Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, FL - Feb.9-14

One last beautiful Keys sunset

We've been sitting on the back deck, saying goodbye to our last sunset in Boot Key Harbor in Marathon, FL.  It was a beauty in flaming orange and a fitting end to our lovely, relaxing time here in this friendly, laid back, tropical community.  Tomorrow morning we plan to pull out of the harbor and begin our trip back to North Carolina - not a fast trip, though.  We'll be traveling at our usual 8-10 miles/hour and expect to stop several times along the way.  The idea is to make it back to Charlotte by March 15th.  We will turn 10 days of travel into 30 days including stops for bad weather and stops for family and friends.  We plan to visit Howard and Donna in Vero Beach and Marcy & Roger and Marla & Al in Cocoa Beach  for extended stops on the way back.  Also, we want to make time for our old boating buddies of the Central Florida Cruise Club, Jim and Shaula from our hometown of Orlando at one of the CFC club events in Cocoa Vilage on Feb. 26 thru the 28th.  What a great coincidence to meet up with the club that we belonged to for 22 years in Orlando.  We were very active in the cruise club along with our boys for those many years with Wayne being commodore (president) 5 times.

This  past weekend was great fun as we welcomed our friends Roger and Marcy onto the boat.  They tolerated the not-so-spacious forward cabin and a sudden cold snap that brought serious winds with it.  Wayne and I have gotten used to the boat swaying back and forth on its mooring ball and the constant slap of waves on the hull.  We wish we could have shared some of the warm, calm weather we've enjoyed here but it was not to be.  The chill and winds showed up on Friday afternoon, just as Roger and Marcy arrived and departed on Sunday after lunch, right after we bid them goodbye.  Is it possible THEY brought the icky weather?  They will claim I fed them beans all weekend in revenge.  While they were here we all got together with Marla and Al and Marla's big brother, Bob, and her sister-in-law, BJ, for lunch one day and we also managed to watch a total of four movies in less than 48 hours.  Yeah for the inverter!  Roger assisted in the original survey of Cool Change when it was only a prospective new boat and then he piloted about half of the 505 mile trip to our home port of Little River, SC last July for a week.


Wane ready for Sunday morning in the Fl Keys!



No, Marcy has not put on 200 pounds.  The trip in on the dinghy was a windy one and inflated her jacket. She looked like the Michelin woman!



Roger and Marcy at Sunday breakfast on Cool Change

We attended the Pigeon Key Art Festival on Sunday afternoon and even bought a little art for our master cabin.  A photo of two old chairs sitting at the edge of the ocean made us think of ourselves and this trip and seemed a wonderful memento of our winter voyage.  The art festival featured lots of art, good music and food.

Our recent art acquisition




Pigeon Key Art festival, Feb. 13

Wayne and I both reached the point of haircut desperation last week.  My gray roots and constant windblown state meant there could be no more waiting.  Jann, my neighbor, kindly acted as a guinea pig, finding a salon and putting her locks under the scissors.  The results looked so good that I went today for a cut and color from the same hairdresser and I'm quite satisfied.  To Christine, my hometown hairdresser - I do miss you but seem to have survived our separation intact.  You get to do my next haircut. 

Many of you followers have been waiting on information on the inverter charger blowout that occurred several weeks ago.  Boy, did we miss that inverter.  While it was gone we were havng to run the generator to do anything 120 volt A/C.  We even bought a temporary inverter from West Marine for $99 to power Colleen's sewing machine and the cabin lights in quiet.  We will keep that inverter as a backup in the event of a future failure.   Xantrex, the inverter/charger manufacturer, repaired the inverter in one day upon receipt.  Overall downtime was only 9 days.  Xantrex recommended that I limit the battery cables to 10 feet to prevent a future failure.  My cables were 14 feet including connecting cables for the 300 amp fuse and the cutoff switch.  These cables are 3/4 inch in diameter and Xantrex wants them twisted.  Good luck.  I re-routed the battery cables across a new aluminum angle that I installed in front of the engine and under the floor panels.  The result was an 8 foot cable run.  Even better to prevent the ripple effect that failed the inverter.  Hopefully we will never see another failure.  All seems to be working well after more than a week.

Inverter / charger installed in original TV cabinet




New cable routing.  Note the 3/4 inch cables.

Next time we write we'll be officially underway, heading toward home.  We're both just about ready to get back to our tree house and watch spring come to the Carolinas.

Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, FL - Feb. 1 - 8

It's hard to believe that we've been here almost three weeks and will be starting our trip toward home in the not-too-distant-future.  We've enjoyed having Marla and Al close by for the past week, going out to eat, joining them for activities at the RV park and going to the movies, and we will be welcoming Roger and Marcy onto the boat for the upcoming weekend.  The weather over the past week has been really beautiful, although the wind has picked up and it's pretty nippy tonight.


Jann and Gary's soon-to-be-renamed Sea Angel, a beautiful trawler

 We've seen more of our nearby boat neighbors, Jann and Gary, who have been having some not-to-be-envied boat adventures.  Think, broken refrigerator, escaping dinghy.  Jann came over a few days ago and we sewed together most of the day.  That was a lot of fun.  I'm still working on the quilt I told you about last time and Jann made a fancy 12" block to decorate an end table on her boat.

Being among so many boats (around 300), we can't help but notice the variety of boat names.  A few of the really good ones - Second Wind, Power of Two, Cat in the Hat, Miss Kitty and her dinghy called Marshall Dillon, About Time, Two if by Sea, and Camelot with her dinghy named Camalittle.  A huge number of people here in the harbor share their boats with dogs.  I've never seen such a variety of breeds of dogs happily commanding the front of dinghies as they motor to shore.  We are a little astonished at the guy who seems to be living contentedly with an enormous Great Dane on his boat.



This boat is called Cat in the Hat



Here's our "neighborhood."


We saw an interesting sight today.  A man and woman in a dinghy either were having motor troubles or were working on leaving a very small carbon footprint.  The guy pushed off from shore, pulled out a large umbrella, opened it up and positioned it so the wind would catch the umbrella and move his boat through the water.  It carried them along at a good little clip, both of them smiling happily.

Lots of books are getting read here on Cool Change.

You might like to see where we are.  Go to the link below and you can watch a live video feed that rotates through about six views of the harbor and the marina 24 hours a day.  On Saturday we got Patrick on the phone as we headed into the dinghy dock and told him to go to the site and we waved frantically so he could see us.  I'm afraid the people sitting on shore thought we were nuts as I vigorously flailed my arms through the air.  It's hard to see our boat as we're far back in the group but look for a big boat in front of a condominium on the other side of the harbor.  http://www.ci.marathon.fl.us/index.aspx?NID=600

January 27th-31st - News from Boot Key Harbor

We’ve had a busy week here in Marathon and have walked (and biked) for many miles.  We did eventually discover the island taxi services and when we’re REALLY tired of walking, they will pick us up and take us anywhere on the island for 4 or 5 dollars.  We both stepped on the scales at Publix today.  Assuming our clothes weigh three pounds (shorts and T shirts, yeah, right), neither one of us has gained any weight since we left home.   Last Thursday we walked down the street to see True Grit at the local movie theater.  The theater holds 105 people and was completely packed.  The line outside was so long, I’m sure they had to turn customers away.  We both enjoyed the movie.  This week The Tourist is showing and we hope to talk Marla and Al into going with us.  They are due to arrive in their motor home tomorrow to stay in a campground nearby.

On Saturday we took the dinghy out to explore the harbor we're in.  On the way we came across a couple from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Nelson and Ondra. They were doing the same thing.  We followed them through a cut in the island out into the ocean!!!!  Not too far though.  The water was pefectly calm, winds maybe as much as five miles an hour, beautiful blue-green water.



Captain Colleen, occasional master of the dinghy



On Sunday afternoon we attended the Second Annual Florida Keys Traditional Music Festival.  What a treat!  All the artists were exceptionally talented and we heard five different groups, from a Cajun Trio, to Bluegrass and Acoustic Country, to Tex-Mex, to Appalachian mountain music, to a homegrown Keys group.  Some amazing banjo playing, singing, guitar strumming, Mexican accordion music, haunting mandolin pieces, and Cajun violins.



Joe Mama's Keys All Star Band





One of my six new quilt blocks



Here's another



I’ve been sewing pretty much every day.  I was part of an activity in my quilting group in North Carolina last year that produced nine different quilt blocks from nine people over the course of the year.  I brought those blocks with me and I’ve worked during the past week to make six more different blocks.  The plan is to put all fifteen together to make a small sampler quilt.  Doll clothes also must be stitched together as Wayne and I will be traveling to Boston in March and Jackie and Kate’s dolls need to be well-dressed.

A few days ago I checked the car GPS we have with us to try and find a fabric or quilting store nearby.  Found a place called Nimble Fingers.  Must refer to skills with a needle, right?  Not quite.  When I called I found out it was a barber shop.  The man who answered the phone was very friendly, though.  I’m probably lucky it wasn’t a massage parlor.  Unfortunately, I would have to travel 45 miles either east or west to find a fabric shop.  It’s a good thing that I’m still well stocked with fabric here on the boat.

Each morning at 9:00 we gather around the marine VHF radio and tune to Channel  68.  The “show” is The Cruiser’s Net, a thirty to forty-five minute sharing of local news and upcoming events, information about boats arriving and leaving the area, offers of marine related items to sell (treasures from the bilge)and requests for items boats need, and a boat trivia contest.  This certainly is a boating community!  Last night we joined our nearest neighbors out here on the buoys - Jan and Gary- and another couple, Mike and Barbara, for cocktails and sunset watching.  Jan and Gary are either our backyard neighbors or our across the street neighbors, depending on which way the wind is blowing.  Watching the sunset here is a bit of a daily obligation and is attended to with a certain amount of ceremony.  As the sun sets, people on assorted boats (probably on shore too) blow on conch shells to mark the moment.  It's a unique, haunting sound - something I'll always associate with this special place.



We're finally seeing some beautiful sunsets

One last note - Temperature today is 79 degrees.

Jan 22nd -Jan 26th: - News from Marathon’s Boot Key Harbor (Marathon, Fl. Keys)

The new engine on our hard bottom dinghy is proving its worth.  The dinghy is our taxi from our mooring buoy in Boot Key Harbor into the City dinghy dock.  The fiberglass bottom and inflatable sides of this dinghy that came with the boat purchase is a big step up from the all-inflatable that we used with our other boats in the past.  The only drawback is that we are exposed to the weather and must plan our travel to dry land accordingly.  We routinely carry foul weather gear with us just in case of rain.   Unlike NC, if you leave home in clear skies here, you might encounter rain 20 minutes later, and it might stop in five minutes – or not.  There is a large community room ashore with tables, Wi-Fi, TVs, bath house, laundry room and restrooms.   The City of Marathon has done this up right and caters to the traveling boaters.  Actually, they want our money!  Water is 5 cents a gallon.

Our water taxi to shore and restaurants

Tuesday morning the water was the calmest since we arrived last Thursday so we took a dinghy ride for 2 miles to Knights Key at the foot of the 7-mile bridge.  This is where our friends, Marla and Al from Cocoa, FL., will be staying next week in their motorhome.  The ride entailed going out into open water to the Atlantic Ocean and became rough before we made landfall at Knights Key.  The wind and seas were coming up for the day so I thought it prudent to turn back to protected water several hundred yards short of our destination.  We had been going with the waves and we knew that the return ride was not going to be a totally dry experience.  On the way back to the boat we checked out several marinas in case we tired of buoy life.  All were full for January.  We did stop at Burdines Marina for lunch at their tiki bar/restaurant because we heard that they have the best burger in town.  The scuttle was right – they did.

200 sailboats and only 25 to 30 powerboats



Caught napping on the first calm and warm afternoon



Wednesday morning we ventured to the other end of the harbor in the dinghy and made it to Publix, a thirty-two minute walk by foot once we get to dry land.  Unfortunately, there is no place to tie up the dinghy at the Publix site.  Too bad - only a 10 minute dinghy ride.

A cold front came through last night.  We had forewarning via the VHF radio on the weather service channels that said we would be hit after midnight.  Sure enough, at 12:15 high winds; I mean really high winds, came up.  Our boat weaves and wanders all over in high winds when at anchor or on a buoy.  The high canvas and flybridge act like a 17 foot high sail in the wind gusts.  Actually we move all over even in light winds.  We have gotten used to the constant gyrations.  When we go ashore and focus on one spot on a wall, the wall looks like it is rotating.  So we just don’t focus on stationary objects when ashore.  Anyway, along with the wind came heavy rain and lightning.  We watched the storm from the flybridge until lightning hit close and we scooted for the aft cabin.  The storm didn’t seem so severe from our cozy cabin.  

What the weather did next you don't want to know.

It seems that the cool weather and high winds have followed us south for 800 miles.  I have only been in shorts and a t-shirt 6 or 7 days in our 2 ½ months of travel.  The next several days will only be in the mid-sixties here.  That is 12 degrees below the norm for the Keys.  I spoke with our friend Sam in Charlotte today and he said that it is the coldest there in all his 15 or so years of living in the area.  So, we will accept the chilly 60’s with pleasure and feel sorry for our friends at home.

There is culture here.  We walked about a half mile to a small live community theatre Sunday afternoon and watched the play “A Bad Year for Tomatoes”.  Although we enjoyed the play, we were very aware that Davidson Players and The Warehouse provide pretty exceptional community theater back home, compared to the Marathon selection.   Next door to that is a movie theatre and we plan to go see “True Grit” tomorrow evening as the weather is supposed to improve by then, i.e. No rain.  We also bought tickets for a music fest that will take place this weekend.  We hope we can dinghy to that.  The local library is having a used book sale and Colleen hit the jackpot there today.  For two dollars you can fill a bag they give you with books from their back room.  Fun!  Fun!  Fun!

We have had a catastrophic failure of our inverter/ charger!  This is a 200 watt inverter that runs from two high power golf cart batteries.  With it we can run the TV (if we could pick up anything other than TV Marti, the US broadcast to Cuba), Colleen’s sewing machine, the microwave, and anything else that plugs into an outlet on the boat.  No sound, no generator running.  It recharges the batteries when we do run the generator to cook or to just recharge.   We smelled a burning electrical smell early Saturday as the batteries were re-charging.  Later when running the generator again, the inverter blew out with a loud bang and a lot of awful smelling smoke. Colleen was out the door in a flash – then realized there was nowhere to go unless she planned to dive off the back of the boat.  On Monday we spoke with Xantrex, the manufacturer, and several hours later the 65 pound inverter was placed in  our big laundry bag, loaded into the dinghy, unloaded from the dinghy at the dock,  placed into a taxi and was shipped UPS to Elkhart, IN. for evaluation.  We surely miss it!

We are living in a community of anchored out boaters.  On shore they are conspicuous for their back packs and bicycles.  We’ve walked about two miles east and two miles west over the past five days along highway US1.  During one of Wayne’s walks both directions in the same afternoon he passed by a junk store on his way to West Marine.  There were several bikes out front, one of which looked to be in good condition.  After a test ride and some negotiation, Wayne rode on to West Marine on his new, old $30 bike.  On his way back, one pedal broke, so Wayne stopped at the same shop and negotiated for a new set of pedals.  I, Wayne say that the bike is red.  However, no man is going to steal this bike as it has faded and looks quite pink (fuchsia) now.  With a cable and lock from the boat and a couple of plastic bags over the foam padded seat, it sits ashore with the other 700 bikes in the bike racks at the City docks.

Wayne on his newest Corvette!



January 19-21, Lake Sylvia near Fort Lauderdale to Marathon on Vaca Key

WE'RE HERE!!!!  Judging from the big smile on his face, I can tell that this is where Wayne was headed all along.  The temperature outside today is a balmy 75 degrees.  We have put away our heavy jackets - finally - and now are in shorts and T shirts full time.  We did have quite an adventure reaching this destination though, which will henceforth be known as The Great Fog Event of 2011.  Wayne gets to tell you about that:

We enjoyed a beautiful run from Lake Worth to Ft.Lauderdale.  We started off after an extra day at anchor in Lake Worth to wait out the storm front to pass.  After the high winds of the previous day, we enjoyed a peaceful time at anchor this second night.  When we headed out Tuesday morning the skies were very overcast and a cool wind was directly on our bow.  We were wearing jackets most of the day as we observed local boaters in shorts and bathing suits.  It looked like what you were wearing all depended on wind direction and travel direction.  We passed through quite a few bridges that had restricted opening schedules.  They opened either on the hour and half hour or on the quarter and three quarter hour.  As you might imagine, we waited for several of these to open, sometimes 10 to 25 minutes.  Wayne had anticipated this from the many publications that he had studied and he had set our predicted distance of daily travel downward to compensate.

Our travel throughout the day on Tuesday took us through even more extravagent homes than we described earlier, huge estates really.  The biggest homes on our own Lake Norman pale in comparison to those along this stretch of the ICW.  When we thought we had seen the most beautiful home of all, we found another to preempt the crown.  If the homes weren't built from scratch, then older homes had been demolished only to be replaced with a palace.  It was amazing to see flat roofed 1960s homes sitting next to 3 story mansions which had replaced two or more of 1960s versions.

THE BOATS!!  We do not have words to describe the boats that we saw!  Think multiple millions here!  Our boat would not be allowed in the same marina as these giants.  Boats $$$$$$  Homes $$$$$.  This area has the $$$$$.

The day gradually warmed as it went on and our travel slowed for more marinas and homes "NO WAKE" and "MANATEE NO WAKE" areas.  And we did see manatees on a regular basis.  We saw their backs rise from the river and sometimes their tails.  At 4:30 Tuesday we were rewarded for the slow travel with the anchorage that we had decided on.  We anchored in Lk. Sylvia, just 1/2 mile north of the Ft. Lauderdale inlet, Port Everglades.  The lake is about 1500 feet in diameter.  The entry to the lake was discussed in "Skipper Bob's Anchorages on the ICW" and looked appealing to us for its location.   What Bob left out was the sheer beauty and weather protection of this anchorage.  Lake Sylvia is a pond among magnificent homes right in the heart of Ft. Lauderdale Beach.  The anchorage was totally protected and the gentle breezes of the evening made for a wonderful dinner setting for us.  We opened all of the windows and enjoyed the 70 degree weather.  Until 2AM when the bottom fell out of the sky and a deluge fell upon us.  I did not awaken before the the rain had drenched the front berth area.  In all the commotion, Colleen did not wake up to my call for assistance so I just let her sleep and quickly dried up the water wherever it came in.  (Isn't he a special husband?  This from Colleen.)




Lake Sylvia




 

A Lake Sylvia home and attached yacht.



Cruise ship in Ft Lauderdale harbor - A TSA patrol boat keeps boats 500 feet away - and they have a machine gun on the bow!



The Ft Lauderdale commercial channel headg south from the harbor entrance

 The next morning we set out for the Key West area and our next overnight anchorage.  The day dawned with a foggy haze all around and that hung with us through the entire run through Miami until we entered Florida Bay at the northernmost end of the Florida Keys.  Our path through downtown Miami and Miami Beach took us through the "Condo Canyons" talked about in various publications. I hope that our photos depict the huge height of the buildings there.  There was so much water and so little land that the buildings just seemed to be floating on Bioscayne Bay. 



One of the Condo Canyons of Miami


We entered Florida Bay about 11:30 and were finally in the Keys.  We would travel the inside channel between the mainland and the Keys.  Wayne had planned a very aggressive travel distance for this day so that we could get to Marathon in two days.  To make our planned anchorage we needed to increase our speed to 17mph and 2000 rpms.  We do not plan to check our mpg for this leg of the trip.  We don't want to know how bad it is!  We ran at this speed for one hour in one passage and 30 minute in another.  By doubling our speed for 90 minutes, we cut our travel time to our anchorage by 90 minutes and were able to get to Tarpon Basin by 4:30.   Tarpon Basin was our chosen anchorage because it would provide protection from the high winds that we had experienced all day.  We would be able to pick the side of the basin that afforded the right protection.  The basin did its job and afforded us the wind protection that we sought.

The protection was too great!  We awakened the next morning with 30 foot visibility in the thickest fog that I ever experienced in my previous 50 years of living and boating in Florida.  We waited 30 minutes and the fog lifted enough to see our frist channel marker 500 yards away.  We headed out and within 20 minutes the fog settled on us and we could only see 30 feet again.  We anchored out of the channel and waited another two hours and the fog began to lift. 

30 foot visibility!

We sped up and slowed as the visibility permitted all morning until finally seeing open skies around 11AM.  At this point we were 2 hours behind our planned schedule and would need to seek a nighttime anchorage.  At 1 PM the fog settled over us again - how crazy - fog in the mkiddle of the day.  When this fog bank lifted we decided to make up time and sped up at the sacrifice of fuel economy.   We ran at 2000 to 2100 rpm and 17 to 18 mph and we reached Marathon about 3:30.  (Colleen's comment - after weeks of traveling at 8-10 miles per hour, 18 MPH was really weird!)  Our aim was to take a mooring ball within the Boot Key Harbor Marina managed by the City of Marathon. 



7 Mile Bridge - turn-in for Marathon from the bayside channel


By the time that we contacted the marina, received our mooring assignment, Colleen had snared the mooring line and we were secure it was 4PM.  We got the dinghy set up with its motor and safety gear by 4:30 and motored in to register.  We also wanted to eat a meal ashore after 5 days without stepping on dry land.  We walked about a mile to the first restaurant that we came to on our side of busy highway US1 and enjoyed an expensive, mediocre seafood dinner.  We were not impressed.  Then we walked a couple more blocks to Publix to get a Key lime pie and a few other items that we wanted.  Cheetos for Wayne and Sweet Sixteen powdered doughnuts for Colleen have become our junk food of choice over the past two months.  We wanted a lay of the land for future excursions also.  When we returned to our dinghy it was dark and we had neglected to put our required navigation lights aboard.  Thankfully the marine patrol was not around.  I do vessel safety inspections for the US Power Squadron and would have been very embarassed to get a ticket for not having the proper required safety gear aboard.  I will be correctly prepared in the future.

When we got to our boat the full moon was rising and the skies were crystal clear.  What a beautiful sight.  We sat on the front lounge seat on the flybridge and enjoyed the view.  We opened the cabin windows and drank in the thick cool tropical breezes.  Colleen went to bed before me. 



Full moon over Marathon


When I turned in, an unexpected rain started about 5 minutes later.  I hopped out of bed and closed all openings.  Again, I allowed Colleen to sleep.  I owe her lots of trips to the bridge with food or snack in hand.  Though this is nowhere near a payback for all the catering.




Our mooring field at Marathon



Anyway, we are IN THE KEYS.  Colleen did the laundry this morning and chatted up the locals to find a decent place to get our next restaurant meal here.  I am merely the packhorse and dinghy driver.   It should be noted here that Colleen can also start the 6hp dinghy motor and handle it with competence.  I feel confident that she can will rescue me if I fall overboard.

Wayne

Vero Beach to Lake Sylvia, Fort Lauderdale - January 16-18

We set off on Sunday morning  and had a good trip to the north end of Lake Worth near Palm Beach by five PM that afternoon where we anchored among a large group of sailboats.  Along the way we stopped for fuel in Fort Pierce, taking on 162 gallons for an average of 1.89 miles/gallon.  Not as good mileage as we did at our last fuel stop but we have used the generator quite a bit over the last month or so and that also sucks up fuel.  We enjoyed meeting fuel guy Doug and his dog Sammy, a large, beautiful boxer.  Sammy is pretty ferocious - toward birds - and delights in chasing them right to the end of the pier, putting on the brakes just in time to avoid a twelve foot plunge into the water.



Sammy the Terror of the Sea Birds

 Our stay in Lake Worth lasted two nights due to a prudent decision on the part of the captain not to travel in inclement weather that lasted all day Monday.  He further distinguished himself by diagnosing and curing a toilet problem that cropped up on Sunday night.  I had a great day Monday, sewing from morning until evening and completing a final section of a large quilt I've worked on for the past year.  Thanks, Pam from Quilter's Loft for your clear explanation that helped me correct my earlier mistakes.  I can't wait to put the rest of the pieces together when we get back to North Carolina.




These blocks will make up the corners of my quilt.  I wish you could see more of the detail.




Wayne ready to pull the anchor in Lake Worth.  After many years of muscleing anchors aboard boats we now hit a button on the deck or at the helm and a motor does the job.



A few large enormous gigantic boats

 We've been agog all day looking at the hundreds of multimillion dollar houses and boats that line the waterway between Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale.  Everytime we think we've seen the biggest, most elaborate house ever built, another one shows up that's larger, with more elaborate grounds, a fancier pool, fountains and statuary on the lawn, a courtyard you would not believe and a bigger boat parked out front.  Most of them resemble Italianate palaces.  The one below was a very modernistic exception.


This is a house.



A small part of the view surrounding us tonight



More of the view out our "back door" this evening



We've anchored for the evening in Lake Sylvia, a small lake off the ICW just north of the Fort Lauderdale inlet.  It's a beautiful spot in calm water and we're surrounded by palm trees and lovely homes.  We sat on the back deck tonight in shorts and T shirts to watch a full moon rise as we ate shrimp salad I prepared earlier today.  Tomorrow we plan to get to the Key Largo area and  the next day we plan to make it to our destination for a while, Marathon.


Wayne plotting our route for the next few days.  Take note of the sunshine.



Jan. 11 - Jan. 15 Vero Beach, FL

It really does get cold down here.

Our few days in Vero Beach have stretched into a week.  The weather is beautiful today, although we had some really cold nights a few days ago.  We plan to pull out tomorrow (Sunday) after taking on water and pumping out our holding tanks but we've had a great time with Howard and Donna, getting to know Vero Beach and tackling some big projects.

You know that old saying - A boat is a hole in the water into which one pours money.  Here's a story to prove it All during this trip we have had qualms about our dinghy motor.  It's 42 years old and, in spite of several repairs and carburator rebuilds by Wayne, it has not been reliable.  We finally decided it would need to be replaced before we reached the Keys and had to depend on it to get to shore.  Wayne and Howard went shopping for a new one early in the week.  We now have a new dinghy motor and Wayne even managed to sell the old one.  Wayne is very happy and he is teaching me how to drive the dinghy.  I have not crashed (yet) and I have mastered the tricky motor cord pull thingy.



Wayne and his new motor



Saying goodbye to the 42 year old great 6hp Evinrude that my Dad gave to me in 1972!  It ran flawlessly over to the dealer's dock.  The head mechanic gave me $100 after hearing it run as my brother Howard and I approached the dock to pick up the new motor.


As you heard in our last entry we were facing a major problem when my sewing machine broke earlier in the week.  A crew mutiny on Cool Change was a distinct possibility.  We found a repair shop and I was thrilled to get my machine back yesterday afternoon.  In the meantime, Donna had the bright idea that I should make a few pillows for the couch in the salon and for the outside aft deck.  I liked the idea too and it became even more appealing when Donna showed me fabrics she had left over from a pillow project of her own and offered to share with me.  We went shopping for eight pillow forms and I started the project yesterday morning.  Now, as you may or may not know, Wayne also owns a sewing machine.  He very generously allowed me to use it to make the pillows, since my machine wasn't back yet.  All eight are now finished and they look great!

Two sewing machines are not too many, right?

The pillows in the salon (boat talk for living room) are a washable suede.

These sunbrella pillows are for outside use.  Right now they are on the lounge area in front of the captain.  This is a handy place for the "nagivator" to relax when we are underway.

Vero Beach's public beach

  Today we met Howard and Donna for breakfast and afterwards went to a weekly Farmer's Market - local fresh strawberries and other vegetables are in season right now.  I wish I could send a strawberry to all of you who are braving snow and ice up in Charlotte.  Even the scent says "spring."


Cool Change at anchor, early morning



The white tents are the Farmer's Market.