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.