November 29th through January 20th
After nearly 2 months, we have left Clearwater and are heading southward. We really enjoyed our time in Clearwater. The marina and staff were terrific; the beach was gorgeous; the local amenities were immediately accessible to us; and the weather was….well, what the weather was – it ran the gamut – warm & sunny, foggy, rainy, cold, very cold(!!!!), windy, very windy(!!!!!).
During that time, Roger went back to Indianapolis twice and Louie and I stayed on the boat. Roger brought his car back after the first trip, so we had transportation and I had independence! We were able to spend quite a bit of time with Heath who lives in Tampa. We went with him to buy his Christmas tree and helped him decorate it. He celebrated Roger’s birthday with us and I made a homemade lemon meringue pie (Roger’s preferred birthday cake). We have missed Heath during all these family events for the past 4+ years while he has been away, so these were special times for the 3 of us and for Louie too. Heath wants to keep Louie for himself!
The other kids and my brother Bill started arriving on December 20th. Nicole and her friend Amy were the first to arrive and they stayed on the boat with us. We had a great time with them. We baked cookies at Heath’s one night and had an assembly line going. Amy calls me the “cookie Nazi”, but I don’t know why! Travis arrived 2 days later and he stayed at Heath’s apartment. The next day, Amy left and my brother Bill arrived, and he stayed at the Residence Inn near Tampa airport. We made a trip to an Italian market in St. Petersburg and stocked up on some family favorites. We spent a lot of time going back and forth to Heath’s apartment and preparing for Christmas, but it was fun. Bill & Roger made their traditional holiday run to the wine store, buying wines from around the world. Travis, Heath and I found ourselves in The Fresh Market on Christmas Eve morning, buying desserts at the last minute.
Brett and his fiancée Kelly arrived on Christmas morning, right on time. We had a delicious prime rib Christmas dinner. That night we went to see Avatar at the IMAX theater in Tampa in 3D. Christmas was so different from years past, but we were all ready for a change and no one complained, except that I made them go to a high Mass on Christmas Eve! The day after Christmas, Nicole started the exodus of family leaving us. I was determined not to cry, but I couldn’t help myself! We were so lucky to have everyone with us for Christmas and we stayed busy for the 12 days that spanned their visits.
Lucky for us, our Canadian friends, Danny & Susan Godin, (we met during the fish barrier fiasco) had arrived in Clearwater on their boat, “Potest Fieri”. We hadn’t seen them since we left Kentucky Lake in mid-September, so we were excited when we found out that they were crossing the Gulf just before Christmas. They’ve been on the same schedule as us since then and we are traveling with them again. Danny and Roger do “guy stuff” and Susan & I are Starbuck’s fanatics.
Another Manatee owner, Randy Pickelmann & his wife Cindy, saw us in Clearwater and they brought their boat “Morning Star” over to the marina for a weekend. They are from Clearwater and they were nice enough to share their local cruising knowledge with us one evening, so we could get an idea of what was ahead of us on the next leg of the loop. We also got to see friends from Indianapolis, Dave Brush and Dell Brinker, who unfortunately picked the coldest weekend for their Guys’ Golf Getaway Weekend. It was great to see them!
So….we made plans to leave Clearwater on Wednesday, January 13th. Roger, Heath and I took a second trip to the CVS Minute Clinic the night before so that I could get some meds for a virus that I couldn’t shake. I had come down with something on New Year’s Eve night and just couldn’t get rid of it. I’m going on the end of my 3rd week and still have a sore throat and cough. It’s not that much fun being sick on a boat. -----Especially when you are sleeping in on New Year’s Day and you don’t even know that your husband and
your dog have fallen off the boat into the water at the marina!!!!
The tide variation was so great on New Year’s Eve & Day because of a full moon; the dock was a long way from the boat. Roger had come back to the boat with Louie that morning and just as he was getting on, the wind gusted and the boat lurched away from the dock. He lost his grip and he & Louie went into the drink. Roger told me that the water was frigid and no one was on the dock at the time. He pushed Louie toward the boat next to us and swam over to the swim ladder on our neighbor’s boat and pulled himself and Louie up. They were both so lucky. If the wind hadn’t moved the boat away from the dock, yes---they probably wouldn’t have fallen in. But it also allowed them to slide into the water without hitting their heads on the boat hull or the dock. They could have knocked themselves out and drowned. No one got hurt, except for Roger’s knee. He must have twisted it during the fall. A bit of good news…Roger’s powder blue Crocs fell in also and he could only retrieve one of them. (The kids were so happy about that. They had given Roger a lot of grief about his powder blue Crocs when they were here.) Of course, his iPhone was in his pocket and we had to replace that. That was painful, but necessary.
Our first stop after Clearwater was Sarasota. We stayed at Marina Jack’s and had a wonderful week there. What a spectacular marina and location! I had cable TV for the first time since I’d been on the boat and the newspaper was delivered to our boat every morning. (Roughing it on the rivers was a distant memory!) One of my friends from tennis at home, Lauri Willson, and her husband have a Florida home in Bradenton, and they met up with us for brunch in Sarasota a couple of days ago. What a nice time we had with them!
On Tuesday, we stayed overnight in Venice, FL at a free dock and took a walk into town. Whenever we can, we try to take long walks for exercise. We had dinner on Susan & Danny’s boat-- Susan made jambalaya – mmm! Yesterday morning our generator was giving us problems. Danny helped Roger find the problem and fix it, so we got underway a little later than normal. Last night we went to an anchorage in Cape Haze, south of Englewood, FL, north of Punta Gorda. It’s a calm and lovely spot, but it was getting crowded with more boats that had the same idea as we did. We cooked on our boat last night and discovered that when the wind shifted, our boat moved, but Danny & Susan’s didn’t. They had about 70 feet of anchor chain and we had the same, but most of it was anchor line (or rope), not chain. As Danny was grilling, “Potest Fieri” was creeping up on us. So we ended up rafting the 2 boats together. We were glad this didn’t happen at 3:00 a.m., which is what typically happens at an anchorage. Today we will head a little further south to Pelican Bay. For now, all is well!
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