are adorned
with celery, sight we have never seen before!

Colleen's cousin Latrell (fourth cousin, twice removed or something like that)
graciously autographed copies of the book she wrote about our family,
Gaspar Papi and Ana Pons Their Lives and Descendants.

Cousins Midge, Tony, Latrell and Colleen

Local Attractions

You may recall that we were planning to visit The Central Florida Zoo and also wanted to take a ride on Sunrail, Central Florida's new commuter train system that runs through three counties in the Orlando area. This is a true commuter rail system.

Both excursions were well worth our time. The Central Florida Zoo in Sanford is well laid out and displays a large assortment of animals, many of them native to the state.

Anyone want to make the acquaintance of an alligator?

The reptile house contained many beautiful snake specimens.

Most of them were pretty active for snakes and fascinating to watch.

The SunRail commuter train goes from DeBary, just north of Sanford, to Sand Lake Road, only about a mile from our old neighborhood in Orlando. The round trip fare for both Wayne and Colleen was $5.50 and it took us about an hour to go one way.

The SunRail cars were clean and quiet.

The trip took us through downtown Winter Park and Orlando
from a perspective we'd never seen before. At the end of the line
we walked to a Denny's for lunch and then rode the train back
to Sanford. The southernmost stop is almost across the street from our business location and our Orlando home of 20 years ago

This year's quilting projects are wrapping up.

Last year Colleen ran out of projects before she ran out of winter but this year it looks like it will all even out, to her great relief.

I quilted and bound five children's quilts for my quilt guild
charity after guild members pieced the quilt tops.

Foundation paper piecing if one of my favorite techniques. The
back looks like a jigsaw puzzle when it's in progress.

When all the pieces are sewn together it makes a
complicated picture but it's sort of like a
piece-by-number project and not very hard.

This was to be a quilt and it's been a long time in the making.
After I got all the blocks made (enough for a queen-sized
bedspread) I decided I didn't like the way they looked together.
This may be destined to be a UFO (unfinished object in quilt terms)
or a lot of table runners, supplying me with Christmas and birthday gifts
for many years to come.

I made two table runners using this pattern and
different color combinations.

More paper piecing

You may remember that in the last blog I said I was learning how to
make chenille. It was not an easy task but it was interesting
and I liked the results in this muffler. I made two for
Christmas presents.

Cousins Tony and Midge and Midge's husband Earl standing
in front of Sanford's popular riverboat.

Starting a new winter on the boat

2017-01-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

Winter in Florida - Again
November 30, 2016-January 4, 2017

Here we are again. Our apologies to those of you who have been asking, "Where's your blog?"

In late April we hung a For Sale sign on the back of Cool Change After six years of wintering on the boat we felt we were ready for some new adventures. However, the boat didn't sell and we find we're happy to return for at least one more year of river cruising in the wilds of Florida.

A bittersweet moment - putting a For Sale sign on our boat.

Jacksonville's Marina at Ortega River decked out for Christmas.
It was a welcoming home all last year.

Our trip began in Jacksonville, on the St. John's River where we were docked at the Marina at Ortega River. This major Florida river runs north from marshes near Vero Beach, through the eastern middle of the state and empties into the Atlantic east of Jacksonville after traveling over 300 miles. In the 1800s through the middle 1900s the St Johns River was a major transportation route for central Florida people, cattle, and produce. Our first night was a stop at Corky Bell's restaurant in Palatka, FL where we had drinks in the bar and ate a great dinner. We stayed overnight on their 150 foot customer dock. We did not ask permission but no one asked us to leave.

This U of Florida Gator Country!!
Corky Bell's sports an alligator theme throughout.
This is only one of the gator statues you'll find there.
All were decked out for Christmas.

At a leisurely pace we traveled to Astor and tied up at the dock of Victor and Barbie, Wayne's cousins. They are great hosts and we had a hard time dragging ourselves away three days later.

Victor and Barbie had never had Hardee's hamburgers.
Now they're hooked.

No tree on the boat this year. We were glad to share
Victor and Barbie's

With directions from Colleen, Barbie made herself
a microwave potholder

Cruisin' down the river
Leaving the driving to the first mate!

Our next stop was Hontoon Island State Park. A free ferry there takes you to shore where we found a nice little sandwich shop. We also had a ringside seat for the local Christmas boat parade.

Cool Change Christmas lights at Hontoon Island State Park

We couldn't get good photos of the boat parade as they were moving too fast for the cameras

Free ferryboat
It takes you on a five minute trip from the island to the mainland
and picks you up when you're ready to return.

We saw no alligators this time at Hontoon but we did catch sight of this snowman and
the rangers warned us to be on the lookout for a bear. On our last trip here, Wayne almost
stepped on a water moccasin sunning on the dock.

Hontoon has well maintained nature trails that go from the
waterfront back into cabin-and-tent sites in the woods.

By December 11 we had crossed Lake Monroe and settled into the Monroe Harbor Marina in downtown Sanford, where we still are. The town of Sanford is an old and important part of Florida's history. Colleen's family has roots in this area since her maternal grandparents settled in nearby Deland in the 1800s and the family of her maternal grandfather lived in Sanford and Osteen. Wayne's grandparents also were living in Deland in the late 1800s. Deland was small enough that our families actually knew each other more than seventy-five years before Wayne and Colleen had their fateful meeting at the Orange County Science Fair in 1965. Sanford is also the city that Wayne's parents eloped to from Deland in 1935. Colleen's cousin, Tony, still lives in the home of his grandparents only a few blocks from the marina. We've been glad to reconnect with him and to hear family history.

Sunset looking to the city of Sanford out our stern.

View from the shore of our dock which has a covered section at the end.

View forward from our boat.

The weeks before Christmas flew by. Due to our later-than-usual start getting down here there were Christmas gifts that still needed making and wrapping and mailing and a Christmas letter to write and mail too.

A Christmas present I learned to make in
my North Carolina craft club.

In addition to decorating the shirt I made tote bags and learned how to make chenille. The chenille became mufflers. Very hard to do. Probably won't tackle that again.
We had a chance to see a second Christmas boat parade in Merritt Island, at the home of Roger and Marcy and also participated in their annual soup cook off. We didn't make any soup - we just sampled the eight varieties. All of them were winners. We also spent time in Cocoa with Colleen's best friend Marla and her remarkable poodles, TeeDee and Chloe.

A startling view at lunch. Wayne was eating lunch with friend Roger when a cruise ship came in the newly widened Port Canaveral.

The Merritt Island boat parade as viewed from Roger's and Marcy's back yard and dock.

On December 20 we traveled to the home of Wayne's brother Harlan and his wife Patty in The Villages, about 45 miles NW of here, for our traditional Christmas cookie baking. Their granddaughter Kaylin has progressed to master chef cookie assistant. We reminisced about the days when Kaylin's biggest contribution was spilling the sprinkles on the floor and eating the cinnamon decorations before we could get them onto the cookies.

You've come a long way, Kaylin.

The pilings on our dock are decorated with lights to look like palm trees.

Orlando friends Peggy and John visited us before
Christmas. Peggy and Colleen taught together in 1976-77.

On Christmas day we returned to The Villages for Christmas dinner with Harlan and Patty. Harlan was head chef and made a delicious traditional Christmas dinner. Our contribution was an appetizer, Texas Caviar (recipe below). Of course, there was football viewing that day too and then we women dragged the men away and made them play Taboo, a very fun game.

Harlan, Kaylin, Patty and Colleen

Texas caviar (from friend Jann with a little alteration)
1 green, yellow or red bell pepper
2 bunches of green onions
3 stalks of celery
1 red onion
Cilantro
Chop all of the above fine.

15-oz can black beans
15-oz can black-eyed-peas
(Some people use shoe peg corn and/or pimento too)
Drain the above items well

Boil: 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vinegar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
salt and pepper
Cool slightly; then pour over everything else in a big bowl. Mix gently. Refrigerate overnight in a zip bag and drain before serving with scoop corn chips.

We have finally said goodbye to the dinghy that came with the big boat. It was a 1997 model with fiberglass hull and inflatable sides. Wayne had installed 5 patches and it still was slowly leaking air. The fabric was starting to show through the rubber so we agreed that we needed a new one. We bought a new dinghy on December 1st and Wayne carried and secured it onto the front deck with help from a marina employee. while the old one resided on the stern platform. One hot day last week - 85 outside and probably 95+ on the concrete of the dock - we worked together to remove the lifting hardware from the old dinghy. Wayne placed the dinghy on Craigslist and, within eighteen hours, it had sold and was taken away by its new owner. Too bad the big boat hasn't moved that fast.

Poor old dinghy. It served us well until it started leaking 3 years ago.

New Walker Bay dinghy with last year's new outboard. Goody, no more patching and pumping up.

We're enjoying our stay here and are thinking this will be our berth for the whole winter. We still need to investigate a large number of restaurants, visit the Central Florida Zoo which is just down the road a bit and ride the commuter rail all the way down to our old Orlando neighborhood, just so we can say we did. Please let us know if you are in the area and can drop by to see us.

Riverboat dinner cruise leaves twice a day from our marina.

Winter on the Water Ends for Us

2016-03-09T18:17:00.001-08:00

February 29- March

Time to get ready to go back to North Carolina! On the 29th we rented an Enterprise car and drove our car to Cocoa and left it at a friend's house. We plan to rent again after we motor the boat to Jacksonville and go pick the car up, take it back to Jax, get the boat ready to leave at a new marina we've picked out, pack up the car and head home just in time for springtime in the Carolinas.

Our total for this last boat leg will be about 400 miles, Ft. Myers to Jacksonville, and should take 9-10 days.

March 1 - Ft. Myers to Franklin Lock

Wayne found that the Corps of Engineers maintains an RV park and docks at the Franklin Lock on the Caloosahatchee River With our senior citizens discount we had dockage for $15.00 inclusive of water and electric. Quite a deal with good showers and restrooms. It was just a short hop from Ft. Myers but we've been thinking we want to check this out and were glad we did.

The lower route is the one we take to get around Lake Okeechobee. We can cut at least an hour off our trip by taking a route
straight across the lake but it is shallow and often rough with unpredictable weather. Remember, we're in no rush and are
only a little bit adventuresome..

RR bridge leaving Ft. Myers

Franklin Lock Park
Really nice

Looking over the waters from our dock at the Franklin Lock

Most marinas have a take one/leave one lending library.
Many of them are full of what I call "books that have come to die,"
terrible yellowed pages on aged paperbacks with ripped or missing covers.
Franklin Lock's was a standout composed of all hardbound books
in good shape. You weren't allowed to just drop one off but
had to donate it through the front gate, I assume requiring approval
by the powers-that-be.

We took this shot of the water rushing through the Franklin Lock.
Lake O is very high due to heavy rains this winter and the Army
Corps of Engineers is dumping lake water in huge amounts. Like 6 billion gallons per day.
In Fort Myers there were lots of complaints about the brown water
coming off the lake and discoloring the beautiful blue Gulf, adversely
affecting the winter tourist industry.

March 2 - Franklin Lock to Lake Okeechobee Anchorage

We had a good day's travel and dropped our anchor in the same spot we've been in before, just before open water on the Lake O rim route. Last month we were swarmed by little tan cockroaches here and they invaded the interior of the boat. We've been fighting them for a month. We were on the lookout for them this time but, whatever they were doing back then, they seem to have finished it and hopefully have not left eggs to hatch in our boat later. Ugh!

Sunrise on the waterway

March 3 - Lake O to Ft. Pierce Anchorage

An easy day with great weather took us to a new anchorage, a little pocket of a lake just east of the bridge going to the beach in Ft. Pierce. We'll definitely anchor in this spot again. We enjoyed a beautiful, calm evening, just cool enough to make for great sleeping weather. We decided to stop over in Vero Beach tomorrow and contacted friends and Wayne's brother to see if we could get together.

Lake Okeechobee at its best....as we left our protected anchorage

And its worst. The smoke is from burning off sugar cane stalks
during the cane harvest. The ash from it floats onto our boat when the wind
blows toward us and makes a big mess.
The cranes are building new concrete spillways to try to control the lake water better.

We've never seen this process before but have heard of it. There's a fixed railroad bridge just as you get to the eastern side of Lake O. It's too low for most sailboats to maneuver under. But, for a price a guy will come to your boat and load you up with big barrels that he fills with water to weigh you down on one side and tilt your mast just enough to slip under the bridge. You can see the blue water barrels being loaded onto this sailboat.

Another RR bridge along the Okeechobee Waterway

Why are the RR bridges always closed when we get there?

The last lock, St Lucie Lock with Lk O at 16 feet above sea level

16 feet of water drop later and we were at Atlantic sea level and head east to Stuart, FL

March 4 - Ft. Pierce to Vero Beach City Marina

After serious discussion we decided to try for a dock space at the city marina. After all, we've managed to keep our dockage rates to $15.00 for the last three nights. Marina space generally goes for anywhere from $1.75/ft to $2.00/ft, For us that's between seventy and eighty dollars. Ridiculous considering that we supply our own linens and towels and soap and bed...and breakfast. The marina gives us a docking space and water hookup. Electricity is an additional charge!
Wayne's brother, Howard, came and took us to lunch and then we met friends Gil, Donna, and Rob for supper and fun conversation that night. Tomorrow we'll make it to Cocoa for sure and maybe even Titusville.

You can't imagine how many goofy partial shots we got before we
managed this selfie
Gil, Rob, Donna, Colleen and Wayne
We're looking forward to meeting up with you again.

March 5 & 6 - Vero Beach to Titusville

We did make it to Titusville today - a whopping 73 miles which is an eight or nine hour trip for us. We faced a cold, northerly wind most of the day and were wiped out when we arrived. Another marina stay so we could avoid the rough weather. I grabbed the opportunity to wash clothes and we were so happy to have Roger, Marcy, my friend Marla and her granddaughter, Mia, join us for supper at Cracker Jack's. I think the food was good. The three dollar margaritas were fantastic.
The next day 25 mph winds were forecast and we were having battery issues so prudence suggested another day in port. Well spent - reading, napping, sewing.

Marker 63 on the ICW.
This was a family destination when our boys were little.
We never pass it without remembering our guys playing with hermit crabs, exploring
the island, fishing, swimming, and camping out.

Marla, Mia Wayne, Marcy, Roger

Marcy made me a pair of socks.
Aren't they cool?

March 7 - Titusville to Hammock Beach Marina

Sunrise over the NASA Causeway Bridge. One of the many beautiful sunrises we see each year in Florida

Wow! Up on plane and running 18.4 mph!

......And things were going so well. Our plan was to make it to the marina at Marineland, north of Daytona. Early afternoon Wayne smelled diesel fuel and investigated and discovered fuel leaking under the motor on the port side of the boat. We shut down the port engine (thank goodness for a boat with two engines) and we began looking for a backup plan. We settled on calling a nearby marina at Hammock Beach near Palm Coast and they had space for us. We've stayed here before and, in fact, have friends whose home is right at the marina.
So, when you've got lemons......... We called Larry and Margaret and begged them to come over and help us clean out our refrigerator. They graciously agreed and we had another fun evening with friends. Thanks for being so flexible Larry and Margaret. And...thanks for the wine and conversations. Getting together with you was a pleasure.

Larry and Margaret

Repair Stories

Don't you all just look forward to this part of the blog?

We have had two issues on the trip to Jacksonville. One has been the short time that our battery bank is lasting. The house bank of 4 deep discharge batteries is only lasting until early morning before auto-shutdown occurs. The charge should last two days. What we found was that the batteries were not being fully charged when we run on one engine half the travel time. An eight hour travel day was only giving us 4 hours of charge. Also we had turned off the 130 amp charger on our inverter - don't know why we did that. Two simple cures, one - turn on the 130 amp charger for when we hook up at marinas and two - switch to "Both" on the battery selector switch when we are motoring and switch back to bank 1 when we stop. Hope that we remember to do that.

The second problem was we had the FUEL LEAK on the port motor. After we put in at the Hammock Beach Marina, Wayne started to look for the leak. Immediately it was apparent that the smaller engine mounted fuel filter was leaking at a seam. Wayne replaced the fuel filter but what a mess to clean up. Wayne used all eight bilge diapers (these are 16 inch square oil absorbent pads) plus 6 more that the marina manager gave us to clean up the mess. There were probably 3 gallons of diesel fuel spread along eight feet of the ledge under the motor and it had spilled over into our bilge water and was spread throughout the boat. The boat now has a pungent diesel smell that will take a lot of cleaning to remove.

We had a second scare today when it appeared that we still had a diesel leak. We shut down the engine and reevaluated our options. There was no way that we were going to make it to Jacksonville today. The current at St Augustine had slowed us to 6 mph. We decided to pull off and anchor in a creek that we had previously used to see if we could find and stop the leak. After spending much time crawling all over the engine there appeared to be no further leak. Wayne concluded that what looked like more leakage was merely pockets of puddled fuel spreading across the hull fiberglass and staining the bilge diapers. Better to be safe than sorry later.

I know that there is fuel leaking here somewhere???????

We always enjoy seeing this tugboat sitting amongst beautiful homes on the ICW.
It appears to be inhabited.

One of the pretty bridges that we passed through

March 8 - Hammock Beach to Pine Island Anchorage

Our anchorage near Pine Island
The middle of nowhere

Wayne seems to be prepared to go back to North Carolina. He says he's ready for more mundane problems than what he's faced over the past few days.

We received word today that Roger and Marcy picked up our car in Cocoa and drove it to our marina in Jacksonville. What a huge favor. Thank you both so much!

The Atlantic ocean viewed from the ICW at Matanzas Inlet

This leaning buoy gives you a good idea of the fast current at Matanzas Inlet
and all the way to St, Augustine and beyond.
Three hours traveling at 6 mph against this!

The final sewing project is finished.
I'm thinking it will be a good gift for my good friend - me!

March 9 - Pine Island Anchorage to Jacksonville

Today was the last leg of our nine day journey from Ft. Myers to Jacksonville.

This is the scene that greeted us this morning as we left our Pine Island anchorage and pulled into the ICW. So much a typical scene in the Florida wilds - palm trees, morning mist and beautiful waters beckoning us onward.

Such a great start to the day......and then Wayne went below to make sure the leak issue was completely resolved. No such luck! We still had a fuel leak. With Colleen running the boat Wayne went down into the engine space with hearing protectors on and could finally see the leak this time. We shut down the port engine again and continued on to Jacksonville on one engine. Now that we can actually see the source of the second leak we will be able to fix it. The leak will have to be fixed at our new marina home, not on the water.

Jacksonville is a huge port city with all of the cargo action right along the St. Johns River waterway that we travel too. Here a twelve story crane is loading shipping containers, each of which is the size of a semi trailer.

Downtown Jacksonville is right on the water too. In the distance
you may be able to make out two of the four bridges that connect one side of the river to the other

Cool Change is comfortably settled in her berth at The Marina at Ortega Landing. We'll spend a few days packing and cleaning and trying to conclusively resolve the fuel leak issue and then we'll be on our way back home just in time for tulips and daffodils, redbuds and Bradford pear trees

Thanks to all of you who have followed our travels this winter. We so much enjoy hearing from you and always look forward to visits from many of you along the way.

Boat friends
By Colleen

Ships that pass

We’ve met you at pot luck get-togethers in marinas

In laundromats and shower rooms

Swinging on a nearby buoy in the Florida Keys

In marina Captain’s Lounges from Little River to Brunswick to Jacksonville

And points south and west

You pass our boat on a dock and see me quilting on the back deck

Or repairs in progress

Or you notice our lettuce garden in its bowl

And you stop to chat

We get together for cocktails or dinner or late-night hot fudge sundaes

Boaters exchange personal cards and read each other’s blogs

And they connect but usually in a most casual way

Because they know they will be moving on

And might not see each other ever again

So for however long we had to know you,

Howard and Joanne, Dale and Mary, Rob and Donna

Gil and Charlene, Alan and Joyce, Paul and Sue

Terry and Christy, John and Kay, Benny and Lisa,

Indra and Nelson, George and Debra, Jann and Gary

It was a pleasure

Life in Ft. Myers

2016-03-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

February. 2016

With this blog entry we'll try to catch you up with a busy month and the many activities that go on in Ft. Myers every February, as well as Colleen's newest sewing projects and Wayne's ever-present boating repair adventures.

Ft. Myers Entertainment

During February the city celebrates Thomas Edison, its most famous winter resident. We showed you the Artfest last blog. There's also a Mutt Strutt dog show, a Children's Parade, a car show, a craft show and the culminating nighttime Edison Light Parade, held the last weekend of the month. Over the years the city has worked hard and successfully to bring life into its downtown.

This fountain statue features Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone,
commemorating one of the many camping trips the friends made into
the wilds of Florida in the early 1900s.

Leif Lustig, dockmaster at the Ft. Myers City Docks.
Friendly, hardworking and willing to wear a pink chef.'s hat
for the Valentine cookout and potluck.
Leif, as always, thank you for a wonderful stay.

Mutt Strutt Dog Show

The biggest

And the smallest. They say it's a dog??????
Notice the Great Dane's tail in the upper left.

For just a dollar, a "kiss" from a French Bulldog

We had fun watching the Hot Dog Races.
The owners, many of whom had outfits coordinating
with those of their weiner dogs, were as much fun
to watch as the dogs.

The Children's Parade

The second Saturday in February is the Children's Parade. It features kids and their parents and we wish we could show you more photos. I think I like it better than the big nighttime parade at the end of the month.

The Junior Royalty for the Edison Festival of Light

What a wild idea!

We saw many bands and this particular one was a standout as
its members danced and played their way down the street.

These children in their wagons are all being pulled by "dadpower,"
hitched up at the front

There were Budweiser horses and this.

The most elaborate float. I hope it won a prize.

Car Show

One of the great events for Wayne during the Edison Festival month is the collector car show, It draws all manner of car from the 1930s to today's models.

We're in Florida, right? So we shouldn't have been surprised to discover a band populated entirely by oldsters. Not just a band but the whole nine yards - cheerleaders, majorettes and a flag corps too. We understand that The Awesome Original Second Time Arounders Marching Band from St. Petersburg, FL is a famous group (see www.secondtimearounders.com) that travels all around mostly Florida to play. The group is the largest permanent adult marching band in the world. Their website says that their members have marched in a high school, college or military marching band and have dreamed of doing it one more time.

The majorettes and cheerleaders were full of energy.

The band is so large we couldn't get a photo of the entire group.

The Edison Festival of Lights Parade

The month ends with an after-dark parade filled with lighted floats, bands, cars and fireworks over the river, all celebrating Thomas Edison, Ft. Myer's famous winter resident and the inventor of the electric light bulb.

All the parade entries are decorated with electric lights.
What would Thomas E. think if he could see this display?

The parade crowd is entertained with a fireworks show
before the parade starts.

World War II Vintage Airplane Display

These airplanes were on display one weekend at Page Field in Ft. Myers. For $12 each we were allowed to climb into a B24 and a B17 airplane and to view a P51 Mustang up close. When I say "climb into" I mean just that. It was very tight moving from the front of the planes through the bomb bays and toward the tail gunners position. We were thoroughly impressed when we thought about a cousin's husband who was shot down over France in a B24 and later crash landed at the cliffs of Dover in a B17 and made it home from the war.

Looking into the cockpit

It's hard to imagine what the aircrews endured in the gunnery
section of these planes. We could see why there was
little chance for the tail gunner to bail out if a plane was shot down.

the B-17

And, Of Course We Have Repairs

How did this happen? We found the top half of our port bow light laying on the deck one day .

Old light disassembled versus the new replacement. Another $54

Oh yes. This is the second time to reseal the drain in the master shower.
This time all the caulking was dug out and replaced right down to the original installation seal.

Sometimes fingers get in the way!
Note the hole that "Dr." Wayne drilled into the nail to relieve the pressure!

Trying to get the trumpet horns to sound off correctly.
The volume of sound is about 20 % of what it should be.

Putting the horns back together after cleaning and testing.
But...no go. They still do not work very well.

Winding Down the Sewing Projects

I try hard every winter to run out of projects just as I run out of winter. This has been a productive year. I made many of our Christmas gifts and small gifts to give to boat friends we meet along the way. I've completed three quilts and several purses and bags, some pillows, a bed runner, a Christmas wall hanging, a table runner and a quilt top. A friend in Vero gave me an idea for a bag to hold the hands free wireless headsets we use on the boat. I delivered four quilts I made last year to my sisters-in-law and also made Christmas ornaments for family members.

It ain't pretty but it does the job. This bag holds the control box for
our wireless headset. We tuck it inside our shirt
and the neck strap keeps it from falling into the water.

This quilt top is for a friend. It's too big for me to quilt
on the boat so a professional long arm quilter will do that part of the job.

A big, full-of-inside-pockets purse

This is meant to carry quilting supplies. Notice the
"newsrint" story below, goofy quilting stories.

Four of these together will make a tablerunner. It should be finished soon.

The project I enjoyed doing most, though, was not a sewing project at all. I wrote down a collection of family stories and paid Office Depot to bind them into hardback book form. These were given to our granddaughters as Christmas gifts. The stories were some I've told them over the years when they said, "Noodle, tell me a story" and some were family stories they hadn't heard yet - "Grandpa and the Gator" was a particular favorite. It was so satisfying to get these tales down in black-and-white in a permanent form. I hope it proves to be a treasured gift for my family for many years to come.

Quilt Shows and Shops

These two pieces were part of Cityscapes - A Slice of Ft. Myers, a show presented by Art Quilters Unlimited and featuring artists' renderings in fabric art of favorite sites in and around Ft. Myers.

These are not paintings. Their colors are stitched
by hand or machine.

Probably my favorite piece from this year's Stitches in Time
Quilt show presented by the Naples Quilters Guild.
Even among lots of tropical inspired quilts, this is a standout.

One of several good quilt shops close to our marina. I love a store where I can walk in,
show a clerk a piece of fabric with which I want to coordinate and she instantly shows me what I'm looking for.

Life on Cool Change

After three months aboard, life has settled into a comfortable routine.

All the comforts of home - a princopy machine in the bedroom

Our lettuce garden has supplied us with salad greens all winter long.
We also have a basil plant and a Christmas poinsetta that persists
in blooming, more than two months after Christmas.

Sometimes marinas supply nice laundry facilities and sometimes not. There are never enough washers in the marina so we frequently look for a local laundromat so we can get our week's worth done faster.

Among the best laudromats we found, clean and well stocked
with rollaround baskets, folding tables, change and snack machines,
not-too-out-of-date magazines and good washers and dryers.

Jann and Gary Merrill are friends we made in 2010 in the Florida Keys.
Our paths seldom cross but we always have a good time when they do.

Jann and Gary's boat was named "Tie a Knot," as in "When you get to the end of your
rope, tie a knot and hang on". Jann figured our boarding rope was probably designed
with her and Gary in mind.

And another installment in the Weird Signs department

So...When do they open? Read carefully.

Six Weeks at Loggerhead Marina in Vero Beach and trip to Fort Myers

2016-02-08T16:05:00.000-08:00

Dec 23 to Feb 8 2016

We have been pretty lazy about posting our adventures on our blog. No excuse - we'll try to catch you up now. We stayed in Vero Beach for six weeks, two weeks longer than we had originally planned. About two weeks into our original plan of a month in Vero we decided to change our next destination from the Keys to Ft. Myers. Then we had to wait for dock space at the Ft. Myers City Marina. One of the many advantages of retired life, we go where we want to go and when we choose. We're docked in Ft. Myers now and will tell you about a flock of repair excitements and other fun we've been having.

Our time in Vero Beach was very enjoyable, as usual. We made many new friends at the marina, entertained old friends from FL and got together with Wayne’s brother and sister-in-law, Donna. One of our new boating couple friends sold their home in New Hampshire, sold their car, and boarded their boat for Florida. This brave and adventuresome pair is sorting out what they'll be doing and where they are going now in life. Colleen was happy to find Charlene, Donna, and Mary on nearby boats, quilters and/or crocheters.

The Loggerhead Marina schedules regular get-togethers for the liveaboard boaters and they had a chili cook off and several other organized gatherings while we were there There is a nice Captains' Lounge so we had lots of opportunity to meet and chat with other kindred spirits who either live on their boats full time or spend all or part of the winter here. The night before we left we had a cocktail party aboard Cool Change. And, of course, we ate at our favorite restaurants and found a few new places to recommend.

Good grief, was this meal ever good!
Not a Vero restaurant but not too far away in Fort Pierce Beach City Marina.
The restaurant is called The Original Tiki Bar. My meal was a shrimp
salad sandwich with fried plantains.

C.J. Cannon's, at the Vero Beach Airport, is one of our favorite breakfast stops in Vero.

A new find. Mrs. Mac's Fillin' Station is good, homestyle cooking
built around an old fashioned gas station theme. The front and back of the menu
are actual metal license plates, the staff was welcoming and the
service was fast.

Christmas in Boston
One of the best parts of our stay in Vero beach this year was flying out of Orlando to celebrate Christmas with our family in Boston. We didn't get any snow but we had a wonderful time with some of our very favorite people. Thank you so much, Patrick and Maria, for hosting us.

There is nothing better than being with our family for the holidays.
Amelia, on my right, claims to now be taller than me. I'm afraid she's right.

Maria's bed runner

A while ago my daughter-in-law, Maria, asked me to make her a quilt using fabric from dresses of her mother's. This past October we finally sat down and chose a dress and planned to make a bed runner that would complement Patrick and Maria's bedspread.. I had enough fabric to also make matching pillows. Maria and I were both happy with the result you see below, which I gave to her at Christmas.

Vero Beach sights

We found a trio of sand hill cranes one misty morning.
These guys stand five feet tall and have striking red
feathers on their foreheads. They have 5 to 7 foot wingspans.

FIRE! But, thankfully, not on our boat.
Look closely at the front side window. It is missing. It shattered in an onboard fire. An electrical short for the water tank level monitor caused an electrical fire. By the time smoke began escaping and caught peoples' attention, it was too late. It required two fire hoses to put out the fire and the boat was a total loss. Fortunately, the owners were not aboard when the fire broke out. The salvage crew was able to actually drive the boat away as the fire was confined to the living quarters.

A beautiful sunrise over Loggerhead Marina

Have we mentioned the weird Florida weather we've experienced this winter?
If it's not rain it's wind and if it's not wind it's cold and if
it's not cold it's hot.

We were swimming along with other marina residents on New Years Day.
These skies look threatening but rain never fell on us.

Colleen visited the local quilt guild again and decided to join the guild since they meet every week and she enjoys their company so much. She kept busy in Vero with lots of quilting and sewing projects for Christmas gifts and children's quilts to donate to charity and for children of North Carolina friends.

Thanks to her old friends, Marla and Mary, Colleen was able to lay out and prepare three small quilts to be finished on the boat. Marla had cataract surgery in mid January and Colleen and Mary converged on her home in Cocoa and nursed her back to health.

Another one of the wrapped clothesline bowls I showed you
in our last blog. Marcy gave me the little charms for Christmas.
This one is for ME!

Marcy is helping me to wrap the clothesline for another bowl.
It's good to have a friend around when I work on this project.

This quilt is for a little girl who likes purple. The lighter purple is
a cute dragonfly pattern.

This is a charity quilt for donation through my North Carolina quilt guild.

Do you know the story of The Grouchy Ladybug? For several years
I've had leafy green fabric with a ladybug print sitting in my stash closet.
It was just perfect as the border on this quilt and I was
happy to find a red-with-black-dot print for
the backing and binding.

We both again were judges at the Indian River County's School Science Fair. Gee, those kids are smart and they were the grade schoolers. This year Colleen helped to judge fourth graders and Wayne judged fifth grade. We wonder if we are smart enough to judge the senior high division sometime in the future. Not likely.

New Equipment:

New GPS, Radar, Depth sounder

Wayne installed a new 15 inch GPS from Garmin as reported in the last blog posting Now he has added a new depth sounder and a new xHD radar. These are both Garmin units as well. All are up and running well and adding to our boating experience in a very positive way. He was able connect to our existing VHF and autopilot such that they talk (?) to each other. Wayne understands this stuff, fortunately.

The new 15 inch GPS / Radar display up and running

Back into the dashboard again. Plus removing the old radar unit and pulling cables from and to the radar arch.

The new Garmin 550DV depthfinder installed

New Outboard Motor for Dinghy

In our last blog posting, Wayne finally had to part with his beloved Nissan electric start Nissan 8hp outboard motor. The 96 pound motor proved just too heavy to lift off its mount and carry to and install on the back of our dinghy. He listed the motor on Craigslist for $1100 and sold it immediately. Then he ordered a new 4hp Tohatsu (Tohatsu makes the Nissan and Mercury small outboards) for $1129. Almost a wash! It arrived UPS on December 29^th and at just 54 pounds he can easily handle the new motor and it has plenty of power to get us to a dock or land.

Moving the new outboard onto the boat

Getting rid of the packaging from the new motor.

Repairs

Repairs have all been of the plumbing nature. Ugh! Our forward toilet stopped flushing so repairs were undertaken immediately. It turns out that the sewage line from the toilet to the vacuum tank that moves waste from the toilet to the holding tank was not working. There are four check valves in that line, two on either side of the vacuum pump. Wayne started the repair and Colleen left the boat on good advice. Both joker valves on the toilet side would no longer close. Wayne replaced those two and the two on the other side of the pump. Needless to say it was a MESSY job. Colleen wisely waited to return when it was all over.

BUT (no pun intended) - that wasn't the end of the toilet issues. Next we found the forward toilet had a leaking inlet valve. But it slow drips clean water and we had a used replacement for it. Wayne installed the spare and it leaks too but at a slower rate. A new valve was ordered and was awaiting us in Ft. Myers. Oh and the aft toilet's valve is also leaking now, albeit very slightly. Oh the joy!

Wait, it gets better, the shower stall in the master cabin is leaking into our carpeting. This should be an easy fix. Wayne dug out the old caulk, masked off the area and then re-caulked the drain pan. And…5 days later the caulk began softening and coming loose. So much for the higher cost “bathroom caulk and adhesive” he purchased especially for this job. Another repair to re-do. He has new materials and is re-doing the job as this is being written.

Wayne and the forward toilet have become
close friends, again.

The anchor windlass that was reported on in our previous posting worked perfectly each time that we anchored. Hooray!

We hired out the polishing and waxing of our boat. Wayne tried that once before and decided he did not want to do that job. It was an expensive job that had lackluster results due to the age of the fiberglass and the quality of the gelcoat that Carver Boats used.

Wayne crawls into the guts of the boat to replace the
sacrificial anode on the generator. Is it easy? Of course not!
Can he reach it? Barely!

Soon after we returned from Boston we were experiencing electrical outages and low voltage. Of course that only occurred at 6:30 am when Wayne got out of bed and turned on the heat when the temperature inside the boat was 48 degrees. He started taking apart the ends of the 1 inch power cable and found one end that was pitted and burned so that it was making poor contact. After disassembly and cleaning and lubricating all 7 connections, the problem has gone away.

Uh Oh!

Top terminal was pitted and burned

Our four year old cabin “new carpet” is not looking so good. It has matted down badly. Carpet in our boat is glued and stapled down with no pad. The major problem, though, is that it has bleached in any spot where we applied carpet cleaner. So Wayne brought all the spare carpet left over from his original installation and has been replacing sections that are the worst. It is looking a lot better.

Wayne spreading carpet glue on one of the floor hatches before adding the new carpet

For added safety on deck, we have installed a third handle on the front deckhouse for safety when walking on deck. There are now three new handles up there to grab onto.

The center handle is newly added

Vero Beach to Ft. Myers

On January 30th friends, Roger and Marcy, joined us to make the 200 mile trip from Vero to Ft. Myers. We all left Vero Beach on Sunday the 31^st and stayed in a marina in Stuart, Fl that night. Roger has just retired so we held a retirement party for him with appropriate gifts - A watch with a clock face that says "Who cares?," a set of keys that would NOT open the executive washroom or start the company car but can be used on his RV and other goofy items.

Roger has been decorated with hats and name tags and name badges
from his former employer as we celebrate his retirement.

Roger working the lines.
Our wireless headphones are an invaluable
tool to help us dock and undock safely.

The next day, 2/1, we cruised the St Lucie River westbound via two locks into Lake Okeechobee. We then traveled along the south shore route of the lake for 13 miles of open water until we were within the protection of miles of grass flats that gave us wind and wave protection. We dropped anchor, propped up our feet and enjoyed an adult beverage, ate dinner at anchor and settled in for the night, only slightly disturbed by the fishermen who always seem to feel compelled to buzz us in the wee hours anytime we settle in this spot.

Railroad bridge one half mile from the lock leading into
Lake Okeechobee. This low bridge prevents many sailboats from passing to the west coast of Florida through Lake O

We go into the lock; the gates at the back close and
the lock master cracks and then slowly opens the front gates to let
water in and raise our boat.

The crew hangs onto ropes suspended from the top
of the lock to keep our boat steady as our 35,000 pounds are raised
or lowered.

On Groundhog Day we continued around the lake and stopped at Roland Martin's Marina in Clewiston and ate lunch in their restaurant. Martin is a TV personality and a champion bass fisherman but did not personally greet us. Fair food and it was good to stretch our legs for more than 40 feet ( the length of our boat) for a change.

Marcy and Colleen with an airboat at Roland Martin's Marina

We completed the transit of Lake O about 2:30 that afternoon and tied up to the city dock at Moore Haven which is just through the westernmost lock on the big lake. Moore Haven is a hospitable little town with a very reasonable dockage charge ($1.00/foot). The town library sits right on the shoreline and has an ongoing book sale - $1.00 for a grocery bag full of books. We always feel compelled to pay a little more than that! We had water and electric hookup there and spent a restful night.

This alligator "greeted" us after the lock as we waited for the Moore Haven
railroad bridge to open for us.

On February 3rd we traveled the Caloosahatchee River on toward Ft. Myers. Several hundred yards from the Ortona Lock the lock master informed us that the lock was on a emergency two hour delay as the lock doors are partially opened to allow water to pass at an increased rate. Because of the heavy rains of the past several weeks, Lake O is too high and the Army Corp of Engineers is dumping water out the east and west ends at rates of 3800 gallons per second. The Corp is planning to dump billions of gallons from the lake to get the lake level back down. So we wait! By the time the lock opens several other boats, of vastly varying sizes have joined us.

Note the contrast between the 95 foot yacht
on our left and the 28 foot sailboat in front of us. The sailboat has
sailed here from Anchorage, Alaska with a one man crew.
The hired captain of the yacht controlled that boat with
an electronic key pad and bounced us all over the lock. No way could the crew have held that big boat in place

To see more about Lake Okeechobee which is 29 miles across and 35 miles north to south go to http://m.myfwc.com/fishing/freshwater/sites-forecast/s/lake-okeechobee/

Fort Myers

We arrived at the Fort Myers City Marina on Wednesday Feb 3^rd and got tied up in our slip after a course of almost 200 miles in the 4 days. We walked into the old Ft. Myers River District, one block away and had dinner with Marcy and Roger at a new restaurant, The Lodge. It features wraparound scenes of the Rocky Mountains that change every few minutes and ski lifts running up and down the back wall. We had great ribs, lamb, and delicious duck legs. The same company owns three interesting themed restaurants in downtown Ft. Myers of which this is one. We go to Ford's Garage for good hamburgers and plan to try Capone's for pizza soon.

A machine gun door handle at Capone's Pizza

This is a great city to visit by boat. The beautiful River District has many shops and restaurants that are a joy to visit. The Edison and Ford estates are just blocks away as is Publix, the Thursday farmers’ market and much more. All within walking distance or you can catch a free trolley. The entire month of February is devoted to celebrating Thomas Edison, a famous Ft. Myers winter resident.

The Thursday Farmer's Market

This year we found intriguing ironwork sculptures by Edgardo Camona scattered around the city symbolizing common everyday life. There are twenty-three sculptures in all. Quite a body of work.

On Saturday we rented a car and drove back to Vero Beach, about 150 miles, with Roger and Marcy to pick up our own car and to take our friends to their car so that they could return home to Merritt Island. We started at 8:00 AM and dropped off the rental car back in Ft. Myers in a pouring rain at 5:00 PM. Our first year on the boat we did not have our car with us as we traveled. We've since decided that it's well worth it to rent a car to pick up our car and hop scotch our wheels around the state with us as we travel.

Art Fest, Ft. Myers

The best art show that we have ever attended (Artfest) is always the first weekend in February and is held along the street in front of our marina. We toured the pre-show Friday night and saw the show in greater detail on Sunday. As usual, we were thoroughly impressed with the quality of the art.

Many of the artists featured tropical birds and sea life.
We especially liked these large ocean life pieces.

208 artists were selected from the over nine hundred who
applied for this juried art show.

Look closely on the left. This lady weaves a background and
then wraps yarn to create beautiful trees. I've never seen anything quite like it.

Part of the art show is chalk pictures by Lee County High School
students. The theme this year was Bugs in Disguise,
sponsored by Truly Nolan Pest Control

If you want to know more check ArtFestFortMyers.com

And a little whimsy on a Ft. Meyers street corner

Working on the To Do List and Getting Ready for Christmas

2015-12-22T10:09:00.000-08:00

11/22/15-12/21/15

ENJOYING FAMILY, FRIENDS and GREAT FLORIDA FOOD

Our Cocoa Village Marina stop has proven to be a good location for many visits with friends and family over our first month in Florida. One day we traveled to The Villages, a community of 100,000 residents, in north central Florida to see Wayne's youngest brother and his wife, We enjoyed hearing all about their new life in this unique senior citizens centered town..

Colleen presented Patty with the quilt that she had made for her.

The golf carts seem to outnumber the cars in The Villages.
Here are a couple of, believe it or not, golf carts.

Golf carts everywhere!!

One of the many town centers in The Villages

Another town square in The Villages

Statue of Harold Schwartz, founder of Florida's The Villages

On another day our old friends, Pam and Richard stopped in to have lunch, watch the tail end of the Cocoa Village Marathon and to take a little cruise on the Indian River. Pam always brings Cheetos to Wayne and Publix white mountain bread for both of us. Thank you Pam!! On this visit she also brought us a poinsettia plant, which was a good thing as it's the only Christmas decoration we've had up for most of the holidays.

Richard, a very accomplished boater, was captain for most of our
Indian River cruise as Pam sat up front and enjoyed the view.

These are a few of the marathon runners near the end of the pack.
Look closely at the guy on the right

One Saturday our friends Roger and Marcy (I'm sure you feel like you know them well enough to claim them as your friends by now) introduced us to lionfish as a delicacy to eat. These are very threatening-looking fish which have begun to invade the waters of the southeastern US. Its spines look (and are) venomous and they have few natural enemies. But, boy was it a tasty appetizer. Google "lionfish" to see some great images.

A lionfish mural near the restaurant Grills in Port Canaveral

Marcy digs into the lionfish appetizer. That's
not a grimace you see but a smile of anticipation.

Winter in Florida means art and craft shows. There's always a risk of an overdose of tackiness and what Wayne calls garage art. This one in Cocoa Village was well stocked with ocean-themed items, many of which were unique and interesting. Wayne gives it a 3 and Colleen says it deserves a 7.

Colleen and her dear friend Marla enjoying dinner at Cafe' Margeaux
in Cocoa Village. The waiter's recitation of the evening's specials
was so eloquent that it was almost impossible to make a choice of what to eat.

Of course, Marcy and Colleen look forward to
getting together to quilt. We're working here
on a quilt for her son, Nick.

We went out one evening to a new restaurant in Cocoa Village, Pub Americana, with friends from near our home in North Carolina. Just our luck, we were seated near a window and had a great view of the Cocoa Christmas parade.

Shrimp tempura - very lightly grilled and with a tasty sauce on the side

Our friends Dave and Nancy

Cocoa's Christmas parade

Wayne and Colleen traveled to Orlando with friends Roger and Marcy to have dinner with high school classmates of Wayne's. Members of the Oak Ridge classes of 1964 and 1965 met for dinner. About 20 people attended the event.

We enjoyed a morning with Roger and Marcy at Jetty Park near Port Canaveral. Port Canaveral is now one of the busiest cruise ports in the world, 45 miles east of Orlando. Many Disney and other cruise lines depart from here as well as many casino cruises. The waterway is being widened to almost double what it was originally and we watched barges as they dug out the channel on this day.

The tug boat is towing a barge heavily loaded with sand out into the
Atlantic Ocean. We watched this action and lots of fishermen in the Canaveral Barge Canal.

A 700 foot ship coming into Port Canaveral

SOMETHING NEW

Colleen worked all during our first month on the boat on Christmas presents. Since it's not Christmas yet, she can't show them to you. Maybe in the next blog. She did want to show you a new project she's learned how to do. These little bowls are made by wrapping a thin strip of fabric around and around a clothesline. Then you coil the wrapped clothesline around and around itself, zigzag stitching it on the sewing machine and shaping it into a bowl as you go.

Easy and fun!

Aren't these cute! I'm eager to make some more.

REPAIRS and UPGRADES

New TV antenna - the white round thing

Hooking up the wiring for the antenna and removing the antiquated wiring became a chore as usual.
This easy installation took about a day and a half to complete. Most of the time was spent taking the boat apart just to pull the wiring.

New "mesh" window covers that Wayne made for the front of the boat.
This fabric blocks 80% of the
sunlight from entering the cabin.

Another set of window covers that Wayne made. These are made from
Sunbrella canvas and block 100% of the sunlight. We can trade out these and
the mesh covers depending upon how much light we want in the cabin.

This is the propeller shaft access to the stuffing box. It is in the bottom of a closet where all the shelves had to be removed. A steady stream of water was leaking around the shaft and into the boat thus necessitating an adjustment to the packing nut. We had never done this so we hired a marine service to do the task. After two trips to our boat and two and a quarter hours of trying to loosen the lock nut, the technician had an "Ah ha" moment and realized that the nut was left-hand threaded. The repair then was ten minutes. The bill was for two hours at $95 per hour. Wayne had spent an hour trying to turn the lock nut the wrong way too!

Our wonderful 8 hp Nissan electric start outboard motor was sold. Wayne finally realized that its 95 pound weight was too much to handle while stepping into and trying to attach it to the dinghy as the dinghy floated behind Cool Change.
Wayne offered it on Craig's List and sold it for enough $$ to purchase a new 4 hp motor
that weighs only 54 pounds.

I know that the anchor windlass is in here somewhere.

The anchor windlass quit working in Cocoa after we had some issues with it last winter. Wayne studied the owner's manual thoroughly and then climbed onto the front berth. The front berth is like our storage garage so he had to remove a whole lot of stuff first, stick his head in the bow hole you see and then start electrical troubleshooting. In the end he concluded the control box was not working and he ordered a new one ($150). When the old controller was dismantled and on the work table, Wayne found that a wire inside the control box had corroded and broken connection. A 2 inch piece of jumper wire would have repaired the controller for free!

The dinghy patch held after the third attempt.
The top tube has held air for over two weeks now.

The new 15 inch GPS is finally installed. This machine does
all kinds of electronic navigation things in a multi-function display and
Wayne is like a kid in a candy store playing with it.

I think that I can figure this all out.

Oh. Here is the wire that I was looking for.

DECEMBER 16 - MOVING on to VERO BEACH

After a month at Cocoa Village Marina it was time to move on. Our next stop is Vero Beach where we plan to dock at Loggerhead Marina for another month.

Our early morning departure with the sun coming over the horizon

Looking back at Cocoa Village Marina
We'll be back.

Most of today's traffic was sailboats. We made an easy run
to Loggerhead Marina in Vero Beach, fifty-five miles down the
ICW

The Loggerhead Marina loggerhead turtle welcomes us back.

Sunny Florida, You Say? Guess Again.

We haven't talked much about the weather here this winter because we haven't had much of anything good to say. We've had lots of high winds and, in our exposed position at Cocoa Village, we were rocking and rolling almost every day we were there. Both of us seem to have developed a sailor's roll as we walk. We've also had more rain than any other year and some of the hottest temperatures Florida's experienced in a long time - many days of mid eighties temps and muggy humidity.

These palmetto bushes did not grow naturally with a lean to the east.
On this day the wind was blowing at 15 mph and gusting to 30. Getting
from the dock to the boat was quite a challenge.

Not much better in terms of the wind in Vero Beach our first few days here.
The waves at the beach were so rough the beach warning flags
were at the high hazard level.

We wish you all a happy Christmas. Thanks for traveling with us.

Wayne and Colleen

2015-11-25T09:43:00.000-08:00

Back to Florida for our sixth winter on Cool Change

November 12th through November 23rd

We arrived in Merritt Island, Fl on Thursday and launched the boat on Friday the 13th. Everything went well from lifting the boat through the 300 yard travel to and into the water.

This is the second on-land placement of our boat. It spent 8 months parked about 500 feet away. It was moved to this spot a few weeks ago ($180 cost that we had not expected) for the bottom to be repainted
to prevent the growth of barnacles and algae.

Cool Change weighs about 34,000 pounds with all our gear and the fuel load aboard. This travel lift had no problem picking it up and carrying it to the water.

Up and away

It is truly amazing to watch as the boat travels across the lot suspended from the crane.

After sitting for eight months on land and not being connected to electricity, the batteries were kept at full charge by our onboard solar system. Both motors fired right up. We were concerned for the water pump on the starboard motor as we had a new seacock and hose installed on the intake side of the water pump while in storage. After launch and as we motored from the travellift over to our slip, my friend Roger noted that the port exhaust sounded loud and did not appear to have water flowing out. Unfortunately, he was right. The impeller for the raw water pump for that motor had failed, All twelve vanes of the impeller had disintegrated. The starboard impeller that we had some concern about came through just fine.

Port engine impeller. Where did the 12 three-quarter-inch long rubber fins go?
We may never know.

We hired a marine tech to do this job. Wayne replaced the impeller on the starboard motor two years ago. It took two hours and was readily accessible. The port impeller was located next to a fuel tank with only eight inches of room to work. For three hours Wayne passed tools and encouragement to the tech. The tools were Wayne's. The impeller was a replacement already in our spares on the boat. The tech brought only his skills and supreme determination aboard.

Hired mechanic doing the job, He knows that the water pump
is there somewhere. He can feel it but not see it.

Our view from our slip at Harbortown Marina

We stayed at Harbortown Marina on Merritt Island for three nights. We spent two of those days just scrubbing and cleaning, both inside and out. Florida black mold had accumulated over 8 months and was all over the decks and side curtains. With bleach mixed with water and Fantastic,Wayne scrubbed all of the decks. The black mold seemed to be locked to the deck with a clear coating or something and had to be scrubbed off. That side curtains were mildewed both inside and outside. The entire second day was spent getting the plastic curtains to sparkle again We could not use bleach on the clear vinyl, just water wash down. Then all were cleaned with 303 brand vinyl cleaner and polished with dry towels.

Look carefully and you can see the mold on the clear side curtains.and the cleaning towel.

Inside the boat Colleen was busy stowing clothes, kitchen supplies and foodstuffs, making the bed up with fresh sheets, setting out towels, vacuuming, Soft Scrubbing every inside surface and cleaning toilets and bathroom sinks and the galley. Of course, many sewing and quilting projects also had to be unpacked and stowed in a special basket I keep for them. My to-do list this winter includes six quilt tops, two wall hangings and lots of small projects that will be Christmas gifts for family and friends. We brought a large, new item onto the boat this year - a custom made bedspread that Colleen pieced with the help of some of her quilt guild friends. It was so large, it had to be professionally quilted and the stitching is really beautiful. This past summer it earned a third place ribbon at my guild's quilt show.

A new queen sized bed spread custom made for our master cabin bed

Deck Box Repair

The latch tore out from the front of the dock box that is located on our swim platform. The original design was rather flimsy and was set up for failure. A repair was made from starboard material and through bolted so that it will not fail again.

New window shades
Wayne is making new window coverings that will allow more light into the cabin while still blocking sun glare and the view from the outside. The material used is a mesh fabric that blocks 80% of the sunlight. In the day we can see out but people outside cannot see in. Wayne made covers for the port and starboard side triangular windows. He will make a cover for the three-panel front windows soon.

Outside view

View through the new mesh side curtain

Repairs yet to do:

Dinghy leaking air - third attempt at repair awaiting dry weather

Starboard stuffing box leaking - for you landlubbers that is the seal around the propeller shaft

Anchor windlass is not working - we placed a backup anchor on deck should we need it in a hurry

Finally on the water again!

We got underway finally on Monday the 16th. We traveled only 7 miles south to Cocoa Village Marina. Our good friend, Marcy, took command for part of the trip. It was quite windy and she did a fine job of crabbing the boat in the wind and waves to keep us between the waterway markers.

"Captain" Marcy takes the helm

Our view from our stern at Cocoa Village Marina

View of Cocoa Village Marina. Note the weather overhead. Four days of wind and rain!

Since our arrival we've enjoyed exploring the area around the marina. We are located right in downtown Cocoa, about a three-by-eight block area packed with good restaurants, a community theater, many gift and antique shops, a friendly local hardware store, ice cream shops, and art galleries. It's a perfect pedestrian-friendly area with a local library and post office and nice park within walking distance. Publix supermarket is only a mile-and-a-half away and movie theaters are close by too.

The marina office is straight ahead.

View of the captains' lounge. Ken, dock master, and Kelly, office manager, are always
cheerful and ready to assist any way that they can.

Another view of the Cocoa Village Marina captains' lounge

The laundry room is one very appealing amenity here at Cocoa Village Marina.
We almost feel we could write a book about the very bad marina laundry
rooms and bathrooms we have known. This is near the top of the good list.

Cocoa Village looking north. There are many quaint shops in the Village.
Antiques, collectibles, clothing, nautical decor and much more.

The community theater

Travis Hardware, here for over 125 years. Every captain must
visit Travis. Their inventory is amazing!

All we could want in the way of good restaurants

Pizza Sunday evening at Ryan's in Cocoa Village

We're familiar with Cocoa Village because of many trips we've made to the area but this year, there was a new addition. The Sugar Shack serves donuts and you have never seen donuts like these. The caramel with sea salt is Colleen's favorite so far but, depending on the mood of the baker, you can find donuts covered with just about every ingredient you can imagine - from red velvet cake to Reeses Pieces to - believe it or not - bacon!

YES! That is bacon on the donuts.

The enthusiastic staff will give you a donut-by-donut tour

While Wayne does repairs Colleen is quilting and crafting

First order of business after we got settled - make a bunch of Christmas ornaments.
Next job - making custom labels for quilts I've been sewing for my sisters-in-law. The third order of business is a bed runner for my daughter-in-law, Maria. There are lots of projects to keep me busy here.
I've also managed to get a library card to use at the nearby public library. For fifteen dollars I have a visitor's card that's good for a year. I am so excited!!!

Ornament making

This quilt is for my sister-in-law Patty and is
meant to look like a stained glass window.

Marcy and Colleen enjoyed a morning program at The Quilt Place
in Rockledge, FL,a little bit south of Cocoa.

A sign that Colleen found on her walk to the library

The weather here was in the eighties for almost a week. Colleen thinks that is way too warm but Wayne likes it. Then the high sixties for several days. The past several days the temps have returned to the mid to high seventies. The wind has been blowing 15 to 30 knots for 4 days now. The first two days it rained pretty steadily and blew from the north. So we were rocking and rolling quite a bit. Now the wind is from the east at 15 to 20 knots and we are sitting fairly steady today but get blown away when we traverse the docks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Until next time.

Winter Ends

2015-04-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

Finishing off Winter in Paradise

February 15 - March 13

April 12 - Yeah, we know March 13th has come and gone. For some reason this year we just could not get to work to finish the blog once we came back to North Carolina. Several of you have asked - what happened? Maybe it was the fact that spring was just getting off to a spectacular start as we returned or that we made a trip to see the grandgirls only a little over a week after we got back.

Dogwoods are blooming along with.....

phlox and azaleas and cherry trees and daffodils and tulips
and Bradford pear trees It's a beautiful sight and
it lures us back every springtime.

Now, back to the boat and our last month aboard........

Our trip from Vero Beach was fast and cold. We seemed to be fighting the wind, waves and current the entire distance and had decided early on to move along at a sizzling sixteen miles an hour. We made it to Harbortown Marina on Merritt Island by early afternoon.

There actually were a few chilly days in Florida this year but

Sorry. We can't resist just one, "We're warm and you're not."
This was our weather the week of March 3rd.

My friend, Marcy, loves quilt shops too.
Here she is at our local favorite, The Quilt Place
in nearby Rockledge.

Colleen's favorite sign of spring in Florida -
a Tabebuia. No leaves this time of year, just
big, fluffy yellow or pink blossoms

Wrapping Up (no pun intended) the Quilting Projects

It's been a busy month as Colleen has worked to finish up her winter to-do list. A few projects were left undone but that was okay. You may recall that she ran out of projects last year and had a brief moment of panic. It only lasted until she could make a trip to Palmetto's quilt shop and pick up more to do. As long as there's a quilt shop nearby, you can keep that woman happy.

This year's quilting and sewing project list

Another Carolina Modern.
Cool, isn't it, how the same pattern looks completely
different with different fabrics? Too big to quilt
while we're on the boat and still missing its outer borders; I'll
finish both of these at home.

This pattern is called Carolina Modern, made
completely from one-yard pieces of
five different fabrics. In this case six fabrics
with the black border.

Marcy came over one day to work on a quilt she is making for a friend.
We can happily sew together for hours, especially when Wayne fixes our lunch.

Kaylin, our great niece, has never had a quilt
from her Aunt Colleen. I thought it was about
time she did. Kaylin thought so too!

When Colleen retired from teaching she got the notion that she should make a quilt for every teacher at her school who had had a baby since she retired. She checked with a friend and discovered the school had experienced a serious baby explosion. So......four-and-a-half years later she's still working through thirteen babies, many of whom are babies no longer. Not only that, but the babies are still coming!!!

This quilt is not going to walk away, but it sure
looks like it could. The theme here is the story
of The Saggy, Baggy Elephant, a Little Golden
Book

I feel a little bit like I'm trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it.

I found some Arctic prints and designed
a quilt around them.

You knew Wayne wasn't done with boat jobs yet

Oil, oil,and MORE oil
It's a messy job that has to be done

Changing fuel hoses on the generator

I am told that there is a oil filter down there just out of my reach. Carver Yachts cheated and installed two right hand motors in this boat. Thus the serviceable items are out of reach against the starboard fuel tank

Wayne handled several maintenance jobs before we finished our time on Cool Change this year. Replacing fuel hoses on the generator and changing the oil (28 quarts of oil required) for both big diesel engines are two difficult but necessary chores.

Friends since we were ten - Mary, Marla and Colleen

Grant Seafood Festival

The town of Grant is about an hour south of Merritt Island and each year holds a seafood festival the last weekend in February. This year there were twenty-one seafood booths, each offering a different version of every seafood you can imagine, prepared by the local waterside community. They had clams, shrimp, oysters, calamari, lobster, tuna, scallops, mahi, crawfish and gator, the last one a slight exception to the theme of seafood. You buy food and beverage tickets at a central booth; then use the tickets to purchase your choices at different booths. There's country music (it felt like we were back in the Carolinas), lots of beer and around a hundred arts and crafts booths of a surprising variety and quality. Check out grantseafoodfestival.com.

The oysters were being gobbled up as fast as the shuckers
could open the shells.

A gator has managed to chomp down on Wayne's head,
to Roger and Marcy's delight

Life around Merritt Island

The Cocoa Village Playhouse
Cocoa's downtown works hard to promote the area and is
a charming place to eat, shop, and find entertainment.

Cocoa Village
Laid back and pedestrian friendly

We had a rare chance to witness a nighttime rocket launch
from Cape Kennedy, about ten miles from our marina.

Grills, a popular restaurant at Port Canaveral

Port Canaveral is experiencing lots of growth as more
and more cruise ships are making it their home port.

One of many cruise ships you'll see at the Port.

Getting Ready to Return to North Carolina

We decided this year to have the boat pulled out of the water and store it on land here at Harbortown. We can get the bottom painted while it's "up on the hard" and also forgo the expense of hiring a diver to scrape off seaweed and sea critters on a regular basis. We dreaded to see what the bottom would look like after so much time in marinas this winter.

Cool Change on the way to her haul out

Pulling into her spot at the sling of the mobile lift

The dockhands work to get the front and rear slings
properly arranged to prevent boat damage.

The lift pulls her out of the water.

And she's up!

Not nearly as bad as we feared
The next step is a pressure washing.

Wayne's brother, Howard, came up from Vero Beach
to see what she looks like on dry land.. It's exciting
to see just how big a boat like this is.

The crane backs her into her parking spot. She's settled on blocks
and the slings are removed.

Thanks for following the blog! We'll be back next winter.

2015-02-13T20:16:00.000-08:00

Vero Beach - Jan. 26-Feb. 14

We've had a busy month here in Vero Beach but plan to move on tomorrow and travel faster than usual to reach Merritt Island (60 miles away) by tomorrow night. Wayne has lots of repair news to report and, in fact, is hunkered down below decks even as we speak trying to crank up a non-starting generator.

Company for Dinner

At the end of January our son Patrick's high school friend Buddy brought his family - Danyelle, Annabelle, and Ethan, over for a boat ride and dinner aboard. We had a good trip north on the ICW and then brought the crew back to the dock for Audience Participation Low Country Boil. Each member of Buddy's family chose a job - washing potatoes, cutting up onions, shucking corn, slicing sausage, and timing the order they all get tossed in while Wayne tended the pot and I supervised the galley. The resulting combination of boiled potatoes, corn, sausage, onions and shrimp was delicious and Danyelle brought a key lime pie to wrap up a tasty meal.

That's Captain Buddy at the helm and, left to right, Annabelle,
Ethan and Danyelle

Buddy, who works for Piper Aircraft, invited us to tour the Piper plant and offered to take us for an airplane ride. The volunteer who took us on the Piper plant tour was a wealth of information. Both of us were impressed to learn of the multitude of constant safety signoffs involved in the construction of an airplane. Piper airplanes are still hand-built rivet by rivet. After a few attempts to get together for a flight were thwarted because of high winds we finally got to take a plane ride with Buddy too. What fun!! Buddy showed Wayne how to work the controls of the plane and let him fly for most of the time we were up.

Ready to board for our flight on a beautiful winter day.
Hey, Buddy! Shouldn't there be a parachute somewhere in here?

Master of the Air Buddy with Master of the Sea Wayne

Sebastian Inlet - Atlantic Ocean on the left and
the Intracoastal Waterway on the right
What an awesome sight.

Wayne,the happy pilot

Thanks, Buddy. This was a high point of our time in Vero this winter. Thanks also, Danyelle, for lunch at The Patisserie, just one more of the many super restaurants in Vero Beach.

Judging at the Indian River Regional Science and Engineering Fair

For the past two years Colleen has volunteered to judge at the elementary level of the science fair here in Vero. This year Wayne judged too. We are both so impressed with the efforts of the Education Foundation, the teachers, the volunteer judges and the students who participate in the fair. The projects are high quality and the students who make it to this level are well prepared and an inspiration for everyone who has contact with them. In case you don't know, Wayne and I met at the Orange County Science Fair fifty years ago this March.

Colleen, judging fifth grade science projects

Vero Beach Book Center

Vero Beach is fortunate to have a large, independent bookstore in the center of town. Every winter they feature an author visit each week. In years past Colleen has heard a few of her favorite authors and this year we hit the jackpot. Lisa Gardner, Henry Winkler, and David Baldacci all visited Vero during the past few weeks so we have autographed copies of their newest books and enjoyed hearing them speak. Interestingly, both Lisa Gardner and David Baldacci say they don't know where their stories are going to go when they begin writing a book. Henry Winkler and his coauthor, Lin Oliver, are writing books starring a dyslexic boy, Hank Zipzer. The books are printed in a new font specially designed to be read by children with dyslexia. Very interesting. And we're happy to report that "The Fonze" is still a very funny guy.

HenryWinkler and Lin Oliver signed Here's Hank for our
granddaughter, Kate

Lisa Gardner is one of Colleen's favorite scary mystery writers.

And David Baldacci, now writing for adults and kids

And the Sewing Projects Continue.......

Colleen has completed two large quilt tops and a big assortment of quilt blocks to add to blocks already made. A visit to the Sunbonnet Sue guild meeting gave her good ideas for finishing a few projects and today the Sunbonnet Sues held their biannual quilt show. This group includes many talented hand quilters, appliquers and embroiderers and their show features a wide assortment of quilting-related projects.

Same Courthouse Steps block, over and over. Eventually it will be part of a lovely quilt.

Sampler blocks finally put together. The fabric features sea turtles
and it will soon become a full-fledged quilt.

Two of my favorites from the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Show
The piano is created with tiny two-inch squares strategically placed and patiently sewn together.

Wayne's sewing projects

The triangle curtain to the far right was replaced while in Vero. The front three were completed in Punta Gorda

The lower blue border was replaced with wider canvas and new snaps were installed.

New window covers were made for the port and starboard frontmost side windows

Repairs

This past month has been a PLUMBING month!

Hot water leak - For the second time, Wayne found a leak in the water line from the hot water heater. He had been looking for weeks for the source of water that was accumulating in the forward bilge area. A leaking elbow that was replaced three years ago at the same place had developed a new leak. This time the adapter that joined Pex tubing to the fitting failed. A whole rework of the adapter was determined to be required. The difficulty in finding and repairing the leak is that the water heater is behind and below the headboard in the master cabin.

BUT FIRST a diversion!

Sump pump float switch - While we were thinking about where that hot water leak was, Colleen noticed a humming noise coming from the front bilge area below the galley. Under the floor, our pantry area, is a water collector box for the front shower and front air conditioner condensate drain. The pump float switch was stuck and the sump pump was running continuously. Oh boy, two problems at once. It did this just to divert Wayne's attention from the hot water leak. Big deal. Just fix this small problem first. This easy problem required half a day and a trip to West Marine for a new float switch. West replaced it on warranty. Thank you but it should last longer. This wasn't the easy fix that it appeared it would be.

Back to the water heater:

After three trips to Sturgis True Value to get various half inch fittings and a smaller pipe wrench and three trips into the bowels of the boat, the leak was fixed.

The pliers are sitting on the water heater. 18 inches below these pliers is the set of elbows and pipe nipples that needed replacement. By sliding the mattress back two feet and laying over the edge of the bed,
Wayne could reach the hot water plumbing.

Colleen, hang onto my ankles. I am sliding into the access hatch! That's not working -
just lay across my legs to keep me from falling in!!!

Let me out of here. Third time is the charm.

Forward compartment bilge pump float switch.

A float switch malfunction is what led us to chase the hot water leak. Water was accumulating in the forward bilge even after we were tied in a slip. The forward bilge pump had never functioned automatically since we bought the boat. The pump was hidden below the galley floor and then below the pantry floor. The pump worked when a switch was thrown from the flybridge console, but never worked automatically to remove the accumulation of normal leakage from the prop shafts. After removing all the food stuffs, the two boxes of spare engine filters, and the shelf boards, Wayne could see the bilge pump and float switch. The wiring was a butcher job. After gathering all the necessary tools, Wayne ducked below the floor. Uh oh! Carver Boats only led two wires to this pump. There was no provision for a float switch. A previous owner had realized this and wired in a float switch - albeit incorrectly! He had wired the float switch directly across the positive and negative wires of the bilge pump. That float switch had most certainly burned out as soon as the water triggered it or the bilge pump switch was thrown on the dashboard. Our new float switch could not be wired unless there was a second positive wire. So back out of the bilge and route a new wire to the bilge. DID WE MENTION THAT THERE WAS HARDLY ENOUGH ROOM TO GET IN OR OUT OF THE BILGE! After numerous trips into the main engine area to route a new wire from the always-on panel to the forward bilge and several trips below the floor, the new automatic bilge pump was working as planned. Only took about 6 hours to complete!

Here is Wayne disappearing below the galley floor to replace the bilge pump float switch

Fuel leak on the generator:

Today when Wayne was test running the main engines and the generator, the generator would not start. We had run it just last week to test it. Checks found that fuel was not getting to the injectors. The fuel pump was getting electricity. Wayne noticed a puddle of fuel below the pump. A few checks further and he found a cracked fuel line at the fuel pump output. A new fuel line was installed and after 30 minutes of bleeding air from the injectors the generator was running. However, the Kohler genset uses a Yamaha motor and it will need several more injector bleeds before it performs properly. All fuel lines on the generator will be replaced in Merritt Island.

The bad line is the one in Wayne's hand with the Kohler white paint peeling

Something different:

How about this boat lift?

Requires no air inflation. The floats are solid foam filled

The floats scissor open and the boat drives in

Then the floats scissor closed and the boat raises out of the water

Wayne's Favorite Boat Parts Store

The Marine Connection on US1 in Ft. Pierce sells surplus boat manufacturer goods. It is a truly amazing store. The variety and quantity of their stock is incredible. Wayne found a new shifter and cables for our NC boat here.

Goodbye Vero Beach

A few of the things we'll miss in this beautiful community

The beach

A photo-shy turtle Wayne helped across the road

This is our favorite marina dog. Daphne is a
beautiful, friendly King Charles spaniel, owned
by Ben and Mary.

Why do the Northerners flock to Florida in the winter?
Could it be the flowers?

So, as you can see, it's been a busy month. Tomorrow we hope to set out early and travel much faster than usual (16-18 mph instead of 7-9 mph). Oh, the fuel we will burn! We'll try to make it to our next stop, Merritt Island, by tomorrow afternoon. The weather, even here, has been rather cold and windy and we don't want to anchor out in high winds. By Valentine's evening we should be tucked into Harbortown Marina in Merritt Island, looking forward to visits with friends Marla, Marcy and Roger and family in Orlando during our last month on the water in beautiful, mostly sunny, Florida.

And just one last sight........

Donna, our sister-in-law, is an accomplished
home decorator. A few years ago we admired this
handsome arrangement of fish sculpture and hat
on a glass bowl in her kitchen.

She laughed, lifted the hat and showed us its
real purpose - to hide the kitchen counter "clutter"
that we all have.

Back on the Atlantic Coast of Florida from Fort Myers to Vero Beach

2015-01-25T07:13:00.004-08:00

January 13-24, 2015

Tree Contest Winners

This time we have two winners of our Identify-The-Weird-Tree contest. The tree is ceiba speciosa, also known as silk floss tree and floss silk tree. A high school friend of Wayne's, Russ Mentzer, as well as the intrepid Hal Bloom, who was our last winner, correctly identified it. Congratulations you trivia experts!

Kids don't want to climb this tree!!

And the winners are......

Russ Mentzer

Hal Bloom

From the West Coast to the East Coast

We have traveled across South Florida from Fort Myers to Stuart via the Lake Okeechobee Waterway, OWW, and then north 45 more miles to Vero Beach where we are now tied up in the Loggerhead Marina.

The various legs of our boat travels so far this winter

The trip across Florida on the OWW was 145 miles and consisted of two overnight stops. The first stop was at Moore Haven at the western edge of Lake O. When we left Fort Myers the morning was cool with total cloud cover and we were heading into the wind.

Heading out from Fort Myers - misty, dreary and cool with a stiff breeze

One of our first curious sights. No more oil fueled generators in Florida - all are being converted to natural gas turbines. But have you noticed lower power bills?

With our travel speed of 9 mph and a 10 to 12mph headwind we were wearing jackets and jeans the entire day. There are three locks on this leg which is the Caloosahatchee River to Lake Okeechobee. We traversed two of them the first day. The first lock, W P Franklin, was about 20 miles after starting out from Ft. Myers and was temporarilly closed down for maintenance. The lock tender told us that we would have to wait for a full hour before she could open for us, We just pulled into the spill basin and dropped anchor and waited on the radio for instructions. Luckily we were allowed to pass first in our easterly direction and rose about 2 feet.

Anchored and waiting for the lock to open. Still somewhat foggy today

We continued another 28 miles to the second lock, Ortoona, which took us up another 11 feet. Just as we got into the lock and the lock tender began letting the water pour in, the clouds opened up and dumped rain on us. We could not leave our places holding lines. We had put on raincoats but our pants, shoes and socks were soaked when we could finally let go of the ropes holding us to the lock wall. Happily, it did not rain the rest of the day.

Railroad bridge that we asked to open for us

Interesting riverside dwellers

Another RR bridge

Thanks for the opening

RR workings are pretty ugly but do the task

We arrived at the city of Moore Haven at 4:15. Moore Haven is right on the western edge of Lake O and immediately before the last lock before entering Lake O. We paid $40 to the City Clerk across the street from the dock. $1 per foot of boat is cheap dockage in Florida. For our money we got several pilings to tie to, 30 amp electricity, and good water. We visited the library also across the street and used books were going for a dollar/plastic grocery bag. Wayne found enough reading for the rest of the season and some for the spring also. We gave the friends of the library $10 for our bag as it was such a good deal. After dumping our bag of books on the boat we walked four blocks to a Mexican restaurant that we had read about in Active Captain. Our dinners were very good and cooked to order. We were the only customers and the owner was very gracious and friendly. The winds died down to nothing and we enjoyed a comfortable sleep.

The friendly owner of Anto jitos in Moore Haven

We shoved off just after full daylight the second day of travel with some trepidation. It was foggy and we have sworn never to travel in fog again. The fog arrived as we were preparing to depart and we wanted to at least get through that third lock and then drop anchor on the other side and wait out the soup if necessary. The lock took us up another two feet and we were in Lake Okeechobee. Hooray. And, the 300 yards that we had just traveled took us out of the fog. Now we were on the rim route.

There are two ways to cross the big lake. One route is to leave the rim route after about 10 miles and go straight across 30 miles of open water with the possibility of rough conditions in winter winds. The second route, the full rim route, stays along the earthen dike and its alongside canal for 40 miles and is totally protected by shallow grassy flats for all but the last 12 miles. We chose route #2, the rim route. See the map for a better understanding. The day was truly pretty after the dubious start in the fog. We had a slow and uneventful trip though we were pushing our speed a bit and running on both engines. We wanted to get all the way to Stuart because there are no anchorages on the St Lucie River to the east of Lake O.. We were sprinkled on as we entered the open water area of the lake but it was very light.

Construction along the Lake Okeechobee waterway.
A boat was aground to the left when we passed this spot last February.

View of Lake O as we left the protection of the rim route and headed into the open lake for the final 12 miles

Lake Okeechobee
The sky turned ugly fast but we only got light sprinkles and then the sun reappeared

Our next lock, the Port Myakka Lock was on the St Lucie River where it leads from the lake. We were given immediate passage and dropped 3 to 4 feet. 500 yards into the St Lucie River from the Myakka Lock is the old RR lift bridge. This bridge prevents many sailboats from traversing the Okeechobee Waterway.

Indiantown Marina will strap barrels to one side of too tall sailboats. Then they fill the barrels
with water and tilt the boat over to pass under this bridge.

24 miles ahead we entered the St Lucie Lock and this one dropped us 14 feet to sea level of the Atlantic Ocean. It was now almost 4 PM and we had another hour of travel to reach Stuart, FL and a known good anchorage. We had found two possible anchorages listed in Active Captain and decided to try the one that best described the depths and swing room that we need for 40 feet of boat and 75 feet of anchor chain. However, that place was only about 60 feet wide at the entrance to a side creek. We went further into the creek to a spot that showed on our charts and GPS to be the widest point. There were large trees overhanging the water and narrowing the usable channel so we turned around with barely enough room to pivot on our axis and got out of there. On to Stuart! We arrived just as the sun was beginning to set and anchored across from the city marina mooring field. We saw a beautiful sunset and enjoyed another calm anchorage for the night. Our anchorage saved us the $20 mooring field rate.

Sunset over our anchorage in Stuart

Other boats in Stuart

The following morning we slept in after our ten-and-a-half hours of travel the previous day. As we approached the Stuart bridge to request an opening we heard sirens. It turned out that the railroad bridge just beyond the Stuart bridge was closing for a train to pass. Bad News! That always results in a 30 to 45 minute wait. That is just what it was - 45 minutes. No anchoring this time. We had to hold the boat into the current and fight the winds that were starting to become quite strong, The street bridge here has 11 feet of clearance and the railroad bridge has only 7 feet of clearance. When we finally passed through the two bridges the wind had built to 12 to 15 mph and the wide river was getting a good chop. We had seven miles to go to reach the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway that would lead us north to Vero Beach. When we got to the ICW and turned north we faced into 15 to 18 mph winds, two foot waves and opposing current. Our ground speed dropped 3 mph immediately. We zipped all the canvas on the flybridge for wind protection and plowed on. We bucked the wind, waves and current until 3PM when we arrived at Loggerhead Marina in Vero Beach. We tied up to the fuel dock and pumped our holding tanks - those are the tanks that hold our sewage. The we looked at the slip that we were assigned. Due to the high winds we decided to stay tied to the fuel dock hoping that the winds would be less in the morning. They weren't and the next day we proceeded to our slip and entered bow first to have better control of the boat. We are still that way a week later but we are comfortably settled and may keep things like this for a while

Wayne's brother, Howard and wife, Donna at BBQ restaurant the night that we arrived in Vero. Thank you both!

Settling in at Loggerhead

Within two days of our arrival at Vero we had touched base with Howard and Donna, Wayne's brother and our sister-in-law, and rented a car to go to Punta Gorda to pick up our parked Trailblazer. Jann and Gary were still in Punta Gorda so we enjoyed lunch with them and Gary's sister, Meredith. Doesn't it seems strange that Punta Gorda is a five day trip by boat for us but only two hours and forty-five minutes by car? These winters really are life in the slow lane.

This is our Enterprise rental car to drive to Punta Gorda - we dubbed it
the Roller Skate. A worrisome transportation mode on two lane highways.

Jann, Gary and Meredith
The two on the left live on their boat full-time
with their "dog," Beanie Baby Bob.

We've also enjoyed a marina pot luck dinner, a chili cook-off sponsored by the marina and a cocktail party in the Captain's lounge here. Wayne sampled twelve of the fifteen chilis competing in the cook-off. His company on the boat the next day was barely tolerable. Loggerhead is welcoming and comfortable with friendly staff and resident boaters.

Another high point of this year's visit was attending a play with Howard and Donna at the Vero Beach Riverside Theater. This time we saw Crazy for You featuring a talented New York cast. (Some friend back in North Carolina - please tell Roger Watson he was even better as the dad than the professional we saw here.)

By now we've met up with Howard and Donna for a couple of good restaurant meals. Those two do know the best spots to eat in Vero. We've also had a quick visit with our friend Roger and are looking forward to tomorrow when the family of a high school friend of Patrick's will be joining us on the boat for audience participation low country boil. We'll tell you more about that later.

One of the golf courses at Vero Beach at Loggerhead Grand Harbor Marina on a morning walk

Still Sewing Along

The local quilt guild meets every week and this past Thursday I joined them for a badly needed "quilt guild fix" and to get some advice on some of my current projects. They were so helpful and gave me several good ideas. This year I'll be able to attend their Quilt Show over Valentine's Day weekend and I'm looking forward to it.

A stitched bird-of-paradise flower. The technique is called thread painting and you can see where
I've machine stitched in leaf veins and flower details. Interesting and fun to do. As you can see, this
is not yet done. It's one of the pieces on which I was seeking advice.

These blocks were made by members of my North Carolina guild. I'm trying to come up
with a good way to make this into a queen-sized quilt for the boat and asked the Vero guild for ideas.
Stay tuned for their ideas.

Aren't these cute woven stars? They are made
of stiffened fabric. Take note: If you're on my Christmas list, don't look at them as they may
be your Christmas gift next year. Oops, too late.

Sights Along the Way

The south side of the Okeechobee rim route is built up to
prevent flooding. These three photos show the gravel and rock piled every mile or two in case the dike is breached in a hurricane. Some large rocks were as large as small pickup truck beds

The end. We both love to hear from you if you are following our journey.

Life in Ft. Myers

2015-01-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

December 31st-January 12

Happy New Year!

Almost too hot the entire week around New Year's Eve.
Believe it or not, we had to turn on the air conditioner -
and pay a hefty electric bill when it was time to check out.

We welcomed 2015 in with a pot luck with our marina neighbors on New Year's Eve and a New Year's Day glug party on Carl and Lois' boat, Puffin. Glug is a delicious Swedish mulled liquor (find the recipe at simplegoodandtasty.com). Then, the Saturday night before we left on January 4th, we invited the neighbors over for a cocktail party on Cool Change. All a nice way to wrap up our month at Laishley Marina in Punta Gorda, Florida. Wonderful marina staff, good local restaurants, clean restrooms and showers, inexpensive washers and dryers. We'll be back.

New Year's Eve pot luck and music. The musicians were pretty
good but the audience had a hard time with the words.

Deb, Ann, and Al at our cocktail party

Peter, Karen and Harry
The table Wayne made did a fine job.

Part of the cocktail party hors d'oeuvres

On to Fort Myers

Our original plan was to spend a month in Ft. Myers but Jann and Gary talked us into stopping at Punta Gorda. We were able to snag a week in Ft. Myers' city marina at the end of our Punta Gorda month so we made a leisurely (can't do anything else in this vessel) day-and-a-half trip down Charlotte Harbor and then south on the Gulf ICW to the Caloosahatchee River. An eastward turn soon brought us to the city of Ft. Myers and we tied up on an outside dock which gave us a great view of life on the river,

Wow! 1500 hours on the starboard diesel engine. The port engine turned 1500 about n hour later.

When we purchased the boat, the engine hour meters read just under 800 hours. We have put 700 hours on each engine since then. We run about 80% of the time on just one engine. So we have many more hours on the boat than we have on each engine.

Our overnight anchorage
The full moon rose in awesome splendor and we shot more than
ten photos, none of which captured its beauty. You really
needed to be there for this one.

This is a bait shop, conveniently situated right on the waterway.

Tracking our passage along the waterway

Homes along the way

Ft. Myers City Marina

The view from our back deck

Cool Change happily settled in at the dock. This was before the
96 foot boat took the spot on the other side of the dock and the
62 footer pulled up behind us as you can see below. We looked like a
rowboat next to those two.

We've written about Ft. Myers before. There is so much to see and do here and we still haven't done it all. Thomas Edison wintered here and talked his good friend, Henry Ford, into buying the house next door to him. You can tour both homes and Edison's lab, gardens and a museum on the property.

The Florida Repertory Theater is right across the
street from our marina. On our first Ft. Myers visit
we saw a very bad play there but this one was excellent.
Good actors, funny, funny plot and a beautiful set.
This is a must-see if you enjoy live theater.

Our friends in Fort Myers, John and Kay picked us up one night and we ate at Cactus
Jack's. It was a funky kind of place with a nice water location, good food
at a reasonable price and a band playing our kind of music.

You never know what you will see on the waterways of Florida.

Bike Night in Ft. Myers. Every downtown street was lined with motorcycles, probably a few thousand of them. Their owners, leather-clad, tattooed and accompanied by their biker mommas, were strolling the downtown area, enjoying beer, hot dogs, loud music, vendors, and other people's bikes. Caution prevailed and we refrained from photographing the bikers themselves.

Thousands of bikes were parked on the streets of downtown Ft, Myers. Streets were shut
down for the motorcycle event and the party began.

Colleen still does not understand what this vehicle does or why the heck it does it. It is a swamp buggy that rolls across
the surface of water on its fast spinning, narrow tires in racing events.

Weavers Guild of Char-Lee (Charlotte County-Lee County)

The Weavers of Char-Lee held an outdoor demonstration at
the library on Saturday. Wayne was fascinated by the looms whose threads
can be raised or lowered in different sequences to make intricate weavings.

Ft. Myers Farmer's Market
Notice the jackets. This was one of our coldest days yet this winter.
The strawberries from Plant City and the Gulf shrimp were just-harvested fresh.

And the Sewing Continues

Sandy's queen sized bedspread finished and
ready to mail. I think she will be happy.

A work-in-progress. I'm befuddled about what to
do next.

The fractured sunflower you saw last blog is complete.

Over two hundred pieces were sewn together to make this.
Below you can see the back and some of the paper that
must be removed to finish the piece.

Wayne made a log carrier for son Michael for his new apartment's fireplace.

A new shelf was added in one of the small cabinets in the master bath.
The plastic backing replaced icky furry stuff to make a sleek, useful storage area.

Who wants to challenge Hal, our last blog's expert tree identifier? This odd tree is covered
with mean-looking thorns all over its trunk and branches and also had seed pods hanging on long stems.. Figure out what it is and we'll publish your name and photo.

We found this tree during our walk to Publix grocery store. Publix is 1.2 miles away. A backpack is a must for grocery shopping.

Many of our sunsets are stunning.

Tomorrow, January 12th, we start out for Lake Okeechobee via the Caloosahatchee River. Our next stop will be the city of Moorehaven on the west side of the Lake O. From there we will travel along the south side of the lake, the rim route, to the St. Lucie River and then on to Stuart, Florida on the Atlantic side of the state. The trip is about 145 miles total. Our transit time of the Okeechobee Waterway, which is maintained by the Army Corp of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District, will be three days. From Stu we will travel north to Vero Beach where we plan to stay for a month.

Christmas and Beyond in Punta Gorda

2014-12-31T08:55:00.000-08:00

December 15th-31st

And We Have A Winner!

Aha! Someone is listening out there. Our friend, Hal Bloom in Charlotte, correctly identified the strange tree we posted a photo of on our last blog. It's called a South African sausage tree (Kigelia pinnata). What an appropriate name. Congratulations, Hal.

Meet the winner, Hal

In Case You Don't Know Where We Are
Punta Gorda is about 20 mile northeast from the Gulf of Mexico shoreline on Charlotte Harbor. The first Europeans to explore this area of Florida were the Ponce Deleon expeditions in the 1500s. Ponce Deleon did not find gold as he wanted; he did however conclude that this area would be ideal to establish a new colony. On his second voyage here with 200 settlers the local Indian population drove the settlers back aboard their ships after a short stay. Ponce Deleon was wounded by a poison arrow and went to Puerto Rico where he subsequently died.
Charlotte Harbor along with Tampa Bay are the two largest natural harbors in Florida. The bay encompasses more than 270 sq. miles. Charlotte Harbor was a major shipping point for cattle in the 1800s before railroads reached Florida. Timber was shipped from this area also. The Myakka and Peace rivers feed the bay with fresh water and this area is one of Florida's great fishing spots. The tarpon fishing at the Boca Grand pass, the Gulf inlet to the harbor, is some of the best tarpon fishing in the world. Charlotte Harbor is mainly for pleasure and fishing boats today. The area thrives due to its beautiful beaches, great fishing, and its mild winter climate that attracts many winter inhabitants. Retirement communities abound here.

Cool Change sits way up in Charlotte Harbor, just to the right of the first big bridge you
see in the upper right corner. That bridge is really two one-way sections as you see
below in a shot taken from the waterfront park.

Waterfront walkway view north to Port Charlotte with a morning fog rolling toward us.

Christmas in the Tropics

City tree at the Friday art and music walk that we attended in downtown Punta Gorda.

This 10 year old girl was making her sidewalk music debut, according to her father.
Such a young girl and she did a remarkable job singing 60s rock.

You won't be seeing this up north. Notice the shorts and jacket attire. Some mornings we strike out for a walk
in the chill and are shedding clothes within fifteen minutes as it begins to warm up outside.

Boat Sewing Projects

Christmas came upon us in a rush as it always seems to do but we managed to get all of our shopping and shipping done in time. The deconstructed quilt I told you about in the last blog became three Christmas table runners, two of which were given as gifts and one decorated our own table. For better or worse, I still have four blocks left. That's a project I am glad to leave behind at this point so I have no idea when those blocks will find a life in another sewing creation.

I also finished two quilt tops and I'll try to find a big space to lay them out and prepare them to quilt at some point. Not photo ready yet.

Christmas pajamas for two of the grandgirls and their American Girl dolls

In North Carolina I made a quilt top for my neighbor and
friend, Sandy. It is queen sized so she hired a professional
to quilt it. She has shipped it to me here to bind and that
part is underway. Next step - hand sew the folded binding
down around the quilt's 450 inch perimeter.

This is a microwave pot holder. My friend Dottie shared the
pattern with me. You put your bowl into the middle and put
both items into the microwave, then lift it all out, saving your
fingers from burns.

Wayne's World of Sewing and Repairs

Wayne began making canvas bags to supplement the expensive bag that we like so much to carry laundry and anything else to and from the boat. Some of the bags were made for friends.

This bag was made for Colleen's friend, Marla.

You can get an idea of the size here.

We replaced the window blinds last summer but found we couldn't
reach the shade adjustment. Wayne first tried repositioning the shades
but that wasn't totally successful. No problem. Mr. Fix-It removed the upholstered bolsters
from the side of the window, took them apart, cut a few inches off and put
it all back together

Fifty or so staples later

Another bag was made for our friends Jann and Gary aboard Tie a Knot.
We met them in 2010 when we were in the mooring field in Marathon.

OK! More canvas replacements. This is a rollup side curtain for the flybridge.
The old one was becoming hard to see through and the zipper was failing.

It all starts with the cutting of all components.

This is the new corner side curtain

New entry curtain that Wayne made.

Last fall Wayne cut a queen sized mattress topper to fit

our forward cabin which has an odd-shaped berth. Then he remade

king-sized sheets to create a custom fitted bottom sheet and top sheet.

Here he is attaching Velcro straps that he designed

to snug down the sheets from the back.

Repairs to the boat have been almost nada. Wayne replaced the faucet washers in the master shower and has been unsuccessfully chasing a small water leak in the front hold.

So, What do You do in Punta Gorda?

We stayed on the boat for Christmas this year. Merritt Island, FL friends Roger and Marcy came to spend a few days with us before the 25th. I imagine you all feel that you know those two by now. We were so happy to see them and the growing lettuce bowl they brought as a gift. Of course, Marcy and I worked on a sewing project together. Paper piecing is kind of like a paint-by-number picture except you "paint" with fabric, sewing different shades of colors onto a pattern with different numbers corresponding to the fabrics. Easy but also tricky as everything must line up perfectly to make the pieces fit and you have to watch not to mix up the colors. I'll be redoing two sections that have messed up colors. I admit, Marcy, all my fault.

Salad, anyone?

Colleen and Marcy

Eventually the pieces of this fractured picture will be
joined together to make some handsome paper pieced sunflowers.

While Colleen and Marcy were sewing, Roger and Wayne relaxed.

We invited Jann and Gary over one night too and the six of us had North Carolina Bar BQ. Then on the 24th we were happy to have a visit from Lani and Don and Tina. Lani and I went to elementary and junior and senior high school together. The three of them made a major detour from their Boca Raton destination that day in order to meet us for lunch. Thanks again, guys!

Colleen, Lani, Tina, Don, Wayne

On Christmas Day about eleven other boaters and the two of us got together on a boat down the dock (that's like "down the block" in landlubber talk) and had pot luck Christmas hosted by Harry and Joan. What a meal! The guests included two Brits and an Australian. We enjoyed mashed rutabagas and potatoes, heavenly seasoned with lots of cream and butter, known as punchnep in the British Isles, roast turkey and ham, a fancy dressing and homemade cranberry sauce concocted by Harry, several vegetable dishes and Wayne's mom's ambrosia. It was quite a feast.

Punta Gorda Sights

A handsome rendering of Ponce Deleon sits on the harbor

Miniature '57 Chevy we found on our morning walk

Three houses sit in a row here. The yellow one is labeled Yellow
House; the Orange one is labeled Orange House and the purple one is.........

Who lives here? Obviously, a large family of elves.

I thought this lady looked so picturesque as she walked on the pier that I asked her for
permission to take her photo. Look at the shadows of the palm trees, the curve of her hat,
her black-and-white outfit and the angle of the rails.

Jann and Colleen
We've really enjoyed our time here in Punta Gorda with Jann and Gary. These two
intrepid explorers live fulltime on their boat, Tie a Knot, and have journeyed
all over Florida, up the US east coast, across the Great Lakes
and down the Mississippi.

And, just in case you think life is way too easy for us here in sunny Florida - yesterday Wayne got the worst haircut of his life and Colleen dropped and broke her cell phone. Oh, well, the hair will grow back and the cell phone still works.

Happy New Year to you all!

Gulfport to Punta Gorda

2014-12-14T20:05:00.000-08:00

November 26-December 13

Thanksgiving, 2014

We enjoyed Thanksgiving and the day after with old and new friends. Our North Carolina friends, Dave and Barbara, invited us to Thanksgiving dinner at Mission Inn in Howey-in-the-Hills, FL. Barbara's good friend, Shirley, got together about fifteen friends for this event and we were happy to be part of it. Afterwards we had the chance to visit Shirley’s vintage old Florida home and the attached cottage and gardens in Mount Dora, all of which she has lovingly restored. Talk about an impressive DIY project!! We traveled on from there to the home of Jim and Shaula, who are old friends from our Florida boating days and we spent the night there, catching up and reminiscing about the good old days and some of our exciting boating adventures together.

Slightly out of character in our limited
dress-up clothes

Dave and Barbara

We posed Jim and Shaula in front of the pies at Bob Evans
because we couldn't resist the after-Thanksgiving 2 for 1 sale.

Back to Gulfport

We wanted to show all of you what we meant when we commented last time about the funky Gulfport houses. We have never seen so many cute little pastel homes and we never did get a photo of the house with a huge metal dragon on the roof.

Wine bottles line the front walk with lights strung
inside them. I'm sure it's quite a sight at night.

One stupendous sunset; like a rainbow of pink clouds

This Winter’s Journey Begins

Cool Change pulled away from the Gulfport docks on December 1^st. We spent three days slowly cruising down the Gulf Intracoastal, stopping for two nights to anchor in scenic settings.

The Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay
This is the bridge that was knocked down by a errant freighter during a violent rain storm 30+ years ago.

The city of Sarasota from the water as we passed

A steady hand on the controls

The people who live on Manasota Key travel to and from work by ferry. We waited while two ferries, one from each shore traded sides of the waterway loaded with cars and trucks

Bridge opening to let us and several other boats pass

A beautiful anchorage in Lemon Bay. We stopped for lunch
and liked the spot so much we stayed overnight.

Rain all around but we only got a few drops

Traveling south this was the scenery on the port side

and this was on our starboard side

Settling in Punta Gorda

Our intention was to travel to Fort Myers and stay at the city docks for a month but our friends Jann and Gary promoted Laishley Marina. Punta Gorda, where Laishley is located, is a charming little town, across Charlotte Harbor from the city of Port Charlotte. Punta Gorda has been around since 1884 but its most recent history is tied to Hurricane Charley, a category 4 hurricane that hit this side of the state ten years ago. After the 150 mph winds had their way with the town the city fathers and mothers began what they term “urban renewal by disaster.” The result is a charming rebuilt downtown, within walking distance of the marina, beautiful murals detailing the town's history, good restaurants and a wonderful waterfront hiking/biking trail along Charlotte Harbor. So we’re settled here for a month and will be here through Christmas and beyond. Jann and Gary are here and we’ve also had the chance to reconnect with John and Kay, whom we met in Vero Beach three winters ago and who now live in Fort Myers, 30 miles further south.

The view from our back door, Punta Gorda

Laishley is a friendly marina, clean laundry facilities and showers,
once-a-week pot luck dinner with the marina residents and
the bluest water and skies you can imagine.

One of many historical murals around Punta Gorda

A representation of an early Native American Floridian

During a morning walk we found this tree. It had bright red flowers and pods the size of baking potatoes
hanging from vines coming off the branches. Identify it for us
and we'll mention your name in the next blog.

This is a blossom.

Seed pod??

Sewing Projects

Of course, lots of sewing has been going on and, unfortunately, also some unsewing. On this trip I’ve been trying to finish some projects that have been languishing in my sewing room for several years. One was to be a Christmas quilt made with 13 different 12-inch blocks I sewed in a class five years ago. They needed to be set with carefully measured triangles and I thought I had figured out the math to do it. I got the whole top together and realized it was seriously cattywhompus. Enter the seam ripper – for hours and hours. Now I’ve regrouped to use the blocks for something else. Thanks, friend Dottie, for the phone app to calculate weird triangles.

An easy fleece hat

A boat dinette is not the best place to maneuver when quilting.

An easy fleece scarf. The sides are crocheted to make
a braided look.

No longer a messed-up quilt - now reconstructed to make
a Christmas table runner

I’ve begun to learn a new hobby – pine needle basket making. My friend Jann is a right hander trying to teach this southpaw how to coil the needles around a base and sew them so they build into a beautiful basket. Not easy but she is making a valiant effort.

Some basket making; lots of goofing around. Can you
tell by Jann's body language that she holds little hope
of Colleen mastering this skill?

Time to repair something!

This is the disintegrating transom plate where the outboard motor mounts on the dinghy

The transom plate on the stern of the dinghy is made of some sort of plastic and it needs to be replaced. A thicker material is needed as the new 8hp outboard motor is gouging into the top of the top of the transom and chipping away the fiberglass. I found a hatch door made of "Starboard" material at a marine surplus store for $12. I cut it down to the right size and shape with a jigsaw and then hand sanded and bevelled the sides to the needed shape.

It required a whole lot of hand sanding as I did not bring my electric sander this year - dumb decision!

The new transom plate

OK let's do some more dingy repairs. Back in Gulfport we squirted a leak sealer ($55 a quart - boat stuff is always very expensive - it looked like milk) into the port side tube on the dinghy. Some sealant bubbled out and sealed two leaks on the tube where there were deep scrapes from years gone by. I cut patches to shape from hypalon material in our dinghy repair kit and glued into place on the two leaks. Hopefully the slow leaks are now permanently sealed.

Patch #1

Patch #2

We have a new navigation tool.

Sorry we cannot get a photo that is not fuzzy. It is an iPad app that holds Garmin NOAA charts that we can call up and view. The charts coordinate and display information from "Active Captain", a boating information data bank. Look closely and you can see green anchors for recommended anchorages, red icons for marinas, blue icons for bridges, red and green navigation markers, and more. Clicking on an icon brings up all manner of info on the item. This has proven to be a great asset aboard.

A new boat design

We have never seen a flats fishing boat like this tunnel hull model. It is made in Texas and runs in 4 inches of water. It will do 65 mph according to the owner who customized it to his needs. Look at those seats! He can hydraulically jack up the engine on its transom mount so just two of the four propeller blades are in the water at cruise speed over the flats.

Christmas is Coming

Tree decorating on the back
deck in progress

And the result. Ta Da!!

Cool Change is ready with lots of lights but.....

Not as many as this guy, preparing to
enter Sunday's boat parade. In addition to
the lights they later added a giant blow-up polar
bear at the back, a blow-up Santa in camo fatigues on
the front and a snow machine.

Happy holidays to all of our followers

Wayne & Colleen

Getting Ready for Winter Travel in Florida 2014 / 2015

2014-11-25T12:59:00.000-08:00

November 15-November 25, 2014

Gulfport, Florida

Cool Change patiently waiting for Wayne and Colleen to arrive for the winter

Welcome to Florida!

About the time the temperature in North Carolina hit 26 degrees these two birds decided they should head south for the winter so here we are back in the charming little town of Gulfport, located just southwest of St. Petersburg on Florida's Gulf Coast. It was about 70 degrees when we arrived at sunset. There are lots of things to see and do here while we prepare the boat for our departure this coming weekend.

There's no place like Gulfport. This swing had a former life as
a radar arch on a boat. The rod holders become solar charged lights at night for your swinging enjoyment.
The houses in this little beach town are painted improbable combinations
of colors and you just never know what you'll find in the way of yard art.

"Typical" lawn ornament in Gulfport

MARINA LIFE

Cool Change is currently docked at the Gulfport City Marina. There are not many amenities here but we like the funky, laid-back community and the weather has been perfect almost every day. Today's rain is giving us time to get this year's blog underway. We have seen two movies (Interstellar and Mockingjay, Part 1). Both were good but, if you don't like movies that leave you hanging, knowing there is another movie to come, skip Mockingjay until Part 2 is released.

ADVENTURES IN SARASOTA

Last Friday we drove (by car) down to Sarasota to look over an RV show. No, we are not ready to become winter landlubbers. We were looking for clever storage features and found absolutely nothing that we haven't already seen on boats. We did find a $580,000 RV. For over half a million you get ornate ceiling and wall woodwork, stone countertops and flooring, bunches of TVs both inside and outside, full sized refrigerator and freezer, stacked washer and dryer and plenty of beds for all of your friends and family. Unbelievable!

Anyone have a spare half a million laying around?

Lunch was at waterside Marina Jack's. We recommend it for the view, the service and the food. In a nearby park you'll find a statue inspired by the photo of the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square on VJ Day at the end of World War II. The title is "Unconditional Surrender" and at 25 feet tall, it's quite a sight.

Sarasota Bay from Marina Jack's restaurant

Unconditional Surrender
You've got to see this to believe it.

Then we took the bridge west to Lido Key and had a great visit at Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium (mote.org). The facility is crawling with enthusiastic, well informed guides who could answer all our questions. We highly recommend that you stop if you are near Sarasota.

Dolphin training

One of many aquarium scenes

Gorgeous big turtle

A manatee, one of two at the Mote

A seat urchin and a cowrie sharing a slice of cucumber
Verrrry slow munching going on

Jellyfish!

The seahorse race starts in seconds

poisonous Lionfish that is invading Florida waters

I can't resist adding this. It's a quilt!

FOOD WITH FRIENDS

Colleen's childhood friend, Marla, met us at Columbia Restaurant in Tampa while she was over this way getting her RV serviced. The always fresh baked, warm bread and seafood soup are big hits at this 100 year-old plus Cuban restaurant which is a Tampa tradition.

Colleen and Marla
Lunch is Sangria, fresh-baked bread and seafood soup.
Yum!!!

Sandra and Frank, our former neighbors from Orlando, also met us for supper at Snappers on Treasure Island. We enjoyed a tasty meal. It was so nice to catch up with them and they've supplied us with enough restaurant recommendations to last for several months. We checked out one of them, Mad Fish, last night and enjoyed early bird shrimp scampi and salmon. But we can't leave this area without at least one more visit to KC's Korner Restaurant, a modest little place a few miles north of our marina. We've only had breakfast there but their prices are good, service is fast and friendly and the food is delicious.

Mad Fish
Thanks, Sandra and Frank

Not fancy but worth the visit

So, have we done nothing but eat? Not quite. Colleen has spent many afternoons sewing, mostly Christmas gifts, so we can't post pictures yet. I've also visited a local quilt guild, Suncoast Quilting Circle, and was welcomed with open arms by Nora who immediately invited me to sit at her table. On the way across the room a pair of sisters, Joyce and Sue, also offered a friendly welcome and, at the end of the meeting Anne invited me to lunch with a group. I couldn't do that but it's so pleasant to always be able to find quilting friends, no matter where we go. Wayne has been - well, when you read on you'll see he has not been loafing around.

Colleen's quilting "nook" is well established

This past weekend we traveled a few miles west and saw a sand sculpture contest, "Sanding Ovations," on Treasure Island. A few pictures will be worth a thousand words.

Colleen's favorite sand sculpture

The first place winner, called "Love Never Dies" by Jonathan Bouchard
In-the-making, two skeletons embracing, half-buried in the sand as if they have
just been excavated

Second place winner. Pretty gruesome, huh?

REPAIRS and UPGRADES

As usual there is always a list of repairs and upgrades when I get to the boat. One of these tasks started at home with the making of a new table for the aft deck where we eat many of our meals.

Installing the legs and wings aboard Cool Change

The table building started at home with the cutting of the wood and the glue-up of the pieces. This was a month long process. I used several woods - ipe (the darkest wood) was left over from a deck railing at home, oak that was left from a home remodeling 25+ years ago, mahogany that I found floating in the Atlantic while fishing 30+ years ago, and poplar and sapele which I purchased. (I would never throw out an expensive piece of wood). The anticipated cost was to be a modest $100. However, $400 later this is the result.

Table with wings up.

Sunbrella fabric cover that I made to protect the finish.
Also made a padded cover that fits with the wings extended when it becomes a work table.

For the second time I replaced the timer module inside the icemaker that resides on our aft deck under the sink. Still not working properly. Still drips water into ice bucket that then freezes the ice cubes together. Oh well, I will look for other cures.

This is the front vent for the icemaker. Mud daubers go in here and build nests that clog the cooling fan. No more! I hot glued a piece of window screen to the back of the louvers.

Every year we need to reseal the canvas top over the flybridge. We cannot get to the top so we roll on the canvas sealer from the bottom where it completely saturates through the fabric. It stops the drips where the aluminum bows rub the fabric and stops splatter-through in heavy rains. It also water seals the fabric of the zippers.

OK let's replace two of the four deep discharge batteries that power our inverter to make 120 volt AC electricity when we are at anchor so that we don't have to run the diesel generator. Two are four years old and at the end of life. They weigh 94 pounds each.

Getting them from the car to the boat is a chore in itself. Getting them up these five steps onto the deck is great fun too.

The batteries mount below the platform where that red tool box sits.
Five more steps down into our salon and then lifting them down four feet and into place.

And.....I had to first reverse this process for the two batteries that I removed. Actually three batteries - I removed one wrong battery and got it all the way to the back deck before I realized my mistake!

Another task. We needed a more convenient outlet in the galley area. The photos below show the start of the process.

Our dinghy loses air and becomes limp after a day and a half. The cure is shown here - dinghy sealant - $55 per quart. Only the port side tube is leaking. The dinghy was hauled ashore, with much effort and help from boater neighbors, deflated, the sealant squeezed in, and re-inflated. Then Wayne rolled it over 360 degrees every 30 minutes for 2 1/2 hours. It was not just rolled over, it was turned 20 degrees or so and held, 20 degrees more and held. That continued until a complete revolution was achieved. A 30 minute break and then start again. Oh, and he also stood the boat on its bow and then on its transom so that the sealant was spread throughout.

Hold it right there for 3 or 4 minutes, then move a bit and repeat

Last year I knocked the flagpole from its base and caught it as it bounced at my feet on the swim platform on its dash for the sea. The cure for that is a stainless pin and keeper that I installed. It was found that the bronze flag base was quite difficult to drill into. Patient persistence finally got the job done.

More to follow as we get out on the waterways next Monday.

We hope that you all have a Happy Thanksgiving. Remember that we love to hear from you!

Colleen and Wayne

Finishing our Trip for this Winter February 23-March 9

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Our Marina for the Next Eight Months

We have found a new marina again this year. It is located in Gulfport just west of St. Petersburg. It is very close to several inlets allowing access to the Gulf of Mexico. It is also just several hundred yards from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and has close access to Tampa Bay. We hope to explore this wonderful boating area this year. There are many memories of great family trips to this area years ago when we lived in Florida.

We've returned to home in North Carolina, just in time to see forsythia, Bradford pear trees, redbuds and dafodils in bloom. We had a fine first week and then winter struck here again in the form of freezing temperatures and sleet. Oh, well, spring will make a serious appearance here soon.

Cool Change has settled into her berth in Gulfport. There's a good-sized tide
here on our fixed dock - take note of the handy knotted rope Wayne has
devised to help Colleen haul herself from dock to boat when we have a
giant step from shore to ship.

Our first weekend in Gulfport found us at breakfast streetside, watching vendors and participants set up the tenth annual Get Rescued Street Fair. Every organization you can imagine brought rescue animals (mostly dogs) who were in need of a home. There were also lots of vendors selling pet supplies, clothes for pets and food - for pets and people. We have never before seen so many odd assortments of Heinz 57 dogs.

Our first Gulfport breakfast spot

Beagle rescue booth

Gulfport's Main Street

No, we did not acquire a new dog, much as we were tempted by these cute mutts.

This guy seemed to be happy to be dressed up for the event - shoes, hat and pants.

Here in Gulfport our marina does not have a laundromat so we asked around and were referred to one a few miles away. Laundromats offer the advantage of being able to wash multiple loads at once coupled with the disadvantage of high prices and less-than-clean conditions. Colleen believes that a great business opportunity exists for someone to "clean up," earning a fortune with spotless restrooms, good snack and drink machines, reliable change machines and wi-fi access at a friendly laudromat with a clean floor.

It's a good idea to treat Colleen to lunch and a serious drink on laundry days.

It Wouldn't be a Proper Blog Entry Without a Repair or Two, Right?

Shower Sump Repair

This is the shower sump under the floor in the master stateroom. The float switch failed imtermittently and refused to pump shower water overboard. Old switch was removed and a new one purchased at West Marine - $50

Wiring up the new float switch.

Job finished. We can take showers now.

New cover for our salon window, which is getting a lot of sun exposure. Nothing to it!

Starting a new window cover.

Sewing the pieces together

The new window cover to block the hot sun this spring and summer

Oh, No! No More Sewing Projects for Colleen

Quilter's Haven and More offered a warm welcome

Quilter's Haven is located in Palmetto, near Bradenton, and was full of beautiful fabrics and lots of luscious projects.

This has never happened before. Colleen's been very busy this winter, making quilts, purses, beach bags, headbands for the grandgirls, and little gifts for people we've met along the way. But she ran out of projects around the middle of February and had to use scraps to keep herself busy. Thus, you see this purse. The body and the pocket are left over from some other projects but, as always happens with quilting, she had to buy just a little bit more fabric at Quilter's Haven to make the handles. That green fabric was so pretty that she bought more than she needed. Oh, well, inspiration for another project.

Please try not to notice that the turtle is upside down.

I've never done a landscape like this. They always looked so intimidating but, with help from a pattern from
Quilter's Haven, I found fabric scraps among my stash to cut into strips for the water and
followed directions to make the cattails and the bear.
I need to work on making the bear look a little less like a camel but I'm pretty happy with the rest.

We Even Have Friends and Family on the West Coast

Our daughter-in-law's sister, Joanna, lives in Tampa with her husband and daughter. We'd never met Ellie so Colleen and Joanna met at Tampa's International Mall (a serious mall that deserves future investigation) for a play date and lunch. What a cute little girl!

Joanna and Ellie

In Orlando Sandra and Frank were our across-the-street neighbors. Our youngest kids were near the same age and, for many years, Sandra and I were walking buddies, walking and talking nonstop until we'd covered a mile or two before realizing we'd gone so far. We were so happy to learn they have a condo near Gulfport and planned to visit us. Even after sixteen years we found we still have a lot in common.

Sandra and Frank

What an interesting sculpture, dedicated to local fishermen
who have been lost at sea
.

Sun 'n Sea

In the 1970s and 80s our family vacationed in some old cottages on Longboat Key near Bradenton. The beach was beautiful; the Gulf was calm and blue and we spent some memorable, relaxing weeks with our boys. We took a car trip down to Longboat just to see how the cottages looked, never expecting to find them just as welcoming as they were thirty plus years ago and beautifully maintained. We need to make this the destination for another family vacation.

Still lots of shade

The drive down to the beach

On the Waterway to Gulfport, FL - Feb 17 - 22

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Our Final Leg of Travel

On Presidents Day we stayed at our anchorage off Useppa Island for longer than planned. We worked on the next installment of the blog so that we could publish it to our followers today and we were in no rush to leave the peaceful anchorage. Just before ten it was time to pull the anchor and get underway. We were committed to again run on just one engine at a time for the second day. By traveling at 7 to 8 mph on one engine we can almost double our fuel mileage and at a price of $4.10 per gallon for diesel that is a great incentive. 660 hp and we are only using about 80 of those.

The intracoastal waterways on this side of the state are really pretty. There are many inlets, small and large, along the Gulf coast here. The constant flushing of the tides causes the water to be turquoise in color as opposed to the brown color on the east coast waterway (southeast FL being the exception).

We try to capture the color of the water but the photos do not do it justice.
Can you see the dolphin in the center, just under the surface?

We have been meandering behind the barrier islands and the many mangrove islands. Some of these islands are accessible only by boat and many have people living there anyway. This is a very fragile area and very beautiful.

Barrier islands separate us from the Gulf of Mexico all the way from Ft Myers to Gulfport.
This area is very susceptible to storms, similar to North Carolina's barrier islands, the Outer Banks.

A lot of boats on the water in a constricted place

We have observed that boats and people are out on the waterways everywhere. We believe that we have seen more boats on the water in the last two days than we have seen in all of the last three winters on the east coast. There are pontoon boats and all manner of fishing boats not to mention many large cruising boats and sailboats. Even the sailboats actually have their sails up here! It sounds strange but we truly do not see many sailboats under sail, even though we see lots of sailboats traveling the waterway.

I stopped writing in the blog and stepped out on the deck and snapped this photo from our anchorage,
It is 6:24AM and 56 degrees out this morning. Beautiful.

We have passed beneath many bridges along the way. Our timing for those that had to be raised or swung open has been almost perfect. We have had very little wait time over these two days. Just pure dumb luck.

Near Venice FL

Another Venice bridge

One of many openings

Many beautiful homes along the water.
Also we've noticed more modest homes than mansions along this route.

This is one of two car ferries traveling back and forth across the waterway near Stump Pass

Imagine this commute if you had to take a boat from your house to the mainland
and then travel by car to work.

Venice, FL home

Venice inlet

Venice, FL

Dolphins playing in our wake

Just 5 feet from our boat

They stayed with us for about a half mile along Longboat Key

No, the Repairs Haven't Stopped

A minor repair that I have been planning to "get around to".
Three of our four gas caps have had broken keeper chains since we have owned Cool Change. I happened to see some large brass chain connected to a pen on the counter of a hardware store. It turns out that the store stocked this chain.. I had not been able to find any chain of the variety I needed at marine stores. A dropped cap costs about $35 for the replacement. All the chain needed for four gas caps cost only $2 so I replaced them all.

Fuel cap and broken chain removed from throat of fuel filler.

A rag was shoved into the filler to prevent the old chain and the screw holding it from falling into fuel tanks.

New chains installed. I did remember to remove the rag!

And the Quilting Goes on Too!

Thanks to my Vero Beach sister-in-law, Donna. She helped me lay out these quilt tops on her driveway, sandwiching the top, batting and backing to prepare them for quilting. These child-sized quilts are small enough that I was able to complete the machine quilting and binding on the boat so....two big projects DONE!

This Attic Windows pattern is one of my favorites. Notice the three-D look you can get
just by carefully arranging the window colors.

This one features gorilla families.

Settling down near St. Petersburg, FL

Wayne did quite a bit of research, looking for a marina that might be a good spot for us to leave the boat here on the west coast when we go back home this year. On Tuesday, February 18th we pulled into Gulfport Municipal Marina in the small coastal community of Gulfport, located near the Skyway Bridge and just east of St. Pete Beach. Getting into the marina was a bit of a challenge. We realized as we approached the fixed bridge entering Boca Ciega Bay that we are about 6 inches taller than the bridge height at high tide. Just our luck - the tide was up so we had to backtrack another hour or so to enter the bay through a higher bridge. It was a beautiful day, though, and no great hardship for either of us to stay on the water a while longer. We wish we could bottle some of these views of the sunshine, the clouds and the water and give you all their full impact.

St. Pete high rises on the way to Gulfport.

We have settled in here for the next few weeks and have retrieved our car from Stuart. There's a lot to see and do in this area and we plan to revisit some of the places we enjoyed when we boated in this part of Florida years ago. Bradenton, Sarasota, Longboat Key, as well as both Tampa and St. Pete offer a relaxing atmosphere of life on the beautiful Gulf of Mexico.

Map of this year's adventures
Wow! 700+ miles by boat this year.

Cool Change in its new slip at Gulfport Marina

The Sunshine Skyway bridge from the waterway between Bradenton and Gulfport,
looking across Tampa Bay towards St. Petersburg.

And here we are on the Sunshine Skyway bridge on the way
to retrieve our car in Stuart, FL on the Atlantic coast

Downtown St Pete Marina view

Live video feed of Gulfport Marina
Try this link for the web cam here at our marina https://mygulfport.us/marina/

Pelican Rescue

Today I observed a pelican that was struggling in the water about five boats away from ours. Every time that he moved his feet his head would go under water. It was in extreme distress. A fishing lure was hooked in its beak and also its webbed foot. Its foot and its beak were essentially tied closely together such that the more he struggled the more his head was pulled underwater. It was rapidly suffocating. I alerted the marina staff who came over with a net and together we cut the bird free of the fishing lure. I was holding the bird's wings to prevent it from struggling out of our control. For another ten minutes I held on as the bird became more alert and was breathing normally. When it appeared to gain strength I released my hold on the pelican and it jumped into the water. I watched it swim away for about ten minutes and when it was in open water it flew off and landed several hundred feet away where its comrades were sitting along the shore. Boy, did that feel good!

Stuart to Ft. Myers via the Lake Okeechobee Waterway Feb 6 - Feb 16, 2014

2014-02-17T06:45:00.000-08:00

Old news

Colleen forgot to mention a fun time when we were back in Vero in January. She again had an opportunity to judge in the elementary division at the Indian River County Science and Technology Fair. This year I was promoted up to fifth grade and was so impressed with the projects and with the
level of organization on the part of the foundation that manages the Fair each year. The students' projects ran the gamut from studying angles that govern keeping roller coasters on their tracks to investigations of proper fertilizing for plants. It was so interesting to talk to the young scientists as they explained their experiments. As you may know, I have a special place in my heart for science fairs. Wayne and I met at one in Orlando 49 years ago.

Stuart, Fl

We finished out an enjoyable week in Stuart, getting to know new friends from Wilmington, NC, Howard and Joanne and their friendly dog, and meeting up with some of the Vero Beach Loggerhead Marina residents who boated in for supper at a favorite restaurant here. We enjoyed a superb meal at Sailor's Return two years ago and repeated it again. Howard and Joanne also introduced us to a tasty supper, adding sausage to Zatarain's Red Beans and Rice.

Hooray, a quilt show! The Port St. Lucie Crazy Quilters held their bi-annual show while we were in Stuart. Colleen enjoyed attending it. Interestingly, their featured artist was a member of my quilt guild in North Carolina, Susan Brubaker-Knapp. Susan specializes in thread sketching. Check her website at www.bluemoonriver.com to see some her beautiful pieces. You won't believe what she does with thread and a sewing machine.

An unusual landscape, composed of thread and fabric

Lots of work in this quilt.

On to Fort Myers

On Monday the 10th we left Stuart traveling to Ft Myers via the St. Lucie River, the east leg of the OWW (Okeechobee Waterway). The OWW wanders through a raw and untamed part of Florida. It travels 145 miles from Stuart on the Atlantic coast to past Ft Myers on the Gulf coast.. Our three day journey to reach Ft. Myers was 135 miles, 5 locks, one manually operated bridge, three railroad bridges, and several low bridges that we passed through after requesting an opening. In all, our average speed was 6 mph for the 135 miles. Our second overnight stop as we moved around the southern rim of the Big Lake was in Moore Haven, a tiny town with a welcoming city dock charging only $1/foot, What a deal! We were lucky that there was a book sale going on at the Moore Haven Library. Books were selling for $1.00/pound. We added five-and-a-half pounds to the boat.

Starting down the St Lucie river towards Lk. Okeechobee.
35 miles to the lake.

The St Lucie canal

We waited 40 minutes for the RR bridge just past this bridge to open after a train went by.

Finally getting going again

Some of the very limited boat traffic

In the first lock along the Okeechobee waterway. Ready to go up.

The St. Lucie lock, on the eastern side of the Lake, elevated us up a whopping 15 feet!

The wind was building and we were being pushed around by stern seas on the 10 mile jaunt along the shoreline as we proceeded to the protected rim route around the south portion of Lk. Okeechobee.

Once behind the protection of the grass flats, we were in "the ditch" bordered by the 13 foot high Hoover dike on our port side and the vast grass flats to our starboard.

Just outside the channel line we anchored early for the night among the fisherman.

Our back door view that night

See that man on the bridge.
He pushes that pole round and round and the bridge rotates open for us.

Next morning
Many airboats in this area but they are usually out in the grass flats where we don't see them.

This is the land of the beautiful palms.

And the land of constant construction to control the waters of the Okeechobee.

The Corp of Engineers has piled rocks of assorted sizes along the waterway several miles apart.
Apparently they want to be ready for a breach.
Two years ago the Corp was increasing the height of the dike by 3 feet.
They must know something that the original designers did not.

One of the many water gates of various sizes that drain down the lake in the wet season.

This is ash accumulation that rained out
of the sky as the cane fields were burned.
We had to dab them carefully to wash them off.
They were sticky sugar.

Cane fields being burned off after harvest.

I read an alert in Cruisers Net that said to hug the coffer dam that was placed on the OWW
to facilitate the building of a new spill gate.

This guy had not read the notice and he was fooled by the red ball next to the green on the left side of the coffer dam.
He was hard aground and begged us to pull him off. Going against my instincts to assist on the waterways, I had to refuse due to the high winds and the close proximity of the steel walls of the coffer dam.

We spent a night tied to the city dock in Moore Haven, just past the last lock on the lake.
Only $1 per foot dockage with electric and water.
This is our view at 6:30 AM as we left the dock

Moore Haven temperature when we arrived

These two boats were together.
A captain and crew were transporting them for the owner.
They left Moore Haven after us by 20 minutes, caught and passed us in a cloud of black smoke.
We caught them again at the next lock. This had occurred the day before also.
The captain told us that he was the hare and we were the tortoise.

We arrived in Ft Myers at the City Marina just in time to miss this mess caused by 30 mph winds.

There are many varieties of birds everywhere you look and the towns and houses are few and far between. We see a few alligators but they steer well clear of our boat, which suits us just fine. The Lake is a fisherman's paradise.

Ft. Myers - Will we be lured to linger here again?

You may recall that two years ago our plan to travel Florida's west coast was stymied when we stopped for a few days in Ft. Myers and then couldn't tear ourselves away for a month. This year we planned to stay for two days and were able to "escape" after four. Ft. Myers celebrates Thomas Edison's birthday all the month of February so there are many things to see and do. Our first night we attended a marina pot luck with a Valentine's Day theme. We adapted Howard and Joanne's red beans and rice a bit, supplementing it with a rice blend that includes wild rice. It didn't last long.

Four winters ago we met friends Jann and Gary at the mooring field in Marathon in the Florida Keys. They have gone on to make The Great Loop trip and we've stayed in touch but haven't been able to meet up very often. It was Jann who helped me to start a Stack n' Whack quilt two winters ago. I stacked and she whacked. Lots of fun. Jann brought her sister Jill, who is also a quilter, by the boat for a quick visit on the 15th. What a treat that was.

Jill, Colleen, and Jann

We stayed in Ft. Myers long enough to see the yearly nighttime fireworks and parade. Appropriately enough, the parade honors its famous winter resident, Thomas Edison, with a big display of electrically enhanced floats and parade participants. On Sunday, Feb. 16, Wayne made a quick trip to the car show and then we fueled up and set off west on the Caloosahatchee River to connect with the GICW (gulf intracoastal waterway). Eeek! We've calculated that we're getting 1.63 miles to the gallon of diesel fuel on our most recent leg.

Fireworks before the Edison Light parade in Ft Myers

One of the many floats in the parade

Heading for Bradenton

We are anchored tonight a little north of Sanibel Island, just off Cabbage Key.
We traveled only 32 miles today after choosing to cross Charlotte Harbor tomorrow. During our travels Sunday we saw more boats on the water than anytime in the previous 3 winters. The water here is a lovely green as opposed to the brown color on the east coast. Inlets and passes are many and the water is constantly flushed. Dolphins accompanied us all day.

Where we are today Monday Feb 17th

The sunset was too pretty for me not to take a photo while writing the blog tonight.

I just snapped this photo from tonight's anchorage just off Useppa Island, inshore and north of Sanibel Island. Look at Useppa Island on Google Earth. Cabbage Key is just to our west 500 yards. Two sailboats and one powerboat are anchored near us tonight.

More photos for your viewing

One of the locks opening for us to enter

Early morning view on the rim route around Lake O

Hey. I got my butt soaked sitting on this deck waiting for the lock doors to close.

What? I should be watching the charts? Can't you navigate a canal w/o me?

Many different sites on the Caloosahatchee River portion of the OWW.

There were a number of horse farms along the river.

Alpacas??

The last lock coming up

Most of the power plants on the waterways are no longer oil & steam plants.
They are rebuilt as turbine powered natural gas units.

Waiting for another of the 5 locks

He wants to beat us to the locks. Or he has plenty of $$ for fuel.

Sailboats are limited to a 46 foot mast height by this RR lift bridge. A local marina will strap
water filled barrels to boats up to 55 feet tall to tip them under the bridge.

Ah! the lock to lake O.

Sometimes the view did not change much

No one but us most of the time around the bottom of the lake

Our view much of the time around the lake.

A broken motor on a lock door caused an hour lock through

All kinds of palms in Ft Myers.
Edison and his wife started planting palms in the early 20th century here.

Lock opening for us to pass into Lk Okeechobee

Lake O lock

One of the many Corp of Engineer projects on the lake

Cattle along the Caloosahatchee River

Notice the speed - 18mph and up on plane to clean the injectors and turbos on the engines and clean the hull.
Fuel $$$ up in smoke!!!

The hare in front of us.

High winds in Ft Myers

Vero Beach to Stuart, FL Jan 16 - Feb 5th

2014-02-08T11:16:00.000-08:00

Sunset view from the back of the boat

Our three weeks at Loggerhead Marina in Vero Beach were full of sun, visits with friends and family, good food, trips to Vero Beach Bookstore and The Lemon Tree Restaurant, walks through the beautiful nearby neighborhood, and Saturday's Farmers' market. A new Publix supermarket has sprung up nearby and, in the same shopping center, a killer muffin/bagel store. Believe me, we need those walks! Again, this year, we saw some of Florida's unique flora and fauna and made new friends (human and canine) in the close knit marina community.

This is our neighborhood for the next three weeks.

Hibiscus flowers - always a welcome part of a Florida winter

The monthly pot luck dinner in the marina's Captain's Lounge

The Marina pool on a typical winter day. It looks inviting but it's pretty chilly.
Still, though, a welcome place for a foot soaking after a walk in the neighborhood and some
brave souls took a dip on our warmer days here.

Every Saturday there's a well stocked Farmer's Market near the beach.

Re-upholstering the lounge seat on the aft deck

The Cushions on the seat had deteriorated over time and the stains from Florida mildew could not be bleached out. So I started the complete replacement of the seat covers. It was decided that the new seating would be stapled to Starboard (synthetic plywood). The original cushions were zippered covers that were held to the seat base with Velcro.

Existing seats

I found a piece of Starboard at the marine surplus store that was just barely larger than I needed. Great luck - no waste.

Seat bases had to be cut. Each of the three seats were of a different size.

Seat bottom ready to cover

Glue the foam to the bottom board.

Fit and stitch....Fit and stitch

A whole lot of stretching and stapling

Trimming the excess vinyl material

Two sections completed

All three seat bottoms completed.
How in the world do I recover the backrest.
Well...just get started.

Backrest removed and existing covering removed

Fit, sew, stretch. Fit, sew, stretch.
You get the picture.
Then stretch and staple

The finished seat!
Almost....still need to make small fillers to cover the two posts.

Quilting Time

Just a small portion of the 1,823 pieces that will make up this quilt

While Wayne was replacing the back desk upholstery, Colleen was finally piecing a quilt top that has a checkered history. I began it at a workshop two summers ago. The instructor told us to use a "scant quarter inch" seam so I carefully sewed pieces together all afternoon per her instructions. After several hours, I began trying to put blocks together and discovered that the seam I had made was too small, putting all the remaining pieces out of whack. It was so frustrating that I shelved it and finally decided to take the seam ripper to my hours of work and try to finish it this winter. So, after many hours of ripping all I had stitched, I finally began the miles of sewing that it would take to put all the pieces together properly.

Pinning, pinning and more pinning

The iron is as essential as the sewing machine. The rows begin to go together.

I've been here for hours! Please, can I stop now?

Ta daaaa!!!! I have no plans to quilt it on the boat. That will have to wait until we return to North Carolina.

And a Few More Projects -

Potato bags, mug buddies and a snap purse for friends along the way.

Fabric rosettes that are hot glued to headbands. Great gifts for the grandgirls from an idea on JoAnn's Fabrics website.

Looks like a purse but it carries my iron and opens up into an insulated ironing surface.

I love this fabric of "fruity" ladies. I sewed a little stuffing
into their behinds on this beach bag to give it an interesting 3D look.

Chameleon Fiber Arts

In Vero we met Joyce and Alan. Their granddaughter has cystic fibrosis and Joyce makes and sells beach bags and purses to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I couldn't resist this one. Check her website at www.chameleonfiberarts.com to see some of her other creations.

Joyce made this large bag. Lots of pockets and a zippered pouch.

Loggerhead Wildlife and Scenery

This is our walking path, well stocked with a variety of birds, turtles and, maybe, an alligator or two.

Is this sandhill crane playing golf? He definitely liked to hang out at this particular hole.

I loved the way this heron's reflection showed in the water......

And the grace he showed when he took flight.

A view across the golf course

Wayne decided that it was time to make a cover for the flag. Saves taking in the flag each night and it was always in the way of something else.

Laying out the flag cover

Thirty minutes later the flag cover was ready.

Finished flag cover

There are anchor windlass foot switches on the deck to retrieve the anchor. One for up and one for down. The rubber covered switches have flip-open covers made of plastic. Our boat being a 1997 model the covers are showing their age. The hinge of one broke apart several months ago and mold stain was embedded into the white plastic. After contacting the factory, I was referred to a distributor website in Connecticut. Three days later we received new switch covers via US Mail.

To fight the black mold that forms in FL, we replaced the white covers with black ones.

Stuart, FL Boat Show
A very hot day and crowded with people. So many sales people and show visitors that it was difficult to See the boats. I stayed only about 1 1/2 hours.

A fisherman never has enough power!

A favorite stopover on land is Marine Connection Liquidators in Ft. Pierce, FL. Here are a sample of photos taken there. Contrary to the photos shown most of the store is inside two large warehouses. They have everything, new surplus and new items. Almost everything comes from surplus from boat builders. If you need a part, look them up online. They are really good at what they do.

Wayne's favorite marine surplus store!

The back lot

More stuff coming in

Walking Vero Beach in January

It was in the teens in Charlotte this day.

We needed another large bag for laundry and other bulky carryings.
A couple hours and scrap Sunbrella canvas and her is the result.
Thank you Rick's Custom Canvas in Cornelius for the scraps used to make the bag,

A beautiful day in Vero Beach

Friends from Charlotte, NC, Hal and Young, stopped by for lunch and a visit.

SUNBONNET SUE QUILT GUILD

The ladies of Vero Beach's Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Guild have welcomed me the past two winters. They get together every week to work on charity quilts, plan their every-other-year quilt show and work on personal sewing projects. This year I wanted to share photos of their hands at work and they generously allowed me to take their pictures as they knitted, crocheted, appliqued, quilted and embroidered, demonstrating skills many of them

have developed over fifty or more years their lives.

Moving on to Stuart

On Monday, February 3 we left Vero Beach for our trip down the coast and into the St. Lucie River to Stuart. It looked like it was going to be a perfect cruising day - for about the first hour-and-a-half. Then we noticed black clouds off to the west that gradually drifted across our travel path and, inexplicably, stayed right with us, our own personal rain cloud. We slogged along through sprinkles and then more intense rain, navigating with the GPS, our now working radar and referring often to our charts. Wayne finally decided to try to outrun the weather and sped up to ten miles an hour. We edged out from under the cloud and away from the rain. But then we had to make the turn into the St. Lucie River and travel northwest to Stuart - right back into the storm which was now blowing 25 to 35 mph gusts and dumping huge buckets of rain. In nearly zero visibility we moved out of the channel and dropped the anchor, only about a mile from our destination and waited it out for the next forty minutes.

A welcome rainbow as we finally settle into our marina. The rain turned a four hour jaunt into a six hour trek.

And the sun comes up in Stuart on Tuesday, our jumping-off point as we prepare to cross Lake Okeechobee.

You can see where our travels have taken us so far. 400+ miles by water.

December 24-January 15 - Three Weeks and Lots of Repairs

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Christmas on Cool Change, 2013

This year we invited Wayne's sister, Judy, and our brother-in-law, Doyle, to share Christmas dinner with us on the boat. The meal was excellent, if I do say so myself - homemade turkey breast and stuffing in our boat's little oven, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, Publix rolls, ambrosia, broccoli casserole, deviled eggs, and pumpkin and apple pies. It was quite a spread that filled our little aft table and a nearby counter top and left almost no room for the feasters. We all dug in and then, about twenty minutes later, I remembered that I had wanted to take a picture of it all. Oh, well, here you have the decimated remains.

Wayne and I both enjoy his mother's recipe for ambrosia so much that I made a batch for New Year's too, after Judy brought it at Christmas. It seems that every cook in the South has his or her own way to make this treat. Here's ours:

The Thrailkill's Ambrosia

A bag of Florida (NOT California!!!) oranges (about 15 oranges)
2 cans of fruit cocktail
1 jar of maraschino cherries
4 or 5 bananas
About 2 cups of orange juice

Peel and sectionize the oranges, squeezing out the juice after you have cut out the plugs. Yes, it's a messy job but the resulting flavor is worth it. Drain and add the fruit cocktail and the cherries. (Save the cherry juice for something else. It does not improve the ambrosia.) Peel and slice the bananas into half slices. Gently stir this all together and then add the orange juice.

Store in a one gallon container in the refrigerator for 24 hours before serving. It keeps well for several days and just gets better and better.

Colleen's close friend, Marla, loaned us dessert cups for Christmas dinner.
These are part of set that belonged to Colleen's mother. We have the rest of the set at home.
A very thoughtful sentimental offering for Christmas

Our boat all decked out for Christmas

Friends Visit

Christmas and the holidays brought us several visits with old friends.
Colleen's friend from grade school, Lani, visited with her husband, Don, and daughter, Tina. We last saw Tina as a baby and now she's 20! Too many years between visits.

Colleen and Lani
We first met in 1959.

Family

We also got together for a restaurant meal with Howard and Donna (Wayne's oldest brother and his wife), sister Judy and brother-in-law Doyle, and brother Harlan and his wife Patty.

The siblings - Howard, Judy, Wayne, Harlan

Lunch at Tony Roma's to celebrate Howard's, Judy's, and Harlan's birthdays

More Friends Visit

Another visit was from long ago boating friends, Jim and Shaula and Pam and Richard. We had multiple escapades and adventures with these two couples during our Orlando boating years. We have travelled together on both the Atlantic and Gulf intracoastal waterways, the Kissimme and St Johns rivers, various Florida lakes, the Keys and the Bahamas.

Shaula, Pam, Colleen at Milliken's Reef restaurant at Port Canaveral

The guys: Jim, Wayne, Richard

And Still More Friends

Another day Colleen fixed a ladies' lunch on the boat for Marcy, Marla and yet another grade school friend, Mary. Mary and Colleen have done some family tree research together. We both have family roots in Montana and she has been trying to track her father's time in the service during WWII.

Colleen and friend Marcy in Merritt Island, Harbortown Marina docks
Sorry, Marla and Mary haven't arrived yet.

Of course, much quilting is taking place aboard Cool Change

I'm not sure who will be getting this one. I just saw the pattern and liked it and it was super easy to make. The quilting will have to wait until we're back in North Carolina with more space to spread out.

Marla's Christmas gift

Can you believe the size of these hibiscus flowers? That's an adult hand beside it. We found these at Harvey's Fruit Stand in Rockledge, FL, the same place where we picked up the delicious ambrosia oranges.

The new observation tower and museum at Port Canaveral

Heading out from Merritt Island and bound for Vero Beach - 57 miles

Our travel legs to date - about 400 miles by water.
We have also traveled 2100 miles by car since leaving home in mid-November

We left Merritt Island on January 10th and experienced an uneventful one day trip to Vero Beach. The weather warmed some with light fog and light sprinkles along the way.

It was not a pretty day but we were eager to get back on the water again

We are still trying to get a great dolphin photo but they are too quick for our camera. They are one of the most common and welcome of the sights we see along the water

Arriving at the Loggerhead Marina in Vero Beach

Repairs, repairs and more repairs

Wayne always has a to-do list handy and he decided to whip out some of the jobs during the month we were in Merritt Island. He finished A LOT, as you'll see as you read on.

1. Install on / off switch for navigation computer
The heart of the Raymarine navigation network aboard Cool Change consists of a nav computer that integrates the radar, GPS, and Autopilot. The nav computer also integrates the fluxgate compass and the rudder angle indicator to the Autopilot. All but the GPS is vintage 1997. I recently found that the computer was hard wired to the 12 volt system and was ALWAYS ON 24/7 since 1997. It is a miracle that it has not been damaged. In checking the installation manual it was confirmed that a on-off switch should have been incorporated originally. Sooo, I drilled into the dash panel and installed a good switch for the Nav computer and autopilot.

2. Moved GPS antenna
For the 3-and-a-half years that we have owned Cool Change we have gone without radar because after 15 to 20 minutes of use the GPS would lose satellite acquisition. Being as the GPS was far more useful than radar, we shut down the radar. Over the past 3 years, I made a number of attempts at a cure. In October we finally decided that we really wanted to have radar so we had a technician aboard to solve our problems. After 7 hours at $75 dollars per, the problem was pronounced solved. The unfortunate situation was that we did not make time to do an on-the-water check-out before our departure. Of course, the problem was still there when we got underway in mid-November. A call to the GPS manufacturer received the standard reply: "we have never heard of this problem before". Well, just go to the internet and you'll find that it is a common problem for many boaters, Mr. Manufacturer.
I have finally decided to move the GPS antenna and so pulled out the GPS wiring leading to the radar arch and re-installed the GPS antenna on the front cowl over the front windshield. This solution moved the GPS so the radar beam could not hit the GPS antenna with its RF (radio frequency) signal. The internet conversation on this problem finally led me to try this - and, surprise! The GPS and radar have operated together for almost 20 hours without any further problem.

Changing GPS mounts

Finishing up the move

GPS antenna at its new home

Ahh. Radar AND GPS

3. Replaced burner connectors for stove top

Our stove burners would sometimes not warm up. The solution was to jiggle the burner element in the socket. Suddenly that no longer was working and all three burners refused to heat until they were repaired correctly.

Colleen says GET IT FIXED!

Connector was disintegrating inside

After removing all 3 burners it was found upon inspection that each of the 3 connectors for the burner elements were missing about half of the metal contact area inside. Corrosion? Burned away? who knows. Ten minutes on the Internet on New Years Day and new connectors were ordered from Seattle. USPS got it here in 3 days for less than $5. Hooray for the Internet!

4. Installed more lights in hardtop

We had two recessed LED lights in our aft hardtop. They were not quite adequate for our needs so we added two more with the help from Doyle, our brother-in-law.

Brother-in-law Doyle is an electrical and aerospace engineer as well as an accomplished do-it-yourselfer. Goody. Goody.

Oh I hate to put a hole in good fiberglass!

Always great when a clean cut happens.

I think I did this right! Red to red, correct?

I will caulk if you will install.

Why does it always take so many tools to do a simple task??????

Reward for a job done well! Bring me a beer please.

5. Removed old Ray Marine GPS

The original Raymarine GPS was no longer being used. It was disconnected from the Nav computer wiring harness several months ago when the newer Horizon brand GPS was connected. The old GPS had occupied a position mounted into the dash. The auto pilot was mounted on a bracket on top of the dash. I removed the old GPS and installed the autopilot into the dash mount frame and removed and discarded the old top mount bracket and the old GPS. Cleans up the instrument panel area nicely

New mounting spot for the autopilot

6. Pulled new 12 volt wiring for GPS

Doyle and I determined that the GPS should be on a power circuit of its own. The distance from the flybridge console to the main switch panel is about 8 feet vertically. But we had to run 35 feet of wire from the steering console along the side of the flybridge, then down to the engine compartment and along the wiring traces forward and over to the main switch panel. A piece of cake and 4 hours of work.

Pulling wire from flybridge

Fishing wires inside wiring traces

Doing the checkout

7. Cleaned up wiring mess behind console

I removed about 25 feet of excess wiring, removed multiple splices in many wires and bundled every wire that I could. I also replaced about half of the terminal ends at the positive and negative buss bars. It is hard to see much difference in the before and after photos but there is a lot of improvement there.

Before

After

8. Sealed the bimini top

With time acrylic fabric loses some of its ability to repel water. A good coating of $50 per gallon waterproofing stops water that drips at the bows and the stitching. It also stops the splash through in pouring rains. Rolling from the underside is completely effective. The sealer dries in 10 minutes and does not smell once it dries.

9. Replaced horn mounts

The rubber mounts for our horn were deteriorating and leaving black rubber streaks on the deck. Doyle and I removed the horn, replaced the mounts with thick rubber gasket material and re-installed the horn.

10. Replaced the cabin door latches

We have been concerned for some time as to the security of the cabin door locks. We have now replaced the aluminum slide locks with heavy duty stainless steel versions top and bottom of the doors.

Removing the old locks

New slide locks

So, here we are two months into our four month winter and the boat is in perfect shape, right? Guess it's time for Colleen to find something else to break so Wayne can stay happy fixing things.

Merritt Island December 10-22, 2013

2013-12-22T16:14:00.003-08:00

Our route so far

So far this winter we've traveled about 350 miles by water. The red path shows travel south from Jacksonville to Sanford, FL. The green line denotes our travel back to Jacksonville then south to Merritt Island. We also have traveled 1100 miles by car since leaving home.

Docked at Harbortown Marina, Merritt Island, FL

Harbortown Marina. That is Cool Change, the 4th boat on the left.

We hope that all of you are preparing to enjoy the holidays with your family and friends. We've had a busy two weeks here in Merritt Island, from the highs of making Christmas cookies to the lows of starter troubles. We always seem to have some repair news to report. As I said to one friend who commented that Wayne always seemed to be fixing something - that's because I regularly break things just so he can keep himself busy fixing them.

First Stop - Rockledge Gardens

Within our first few days here we took a trip to a very special plant nursery, Rockledge Gardens in Rockledge, FL. Judy and Doyle, Wayne's sister and brother-in-law, joined us. I would willingly pay an admission fee to wander through the poinsettia and orchid garden, the beautifully laid out plant areas and the screened in butterfly enclosure here. We hear that there is also a fresh vegetable stand across the road that's part of this same business but we haven't visited that yet.

Judy and Doyle

Just a few of the Rockledge Gardens orchids

A Rockledge Gardens butterfly in their butterfly house

Preparing for a Boat Christmas

Our first weekend here we also enjoyed a Christmas concert at the First United Methodist Church in Orlando. The beautiful music of the choirs (both adults and children), the hand bell players and the full orchestra really put us in a Christmas mood. Back to the boat and we were ready to decorate for the holidays. We've set up our little tree which now is almost completely decorated with shell and nautical ornaments that we've been collecting over the past four Christmases. We also have lights around the boat railings and trailing down the aft ladder and great looking lighted scallops framing our back aft deck. Added to that are a few cabin decorations so we are in the Christmas spirit.

Snowman made of sea urchin shells. The white garland is also sea shells.

The gifts are beginning to accumulate. There's not enough room under the tree anymore.

This guy will sing and dance for you when asked. Gee, thanks, Marla.

Can't Forget About Sewing

Of course, lots of sewing is going on around here. Marcy, one half of our friends Roger and Marcy, shares my sewing passion and we've enjoyed a few days secluded on her pleasant sewing porch and in my galley/sewing space. I can't show you what she is making (a gift for a friend) or what I've made (a few easy gift projects). We did go together to a three hour class at a local quilt shop, Sew Central, and I can show you a project from that - called a Petal Pouch. That may end up as a project I can share with my YMCA buddies back in North Carolina.

A little drawstring bag. Very easy to make in any size using two contrasting fabrics.

Roger and Marcy. Easy to love these two.

Christmas Cookie Tradition

My sister-in-law, Patty, and I began making Christmas cookies together each year a looooong time ago. When Wayne and I moved to North Carolina Patty and I were sad to see that tradition come to an end. One of the best parts of our winter time here in Florida has been the chance to pick up our cookie making again. We have a well developed routine. Colleen mixes the dough - Better Homes and Gardens sugar cookie recipe times three. That makes a lot of dough so she has to mix it in our only large container - a big pot we originally bought for Low Country Boil. We transport it to Orlando where Patty and Harlan live and then the fun begins. Colleen rolls and cuts and Patty decorates. We're lucky to have kid help too. Kaylin is Patty's granddaughter and, of course, our GREAT niece. What do Wayne and Harlan do? Of course, their job is to eat the cookies. Kaylin's daddy, Kyle, helped with that too this year. At the end of the day we don't have nearly as many cookies as we thought we were making, thanks to those cookie monsters, but we do have fun.

I love making Christmas cookies!

Wayne's brother, Harlan and his wife, Pat.

Kaylin and Pat, in charge of cookie decorating

Right at this moment her phone is ringing...her great friend, Marla calling. Look at those hands.
No way will she be able to answer it.

Wayne's brother, Harlan. Where are the hot cookies? This is his 5th run at the Christmas cookies.

A very small sample of the hundred plus cookies we made.
These won't be here for long.

REPAIRS from Wayne:

Starter Motor Ready to Fail

We have had a starter motor problem since heading out from Drs. Lake Marina on Nov. 18th. The starboard engine starter motor required two or more attempts before it kicks in and starts the engine. We know that it will fail completely at the worst possible time....like when we are entering a lock on Lake Okeechobee or when we are backing into a slip at a marina in the pouring rain and high winds. So it must be replaced while we are in Merritt Island for a month. So I got with it, removed the floor panels and tried to locate the starter motor. Of course the starboard engine is a duplicate of the port engine. That is, all of the filters, pumps and the starter are on the side that is right next to the fuel tank with only 8 inches of work space. Upside down I went looking for the darned thing. When I found it I wanted to curse...almost impossible to get wrenches in there to work. After 3 hours I gave up and talked to the resident Cummins expert who works out of the marina. He said that he had done the job many times and that it would take 2 to 3 hours at $95 / hour. Plus the new starter motor.
He completed the task in 2 1/2 hours. Total $503.

I know there is a starter motor in there somewhere.

Upside down and holding the camera. There it is.

I could get the biggggg positive cable off. But cannot get to all the mounting bolts. I will next time.

Shower leaking AGAIN

The heading says it all. This is the third go-around in three years with this problem. I could not see bad caulk but water was coming from the shower base into the carpet in the master stateroom. I started with the square shower drain assembly. As I dug out the old caulk it became apparent that the "Tub and Tile" caulk had not maintained its hold on the fiberglass floor and drain. When I removed the entire assembly I found water around the flange area below. Wow, I really believe I found the leak! I went back with 100% silicone caulk this time to get a better bond.

All back together and curing the caulk.

But after we showered the next morning, the leak was still there. I decided to replace all the caulk below the 3 foot level. I was glad I did. As I dug out the old caulk I could see that the caulk here was also releasing its bond with the fiberglass. Hopefully the silicone caulk will do a better job. Or maybe I should just replace the caulk each year.

I wish this wall would give a bit....I just don't fit here. Think what you do if you drop the soap!

Well..best to dig out and replace all the caulk between the floor and the walls.

Masking for the new caulk

Hopefully this problem is finally solved!!!!!

Water inlet valve / pressure regulator

We had to replace the water inlet/pressure release valve at the back of the boat. It had a quick connector that was leaking. Unfortunately, the quick connector was corroded onto the inlet valve and couldn't be removed, even after repeated tries. Small problem, easy cure - $46.

The photos for this task were lost somewhere in The Cloud. So here is an after photo.

Man on Boat

You can tell just how much he loves it here.

Poor guy. Now that Colleen knows just how handy he is with a needle
and thread, she lets him fix his own rip in his shirt.

This photo was taken a few days ago when we were having chilly weather.
Hard to imagine needing that quilt since we've had a record-breaking heat wave the past few days.

Merry Christmas to all of you from Wayne and Colleen

Jacksonville to St. Augustine and Beyond. 12/5-12/9

2013-12-10T12:09:00.000-08:00

Leaving Jacksonville. December 5

A HUGE boat in dry dock, five stories tall and around 200 feet long

We had expected heavy fog again today to roll in about 7AM but it didn't materialize so we were able to leave by 8:20 and made the trip to St. Augustine by mid afternoon. Here we have Colleen's least favorite mooring field - crazy currents, unpredictable winds, short, hard to manage line on the mooring buoy. Again the field didn't disappoint. We managed to slip past the buoy after snagging it with the boat hook. Colleen was hanging desperately onto the boat pole trying to bring the rope up to the boat deck as the boat slipped steadily away from the buoy. At this point her headphones began rolling off her head. Calling, "Back up!" and several other unprintable statements, she let go of the hook and caught the headphones at the last possible instant. As Wayne backed away, we could see the now bent boat pole floating still attached to the mooring ball rope on the surface of the water. Wayne, smart captain and even smarter husband that he is said, "Oh well, I didn't like that flimsy boat pole anyway" and handed Colleen our second boat hook. This time we managed to get attached with minimal drama.
Lessons learned - we have to approach the buoy heading into the current every time (we had been assigned to a buoy that we knew had shallow water nearby so we took an approach from the deeper end- WRONG) and we need to develop hand signals to use at mooring buoys rather than the headphones (or invest in much more expensive headphone sets that will stay put on our heads even when our heads are tipped downward). The headphones are a valuable tool on the boat and make it possible for us to communicate with each other when one of us is out of sight of the other during docking and undocking.

Cool Change on her mooring buoy right outside Castillo de San Marcos. We were "treated" to regular cannon firings over the course of our two days here. We soon learned to cover our ears every time we heard the officer on the shore holler "Fire!"

The welcoming entrance to the St. Augustine Municipal Marina

Sights of St. Augustine
The first order of business was to replace the lost boat hook so we trekked the one mile+ to the Marine Supply and Oil Company. Wayne loves to browse in this place - it has more marine supplies than anyplace he's ever been. You can outfit any yacht or shrimp boat from their inventory. From there we walked to Theo's, a small restaurant with high recommendations from a local commercial fisherman, and enjoyed shrimp for lunch. They claim to be famous for their cinnamon roles but we got there too late to confirm that as the last big fat roll went to another table.

For the next two days we enjoyed the city and its annual Christmas parade, British Encampment and Grande Illumination.

Excellent breakfast spot on Saturday morning - Mary's Harbor View Café. The locals tell us that you'd better be there by 8:15 AM or you will face a long wait.

St. Augustine was established in 1565 and is the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement
and port in the United States. It's an excellent walking city with lots of interesting places to see.

The Pirate ship

Flagler College, built by Henry Flagler as a fancy hotel as he promoted the railroad in Florida

A front pillar at Flagler College

St. Augustine Christmas Parade

Large man and tiny Jeep

Notice the words on the front tag

Belly dancers at the parade

That's a snake wrapped around the guy and an alligator in the woman's arms

Every year the city commemorates the twenty year occupation of St. Augustine from 1763 to 1784 by the British. Re-enactors from all over the US collect on a large field just outside the old city and set up an authentic British camp over the first weekend in December. They are very true to the times they represent, dressing in authentic clothing, showing life in the field and using and selling items from the eighteenth century. We watched field demonstrations, changing of the guards and musket and cannon firing and enjoyed talking to the participants and browsing among the tents of authentic period goods for purchase.

Enjoying camp life

Most of the re-enactors stay in eighteenth century accommodations over the weekend,
living in tents and sleeping on cots, rain or shine.

This lady was wearing my favorite outfit. I couldn't get close enough to let you see just how utterly elegant she is.

The participants were serious about dressing authentically. When I referred to the things they wore as "costumes"
I was corrected and told they were wearing "clothing."

Even the baby's clothes were from the proper period.
I didn't have the nerve to ask if he was wearing cloth diapers or Pampers.
Like the babies of any time period, fingers are one of his favorite snacks.

Our vote for the best-dressed Native American in the bunch

These soldiers marched onto the field in formation and then shot off their muskets and cannon at their officers' command.
Pretty impressive, especially when we realized they were all shooting their
muskets toward their RVs in the background. Notice that Wayne captured the cannon just as it fired..

On Saturday evening we went back into town to watch the Grande Illumination and the Nightwatch Parade. All the members of the encampment, around two hundred people, marched through the old city. Members of the public were encouraged to join them carrying candles and they worked their way back to the Plaza de la Constitution where there were speeches, more musket firings and Christmas caroling.

The night view of the city from our boat. All the buildings and trees are lit up as part of the Grande Illumination

Good-bye to St. Augustine

Our water tanks are full and we've had our holding tanks pumped out. However, we are beginning to get short on clean clothes and groceries so it's time to push on and try to make it to Merritt Island where we've arranged to stay at Harbortown Marina for a month. Sunday morning we awoke to our most recent nemesis - fog! It hung around and hung around and finally cleared enough by about 10:30 that we could head out. We made it to an anchorage near Daytona and, with an early start and some hustling and ten hours at the helm, reached Merritt Island on Monday, December 9th. It was a good day to get here since it is Colleen's friend, Marla's, birthday. We enjoyed a meal out with her and other friends, Roger and Marcy. We'll deal with the piles of laundry tomorrow.

Whether we anchor out or take a mooring ball, we have to carry the water we use on the boat.
Wayne is the water boy, replenishing our supply with five gallon jugs that each weigh thirty five pounds.
He's worked out a nifty system for using gravity to siphon the water from the top steps at the back of the
boat into our water tanks near the bottom step. He hauled seven jugs in two trips while

More photos

Jacksonville harbor at night from our boat

Leaving Jacksonville

Maybe our next boat - and where will the 3 million come from?

Carnival ship at Port Jacksonville

I-95 East bypass bridge

Commercial Port Jacksonville

Much of the passage was low lying land with housing interspersed

Ponte Vedre mansion. One of many

All natural here

Flagler College (Flagler Hotel originally)

Ready for the parade

Wayne had to include a Vette

St. Augustine north mooring field. There's another on the south side of the Bridge of the Lions

Jacksonville FL 12-4-2013

2013-12-04T19:31:00.000-08:00

Hurrying on to Jacksonville
We had to get through the ready-to-fail RR bridge before it shuts down for a week of repairs. But when we woke at 6:00 AM on Tuesday to get a 6:30 start we were fogged in completely. Any delay and we would have to wait until 7:00 PM for the next bridge opening and that would mean docking in the dark. Not good! We decided to head out at 7 mph until the fog lifted with the sunrise. We had only seen several boats all the previous day so we thought we had only a small chance of an encounter. There won't be any other boats out there. Right? Who in their right mind would venture out in this fog? We ran a course parallel to the charted channel but 200 yards to the west so that we would hopefully avoid a collision with another vessel. We could see only about 100 yards at best and crab trap floats would regularly suddenly appear and we had to swerve around each of the hundreds that we encountered. The fog did not lift until three hours later. Gosh, talk about neck and back muscles contracting!

Almost total whiteout

Ah! The sun is up. But the fog became harder to see through. We started seeing land mirages.

That is not a mirage. There is the bridge at Glen Cove Springs. Amazingly, we were right on target.
After this bridge the fog cleared completely in about 10 minutes. Whew!

NAS Jax where Wayne worked as a student engineer in 1966 and 1967.

The Navy is still flying Orions, albeit a much newer P3 model, in search of Russian subs.

Finally, the sight we've been waiting to see!

Two days of pushing hard and finally Jacksonville

We made it to the bridge over an hour before it was supposed to open at 2:00 so we waited just off the channel. Both of us were thrilled when the guys working the bridge took pity on us and opened it twenty minutes early. We cruised on through and tied up to the Jacksonville Landing. We can stay here for FREE for 72 hours. No water, no shore power but no problem - we carry our own.

This is the cause of our consternation, the Fla. East Coast Railway bridge.
There has been a RR bridge here since the 1860s. This one looks like it was built in the 1800s!
Here you see it in its coveted raised position.

Jacksonville views on Tuesday

Very cool lift bridge. This thing is really big.
We walked across it to meet our friend Roger and the lift section is about 250 feet wide.
At night, as pedestrians cross it we can see their huge shadows on the buildings behind.

A barge pushed by a tug that floated past our boat

Here you can see some of the five bridges within a mile of each other along
this stretch of the river.

Unexpected Repairs on Wednesday

Wayne ended up with a lukewarm shower this morning. So as a courtesy to Colleen, he fired up the gen set to run the hot water heater and heat some water for her shower. The result was SQEALLLLLLL !!! Wayne quickly shut down the gen set. An inspection of the belts showed immediately that the belt to the cooling water pump pulley was not turning and the belt was being burned up. The pump had to be removed to determine whether it was an impeller problem or a bearing seizing. When the cover was removed, the pump spun smoothly without binding. The shaft spun freely after the impeller was removed from the housing. Years ago I ran into an impeller that had swelled in thickness and bound against the housing and cover plate. Due to tight funding then, I ground the impeller a little and put it back in place and it has pumped fine for the last 20 years. This time I installed the new spare impeller and O-ring that I had in stock. The pump and hoses were reattached, the system was tested and we were back making hot water.

Note: We did not need the generator to charge the batteries today---the newly installed solar system is keeping the batteries charged. Hooray!

Removing the generator water pump to see why it will not turn.
Back into the hold, matey!
Get to work.

Surgery complete! The organ is in my hands.

The impeller and pump looked good but the impeller bound too tightly against the housing when the cover was tightened.
This impeller was installed last spring and should still be good.

We had a spare impeller aboard so I replaced it and the pump turned smoothly.
No breakfast. Cold cup of coffee. No hair brush yet. No teeth brushed yet either.
She said get the repairs done first!

OK. Now can I get hot water for a shower?
And then I'll fix you your favorite oatmeal

Fog Again!

Wednesday morning the fog rolled in about 7AM. It's a good thing we decided to stay here for at least one more day.

Not the best weather for navigating a narrowing waterway and maneuvering bridges

The fog did not start to clear until about 11AM

11:15 and all the fog has finally vanished

We hopped the water taxi that took us on a quick trip across the river and visited the
Jacksonville Museum of Science and History, known as MOSH hereabouts.

An owl that Colleen liked at the museum. He fixed his eyes on her as she tried to take his picture
exactly as he would have zeroed in on some tasty prey.

Fountain in Freedom Park across the river

Choose the best photo
What a beautiful day it turned out to be.

Wayne's photo choice. Our boat is far left.

Colleen's photo choice. Which do you like?

Statue of Andrew Jackson for whom Jacksonville was named.

Our friend Roger had business in Jax and stopped by.
We were stranded on the other side of the river waiting on the water taxi.
We walked over the lift bridge instead and beat the water taxi and had a nice (short) visit with Roger.

Nov 27 - Dec 2 Thanksgiving Week and Heading back North to Jacksonville

2013-12-02T19:04:00.003-08:00

THANKSGIVING IN STYLE

We traveled to Colleen’s childhood friend Marla’s house to share Thanksgiving with her and 24 other friends and family members. Thanks for including us, Marla. And, especially thanks for sharing your washer and dryer. With Marla’s and Barbie’s generosity we have yet to endure marina laundromats. Believe me, given the iffy state of many marina washers and dryers, that’s a big deal. Additionally, both have shared their showers with us, a real treat when one lives on a boat.

Thanksgiving Feast at Marla's

Plenty of food for all twenty-six of us

Before we returned to the marina in Sanford we stopped off at Harbortown Marina in Merritt Island, FL to make reservations to stay there the month of December. This has been our December stopoff point on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway for the past three years. It recommends itself not because of superior accommodations (you may recall we’ve complained about their laundry area and narrow old docks in years past) but because it’s close to our friends Roger and Marcy and also Marla as well as family members in Orlando. We walked the docks with a list of available slips and found one we thought we would like and then arranged to be there by December 9^th. The price has gone way up. Ouch! We’ll be there anyway. Drop by if you can.

BOAT ISSUES

We wanted to pump out our holding tanks (i.e. sewage) before we left Sanford but our boat would not fit the space at the marina fuel dock and still have the pump out hose reach our boat. We actually did not have to be pumped out yet. We just wanted to be ahead of the game.

We had also hoped to fuel up while we were in Sanford but there were only gas pumps on the dock. “No problem,” said the marina office. “We can get a tank truck to come to the dock and fuel you up.” Sure enough, next day a 2,700 gallon tank truck pulled up to the fixed dock near our boat, handed over the hose and stood by while we pumped in 155 gallons. Average cost/gallon - $4.03. Gasp!!

A new problem is creeping up. Our starboard starter motor does not engage with the first turn of the ignition key. It starts only on the second turn. We know that it will fail sometime soon. So…when we get to Merritt Island out it comes for repair or replacement. Oh goody..it is on the inaccessible side of the motor!

We have been considering how we will get back on the boat should we fall overboard. Our swim ladder is blocked by the dinghy and the dinghy will have to be lowered and unsnapped from its davits to gain access to the swim ladder. We have a knotted rope that we use to pull ourselves onto the boat when we dock at a low fixed dock. We will also be able to quickly attach this rope to a cleat at our stern to give someone in the water a good grip to hang onto during dinghy removal. We may also be able to pull up onto the swim platform with this rope. Anyway, it is another method for recovery if we fall overboard. Wayne is always considering the whatifs.

Rescue Rope

SANFORD ANIMALS PICTS

The only turtle that did NOT jump into the water when we wanted a look

Friendly Blue Heron posing in front of our boat

MORE VISITS FROM FRIENDS AND RELATIONS

Sunday, December 1^st brought a real treat to the docks. We’d arranged for Colleen’s cousin Midge and her husband Earl to visit that day. Then Wayne called his cousin Victor to let him know that we wouldn’t be able to stop back at their house as we traveled north. This is because the old railroad bridge in Jacksonville is broken and is on a limited opening schedule. For the week between December 6^th-13^th the bridge will be completely closed for repair. Therefore, we need to hustle to get to and through the bridge before we get trapped on the St. John’s River side for a week.

Vic said, “Well, then we’ll come and see you.” Super. The more the merrier. While we were all at lunch Orlando friends Pam and Richard called to say they would be near Sanford in an hour-and-a-half. Could they stop by? Sure, come on over. The result was a fun lunch and visit with people we enjoy. Oh, and Midge and I made her a pencil holder just like the one I’d already done with Barbie and sister-in-law Patty.

COUSINS PHOTO

Colleen with her cousin Midge

From left: Earl, Midge, Wayne, Colleen, Barbie, Victor
We neglected to take photos of Pam and Richard. Very sorry guys.

SAYING GOOD-BYE TO SANFORD

December 2^nd we made a very early start, pulling out of the marina in a just-lifting fog and chilly weather. We were determined to cover as many miles as possible in our quest to get to Jacksonville before the bridge issue stalled us. So breakfast had to wait until we were underway. Once we were comfortably on the river Colleen made one of our favorites – Bob’s Red Mill Oatmeal

Here’s the recipe for two servings:

2/3 cup Bob’s Red Mill Oatmeal (not the steel cut variety)

1 1/3 cup water

A sprinkle of salt

1/8 cup of dried cranberries or raisins

Put all into a large, microwave safe bowl and cook for 3 minutes. Stir and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes. Spike it with brown sugar, butter and milk

A pitiful sight of a starving man!

VIEWS OF THE RIVER TODAY

About an hour into today's trip. No sun anywhere

Invasive water hyancinths lay on the river's surface like blankets

Blue sky just starting to show around 1:00 PM

Gulls catching minnows in our wake on Lake George.
Wow...18.4mph

We traveled over eighty miles today, burning up the water at a sizzling ten miles an hour and eighteen mph over Lake George…on plane. We don’t even want to consider how much diesel fuel ($$$) we used in that 45 minutes. Monday night (tonight) we anchored in the river about twelve miles north of Palatka, FL. We can see several homes about 500 yards from us but it still feels like we are in the middle of nowhere. Oh, what stars are on view tonight!! No one out here tonight but us and the Navy helicopters from NAS Jax. We calculate that we can make the restricted RR bridge opening at 2:00-3:00 PM tomorrow (Tuesday). Stay tuned for the next exciting installment.

On South - Astor to Hontoon Island and Sanford, FL

2013-11-27T16:21:00.000-08:00

Astor, FL - Leaving cousin Vic's and Barbie's home

We bid a fond farewell to Vic and Barbie on Friday, November 22. Wayne and Vic had a bit of sewing fun as Wayne used his new found skills to repair some of Victor's boat canvas. Notice the spiffy red-and-white boat to the right of Cool Change. At the same time, Barbie and Colleen huddled around Colleen's sewing machine and Barbie made herself a cute little pencil (or sewing tool) holder. A good time was had by all.

V & B's Marina

Captain, can we get out of here without knocking down any trees?

We made our way carefully through the narrow residential canals to return to the St. John's. The weatherman had predicted rain and he did not disappoint. Ten minutes into the trip it began to rain and we were glad of the short run to Hontoon Island State Park. Even in the light rain that came and went, the river was beautiful.

A few St. Johns River Facts

The St. Johns River is the longest river in Florida. It's 310 miles long and it winds through or borders twelve counties. The St. Johns has a very low flow rate, 0.3 mph as it meanders through the state from around Vero Beach lowlands to Jacksonville. It really doesn't become a navigable river until it reaches Sanford, 140 miles south of Jacksonville. It is one of the few rivers in the US which flows north. From 1700 through the 1800s the river was the main highway into the interior lands. Roads were non-existent at the time.

Out on the river

The waterway we followed is the yellow winding line.
We pretty much had to travel eight miles in all four directions of
the compass to cover five miles as the crow flies.

The St Johns river has not changed much since the days in the 1950's and 60's when Wayne fished in the river and the lakes and camped on the shore.

Real river homes

Our typical view of the inhabited sections of the river

Hontoon Island State Park

Hontoon was the destination of many boat trips when we boated in Florida with our boys. Accessible only by boat or ferry the island features a nature walk that winds past an Indian mound and other family friendly outdoor activities. Unfortunately, the lookout tower that was here in the old days is no longer standing.

Houseboats for rent at Hontoon Landings near Deland, FL

View from our boat docked at Hontoon Island State Park.
Park office, small museum and restroom facilities

We were assigned an end spot on the westernmost dock and enjoyed a solitary evening, just us and the birds and alligators. Oh, and one more critter. In the morning, as Wayne walked up the gangway from the dock to the shore, he encountered a three foot water moccasin lying in his path. Luckily, he was armed with a lethal garbage bag and just swept the snake off the dock. The next morning we were awakened by sandhill cranes, large water birds with a cry similar to that of peacocks. You won't sleep in once they begin their wakeup call.

View east and south towards Lake Beresford

View north of Hontoon Landings marina and hotel

Hontoon Landings Office and store
Boat rentals also

The camera does not do justice to this magnificent live oak

A small and cute riverboat passing us at Hontoon Island

A Hontoon Island resident sand hill crane.
A gator was on the shore about 50 feet away.
You can see him if you look at the dark mark at the top of the photo in the middle.

A red shouldered hawk that Colleen sneaked up on

Resident heron on the dock. There's something about his stance that
tickles my funny bone.

View of docks from ferry landing. Cool Change is at the end of the dock on the left.

Visits From Friends and Relations

If we thought last year's trip was the people cruise, we're thinking this year is a people cruise also. On Saturday the 23rd friends Bob and Debbie picked us up for lunch and a visit to their house. Bob worked for us as the service manager when we owned our bicycle and lawn mower business in Orlando. Bob and Wayne had not gotten together for over ten years. Debbie and I enjoyed lots of "grandma talk" while Wayne and Bob caught up and admired Bob's babes (see below).

Debbie and Bob with us at lunch

Bob's babes

Colleen's cousin Tony came to visit

Colleen's cousin, Tony, came to have lunch on the boat with us on November 24 and then took us on a tour of downtown Deland, the home of Stetson University. Stetson is the alma mater of numerous family members on Colleen's side of the family so it was fun to walk around this beautiful campus and imagine the family footsteps that have walked the same paths. Wayne's mother's family and Colleen's maternal grandmother's family lived in Deland at the same time in the 1920's and 30's and knew each other (Deland was a pretty small town in those days), long before Colleen and Wayne encountered each other at the Orange County Science Fair in 1965. A downtown Art Show was underway and we spent a little time there until the wind gusts drove us away.

Worlds Fair fountain brought to Stetson campus

A Stetson University building

President's house at Stetson. We were told that this was a Sears mail
order home early in the 1900s, purchased by a private individual,
and eventually left to the university.

A residence hall, vintage 1890s

Thanks, Tony, we had fun and look forward to seeing you again.

Onward to Sanford

Florida clouds - There's nothing like the variety you will see here

On Monday the 25th we left Hontoon Island early to avoid predicted high winds later in the day. Our big concern was whether we could maneuver the dock at Boat Tree Marina in Sanford where we planned to stop for several days. There was a lot of gusty wind but Wayne handled the docking with the skilled aplomb he's developed over the past three winters and now we're settled in for a week. First order of business - rent a car to take us back up to Jacksonville to pick up our car. The trip that took us seven days in the boat (counting visits along the way) took two-and-a-half hours by car. Nice to have wheels!

On Tuesday we welcomed Wayne's brother, Harlan, and his wife, Patty onto the boat. We all went out to lunch and then went grocery shopping together. Back at the boat later Patty showed me some iPad tricks while I stitched up the same pencil holder that Barbie had made with fabrics Patty chose from my onboard stash.

Wayne's sister-in-law Pat and his brother, Harlan

Ready to fill with pens and pencils, just what Teacher Patty needs

Steamboats were the main transportation mode for the north Florida interior before 1900 when the railroads pushed south into the state.

Cruising the ICW - Little River, SC to Marthon, Fl - Cool Change Travels & Adventures

The End of a Wonderful Journey

Jan 4th - February 24th

Starting a new winter on the boat

Winter on the Water Ends for Us

Life in Ft. Myers

Six Weeks at Loggerhead Marina in Vero Beach and trip to Fort Myers

Working on the To Do List and Getting Ready for Christmas

Winter Ends

Vero Beach - Jan. 26-Feb. 14

Repairs

Back on the Atlantic Coast of Florida from Fort Myers to Vero Beach

The various legs of our boat travels so far this winter

Life in Ft. Myers

December 31st-January 12

On to Fort Myers

And the Sewing Continues﻿

Christmas and Beyond in Punta Gorda

Gulfport to Punta Gorda

Getting Ready for Winter Travel in Florida 2014 / 2015

Finishing our Trip for this Winter February 23-March 9

On the Waterway to Gulfport, FL - Feb 17 - 22

Stuart to Ft. Myers via the Lake Okeechobee Waterway Feb 6 - Feb 16, 2014

Vero Beach to Stuart, FL Jan 16 - Feb 5th

December 24-January 15 - Three Weeks and Lots of Repairs

Merritt Island December 10-22, 2013

Our route so far

Jacksonville to St. Augustine and Beyond. 12/5-12/9

More photos﻿

Jacksonville FL 12-4-2013

Nov 27 - Dec 2 Thanksgiving Week and Heading back North to Jacksonville

On South - Astor to Hontoon Island and Sanford, FL

And the Sewing Continues

More photos