Tuesday, July 26,2011

As you can tell, I have been remiss in writing the blog since we left to come home to visit. We arrived at Gina's (our daughter) house on Friday morning. We got to see half of our grandchildren on Friday. Jeff (our son) called Friday night and said his air conditioner wasn't working. That's not a good thing. It's wicked hot here and they had weekend guests. Murphy's Law. It was too late to get parts, so John waited until 6:30 A.M. on Saturday morning and went out to help him fix it. It needed a new fan motor and a capacitor and was fixed by noon.

We had to make an emergency run out to John's aunt's house because she had fallen and couldn't get up. She ended up in the hospital. Then we went to Jay's (our other son) house to see them. We went out to dinner with all of our children and grandchildren, and our son-in-law. Both of our daughters-in-law were occupied with out of town high school friends. It was wonderful to see them all. We will be seeing them all a lot while we are here.

Sunday there was a Mass for my Dad at Little Flower. After Church, my brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, daughter, two grandchildren, and my mom went out for breakfast. After breakfast, we went back to Mom's for the afternoon. Before going back to Gina's, we took a ride out to our old harbor and visited with a few of our boating friends. It was nice to see them. We are planning to spend the weekend with them all in August.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with my Mom. It would have been their 58th wedding anniversary. Today is the 7th anniversary of my Dad's death. We all miss him terribly. He was one heck of a guy and a great Dad!

Tonight we are going to see my friends from high school at Cindy's house. She has invited all of our families as well for a cook out and swimming. I'll try to be better about writing while we are home, but our schedule has been pretty full and fun.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

We are all packed and ready to go tomorrow. We still have a few things to do to the boat. We should be home Friday morning sometime.

A strange thing happened at Happy Hour tonight. There were five or six of us sitting around when a man and a boy came up at a little after six looking for gas. The gas dock closes at 5:30 and the guy said he didn't have his wallet on him. His car was at Flagler Beach. He asked if anyone had some gas he could put in his jetski and he would bring it back tonight or tomorrow. John told me to give him what was in our gas can for the dinghy. It amounted to about two gallons of gas. They were from England and have a house here which they visit about three times a year for a month each time. The man said he's been coming here for 24 years. We were just sitting down to eat dinner when they came back with their gas can and refilled ours. Then the man sent the boy up to the car and he brought us a dozen roses and a bag of Russel Stover candy. That was above and beyond. When you have a good experience like this, you are more likely to help the next person who needs it. They were very nice.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

We began clearing out the salon today in anticipation of the work to be done on the fuel tank. The V Berth is getting quite crowded. All of the bar stools, the lamps, the tables, the printer, the cushions, and all of the small decorations have to be out to make room for the engine. The love seat is going to be on top of the bar and the engine is going to be where the love seat is now. We are expecting to receive pictures emailed to us as the work progresses. Our fingers are crossed that all goes well. We are glad that we will not be here when the work is being accomplished. I've got a feeling John will be stressing while we are home, worrying about what is going on here.

The weather here is better than in Cincy. Today it was 85 degrees and Happy Hour was nice with a gentle breeze. There's always air conditioning though. Three more days.....

Monday, July 18, 2011

T Minus 4 and counting......

Today I finally got my hair cut. It seems like it's been forever since the last time. If only I could convince John to cut it. It's hotter at home than it is here, so it was time. Doesn't that seem funny, that it's hotter at home than in Florida?

Today is Monday, so there was a whole marina Happy Hour (and a half) up in the ship store. Everyone brings an appetizer to share. By the time dinner rolled around, I wasn't even a little bit hungry. I made chuck roast, mashed potatoes, and beans for dinner. What was I thinking? We have plenty of leftovers for tomorrow night's dinner.

I've been on the phone with our children, ironing out our plans for the month we are at home. It sounds like we will be pretty busy. We are both looking forward to every planned outing and the time spent at each family's home.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Sue had taken this picture of a jelly fish.

Seas 2 Day and Runaround Sue at Palm Coast Marina

We found a Catholic Church to attend, now that we have a vehicle here. The Church is Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church. They abbreviate it: SEAS. That seems rather appropriate for a Church in Florida on the coast. It's a big, beautiful, new Church building. After Church, we picked up Norm and went shopping and then to eat at Mezzaluna's Italian Restaurant. We had a large pizza. Usually, a large is pretty close to what we can eat at one sitting. Not here. This pizza was so big that we could only eat 2 pieces each. We brought the rest home for later.

Al from Al's Mobile Marine Service who is going to do the repairs to the fuel tank came tonight to discuss exactly what he is going to do and what he wants us to do before we leave to get ready for him. He said he will send us pictures as he progresses along. That ought to make John feel better while we are at home.

We had a four hour Happy Hour tonight. The temperature was perfect and it was so comfortable out that we stayed out from 5:00 P.M. until 9:00 P.M. Different people from the harbor came and joined us for shorter periods of time. It's interesting to hear peoples' boating stories and it's nice to get advice about different places to stop along our future route.

Needless to say, we are T Minus 5 and counting.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Now it is less than a week before we leave to come home for a visit. Yea!!! Today was pretty much like yesterday, except that it only looked like it would rain. Happy Hour was perfectly comfortable. It was cool with a nice breeze and we could have stayed out all night, that is until we got hungry and it was past time to start making dinner. We had shrimp scampi for dinner, my personal favorite meal. Even though we have our van here now, we are not going very many places. We are trying to use up all of the food before we leave since we will be gone so long, so we are not going to the grocery store. We are going to Church tomorrow morning, however. And then we are picking up Norm and going out for brunch. That should be fun. Counting the days (6).

Friday, July 15, 2011

Today I worked on things to get the boat ready for when we leave to come home. We had a pretty good thunderstorm this afternoon. We sat out on the aft deck and played cards while the rain came down in buckets with lots of thunder and lightning. I love listening to the rain hitting the canvas on the boat, especially during the night when we are in bed hearing it hit. Sleep comes easy then. Other than that, we are just chillin' counting down the days until we come home to visit.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

John and Norm went on an excursion to Daytona this morning. They went to 2 salvage boat stores and a West Marine. Neither one of them bought anything of consequence, but they had a good time. That allowed me to get my work done and then relax a little and mess around on the computer. So, it was a good day for all of us. We had Happy Hour early tonight and it was a good thing because it started raining and cut it short. If we hadn't started early, there would not have been a Happy Hour. I was mistaken about when we are leaving to come home. I thought we were leaving on Saturday, July 23rd, but I was told tonight that we are leaving on Friday, July 22nd. So, now it's T Minus 9 and counting. Woo Hoo!!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Wine Rack.

Coke Display (with some missing)

It's T minus 11 and counting. Today was steamy hot! We had a very brief shower that didn't even get the sidewalk wet. We have the car here and we didn't even go anywhere today. What's up with that? John and Norm are going to a salvage boat store in Daytona tomorrow morning. I think I will hang out here and let them do the male bonding thing. I will be perfectly happy working on a project. There is never a shortage of projects on our boat.

We had an extra long Happy Hour tonight. Towards the end of Happy Hour, a boat came into the harbor on one engine. After the men helped them with their lines, they all stood around on the dock talking for a long while. I went ahead and fixed myself something to eat for dinner. It was 8:30 and I was ready to eat. John is still out there gabbing. And they say women are gabbers. Ha! It's good for them to swap stories and meet new people. Who knows, I may be asleep by the time John comes back to the boat.

I took the two pictures above while John was at home getting the van. I thought the Coke display was pretty sweet looking. The lady at the store said it won a contest. I also know lots of people who would like to have that wine rack, preferably filled just like it is. Those people know who they are. Well, until tomorrow.....

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

John got back right around 1:00 A.M. this morning. He had an easy uneventful drive back from Cincinnati with the exception of "The Invasion of the Killer Black Tree Ants". He was in Georgia when he noticed that every now and then he would see an ant crawling on or around him. He stopped at a convenience store and bought a can of bug spray. At that point, he thought the ants were coming from the cover he had taken off of the van. The man at the store gave him a plastic garbage bag to put the cover in. He sprayed the entire can of bug spray. There were hundreds of large black ants. It turned out that they had made a nest in the wells that the seats fold into. We were very careful about what came into the boat, not wanting to fight them inside of our "home". First thing this morning, we went to a car wash and vacuumed the dead ants out and sprayed the few remaining live ones.

We didn't do a lot today, just enjoyed each other's company. Norm, John, and I went out to Sonny's for dinner. Ribs and Barbecue, Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm.

Monday, July 11, 2011

After going with Norm to take the car back to Enterprise, I decided it was a good time to clean the inside of the boat. I got the aft head and the aft cabin cleaned and then thought, "Why am I doing such a good job now? When we come back from Cincinnati, it will really need a good cleaning because of the engine having to come out to get to the fuel tank," So, the rest of the inside of the boat got a once over lightly.

This marina has a Happy Hour on Mondays from 3:30 until 5:00. I got to meet a lot more of the people here at Happy Hour. Some of them have boats here, but they don't live on them. They come to Happy Hour on Mondays though. It was nice to meet them all. One couple used to live in Turkey. They sailed their 38 foot boat from Turkey to here. They took four years to do that trip, taking their time and seeing the sights. We are going slow on the Loop so we can see the sights and meet the people. So far, it's been fun. The only down side of this trip has been all of the repairs. This fuel tank thing is going to separate us from some money. We have to keep telling ourselves that if we were boating the way we used to, just on the weekends, these repairs would be spread out a whole lot farther. I wouldn't trade this experience though. The best part is meeting all of the new people. We already have a lot in common just by being boaters, so conversation is never difficult. (Conversation is rarely difficult for me anyway.) Some things are different than I thought they would be. For example, I thought that whenever we got hot, we would just jump in the water and cool off. There are way too many scary things in the water to do that, like jelly fish, sharks, and alligators. I have to be able to see my feet in the water before I'm willing to put my body in it.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Today felt really strange. John and I have spent every day together for so long that it felt weird being here by myself. However, I made the best of it and spent the bulk of the day working on genealogy research. That was so much fun! We had thunderstorms off and on throughout the day which made things a little interesting. John sent me pictures on my phone of each one of the grandchildren as he made the rounds to see them. It made me miss them more!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Well, John left this morning from Daytona to Cincinnati. He made it safely and sent me a picture of him with two of the grandchildren. I am SOOO jealous. Sue and I went shopping this afternoon. It was nice to have some "girl time". However, that's the last "girl time" until about the 24th because Sue is leaving in the morning to fly home to Cincinnati. She is staying until we all come back around the 22nd of August. It's just going to be me and the guys for a couple of weeks. I am counting down the days until I get to see my family and friends. T minus 15 and counting. I think that space shuttle affected my brain. Everything else is the same here. So, if you see John, tell him I miss him and am counting the minutes until he gets back.

Friday, July 8, 2011

This is the space shuttle. It's somewhere behind the clouds. We could hear it, but not see it.

"Bird on a Wire", he sits on the rope and waits for minnows to swim past. Then he leans down and picks the fish out of the water without falling off the line. Amazing!

We rented a car this morning. We were supposed to get a compact car and when Norm and John arrived, they couldn't find the keys for the Aveo and the Chrysler 300 had a bad tire. So, Enterprise rented us an Infinity. Pretty nice, huh? We were told that we could see the shuttle launch from this marina. We watched on TV until the countdown got down to two minutes. We positioned ourselves to get the best pictures, and all we got were clouds. Unfortunately, it was way too cloudy for us to see anything. We then ran errands and went out for lunch. When we came out of the grocery store, it was raining like crazy. All four of us got wet and cold taking groceries from the car, to the boat.

John is all packed and ready to go. We will leave here at 6:45 tomorrow morning to take him to Daytona to fly home. He is looking forward to the couple of days of being around family.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

The surveyor arrived this morning, thirty minutes ahead of schedule. He took pictures of the fuel tank and the outside of our boat. Everything comes to a standstill now until we come home at the end of the month. It's strange because with the one tank empty and the other almost full, we are listing. All night long, we both kept feeling like we were falling out of bed. The doors take a little more effort to close and when you walk, you feel a little drunk. (Maybe that would help.) John is getting ready to come home on Saturday for a couple of days to take care of the van and bring it back here. I will miss him, but will be glad to have a car at our disposal again.

It rained a nice gentle rain off and on all day. This area of Florida really needs the rain, so that is a good thing. You don't mind so much when the rain falls soft with no lightning or thunder or lots of wind. Well, tomorrow we rent a car for the weekend so that we can get John to the airport on Saturday and Sue to the airport on Sunday. They both are using points, so they are not on the same flight or the same day or even the same airport. That's all I know.....

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Three fifty-five gallon drums of diesel fuel.

Our boat at Palm Coast Harbor.

Happy Hour! Mary, John, Sue, Ralph, and Norm.

We filled up the fuel tanks just a couple of days before coming to Palm Coast. So, when the starboard tank developed a leak, we had no place to go with the fuel. Both tanks were still 3/4 full. Even if we filled up Norm and Sue's tanks as well, we still would have between 50 and 100 gallons to deal with. We found a guy who came out to the boat today and pumped the fuel into three 55 gallon drums and then took them to his shop to store them for us. Once our tank situation is fixed, he will bring back our fuel and replace it in our starboard fuel tank. Almost everybody at the harbor had to come out to see what was going on. We were the day's entertainment. We are glad to have it off of the boat. We were fortunate to be able to contain it and not let it pollute the water.

Last night John booked a flight home to bring our van back to Palm Coast. He figured since we are here for awhile, we could use the van for grocery shopping and seeing the local sights. Also, when we are scheduled to come home, we won't have to rent a car. So, John is flying home on Saturday and staying until he can have a few things done to the van. Then he is coming back here until we leave for home on the 23rd.

I tried to upload pictures tonight, but for some reason they won't cooperate. I'll try again in a little while.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The above pictures are from the European Village.

It seems that our plans have changed again. Or maybe I should say they have been changed for us. We will be staying here at Palm Coast Marina for about 2 months. John told me to say that our boat must have been too close to "It's OK 2" when we were at Lighthouse Point Marina because it caught the dreaded fuel tank leak. All kidding aside, we have to have the tank taken out and either repaired or replaced, depending on what they find once it's out of the boat. Needless to say, John is not a happy camper. He is very depressed. We will stay here until after we return from visiting in Cincinnati. Staying here is not a bad thing. The people are nice and the marina has a lot to offer. There doesn't seem to be much within walking distance though. Sue and I walked to the European Village this morning. It was a nice 15 minute walk, but most of the businesses are out of business. There are a few restaurants, one gift shop, one jewelry store, a cigar store, and a hair salon. We weren't even gone for an hour and we had seen everything.

4th OF JULY

The bands around the bridge supports are murals of dolphins and manatees.

Close up of one of the bridge supports.

Happy 4th of July, everybody! Hope your holiday weekend was a lot of fun. This morning we moved further north along the ICW to Palm Coast, FL. We are at Palm Coast Marina for 2 nights before we move on again. The people here are really nice and the marina has a lot to offer. They have diesel fuel, pump out, laundry room, showers, restrooms, ship store, free WIFI, free cable TV, and fitness center. There is a little shopping area within a 10 minute walk from here that we are going to check out tomorrow. We figured that everything would be closed today for the holiday. The fireworks here have been canceled because there has been a pretty big fire 8 miles away and with everything being so dry, they were afraid that a spark would start yet another fire. Understandable, but a bit disappointing.

While we were cruising today, there were several dolphins swimming in our port wake. They jumped completely out of the water and rolled over on their backs. Their bellies were pink. I never saw a dolphin with a pink belly. They kept slapping their tails on the water. They put on quite a performance for us and we appreciated it. We were hot and sweaty when we got here and we didn't feel like heating up the boat any more than it was. So, we called Papa John and had him make our dinner tonight! He did a good job. It tasted soooo good. It's going to be an early night. Maybe I wouldn't have been able to stay awake long enough to see the fireworks even if they hadn't been canceled.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Sue, Norm and John.

The neon bar at the Blue Grotto.

The neon tables at the Blue Grotto.

Sue and the funky sink in the restroom.

After cleaning up the breakfast dishes, we put the dinghy in the water to go exploring. We went to West Marine. There was a marina, West Marine, and dinghy dock all on the same piece of property. We sat at the outside bar and had a couple of drinks. John's were Bloody Marys and mine were Diet Cokes. We met a friendly couple at the bar. They have a vacation home on the St. Johns River and told us a restaurant to visit when we reach their neck of the woods. They said to call them and if they are at their house, they would go with us to the restaurant. They (Laurie and Rob) had ordered appetizers and it looked so good that we had food envy and had to order a crab dip for ourselves. After we finished eating, Sue and I went inside to use the restroom. The restaurant was pretty different inside. The bar and some of the tables were lit from inside with neon light. In the restroom, the sink was also constructed that way. Please see pictures above.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Today we remained at anchor at Daytona Beach, Florida. We did a little cleaning until it got too hot out. Then we read, played cards, and had Happy Hour on the back of our boat. Tomorrow we are planning on going exploring by dinghy. There are lots of dolphins swimming around our boat. I think that is the biggest thing I am going to miss once we get back into the river system. The dolphins are so graceful and they really seem to like you to watch them and talk to them. I still haven't been able to get a very good picture of a dolphin up out of the water. You never know when they will come to the surface.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Look at that roof line!

Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse in the gray, cloudy weather.

I like the way this sailboat looked going through the drawbridge.

These are just a couple of the children sailing around us at anchor.

The pelicans crack me up how they "air out their pits".

Dean and Debbie, this boat made us think of you.

We left Titusville this morning at 8:00 A.M. Everywhere you looked was gray, but the rain held off until about 10:30. It didn't last very long, less than an hour. We saw lots of manatees, dolphins, and large cannon ball jelly fish. We cruised about 50 miles to Daytona on the Intracoastal Waterway side.

We were cruising along, doing our typical 8 mph when a runabout pulling a person tubing cut right across our bow not 40 feet away from our boat. I don't know what that guy was thinking. What if the person tubing (is he called a tuber?) fell off just at that moment? We would not have been able to stop that fast. I know it made my heart beat a little bit faster.


After we got anchored, a group of about 50 small sailboats being operated by children, came by. We think it was some kind of sailing camp. There were 2 motorboats with them, one at the beginning of the group and one at the end. Several boats tipped over, but one of the kids freaked out and started screaming. The guys in the motorboats came to help him.