SUN TO SNOW

HERE I AM SMILING IN NAPLES, FLORIDA even though I know shortly I will be home in the snow and cold. (this was December 6th) But I am smiling because of family and friends. Christmas is a time to reconnect with family and friends and that is what we are doing now.

Our front yard before it melts. The weather "experts" say it is going to melt next week. Not good for the skiers and snowboarders in our family. 

Our Christmas tree is trimmed, gifts are wrapped, cookies are baked and we are ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and health and happiness for 2015. We fly down to the boat January 2. Stay tuned for our final preparations. Our journey to Bahamas will happen in our new boat Time Out.

FRIDGE AND CHAIN

What to do with our bar fridge that does not work? It is in the flybridge, now how do we get it down? The crane for our dinghy! It is good for heavy items!

Swing the crane over the side and voila, the fridge is down on the dock in no time. We have replaced this fridge with a new one. You can guess how we got it up to the flybridge.

I flew home on Saturday and a son picked me up at the airport. Paul is working away on some more items down there, The fridge replacement and the anchor chain.

TWO HUNDRED FEET of chain is extremely heavy! Paul had his good friend with a truck help pick up the chain from West Marine and bring it on board! If you are anchored out at night and want a good night's sleep..... you get an excellent anchor and chain.

Slowly we are getting "Bahama ready". We will fly back in January to finish up then off we motor to warm temps, small breezes and blue waters. How blessed are we?

p.s. I am up north where there is snow and more snow tomorrow !! Brrrrrrr

VIEW FROM BACK PORCH

SPECTACULAR, pictures just don't capture the whole sky!

THREE BIG THINGS

WATERMAKER-- A watermaker is a devise used to obtain potable water by reverse osmosis of seawater.

I leave all the technical manuals and technical installations to Paul. We are installing the Cruise RO Watermaker and Paul enjoys things like this. I ignore the swear words down in the engine room and remind myself how much fun Paul has with things like this. Yes, I do hand him a tool or pass him some water now and then, I am very supportive of the Captain.

Membranes and control panel

High Pressure Water Pump

When we purchased Time Out we did not get a dinghy with it. We are researching and will get one with a motor. Every boater needs a "tender" to go ashore or just to explore and snorkel. We sold our dinghy with Coyaba our catamaran. The new owner is enjoying that dinghy.

And Thirdly, an anchor is a must BUT to sleep soundly at night and peacefully, one needs to buy a Big Ass One with some great chain and lots of it. All three of these big things we knew we had to purchase before we leave for the Bahamas. Without these boating is not as fun for us.

Thankfulness creates gratitude which generates contentment that causes peace. -- Todd Stocker

Happy American Thanksgiving

FIVE YEARS AGO

Five years ago I started a blog for the first time. This blog was about our journey on a catamaran Daruma. Our friends bought a catamaran in Grenada. They wanted Daruma moved to Florida. Being such close friends with them and Paul just retired days earlier, we said "sure". We island hopped for over a month from Grenada to St. Maarten, where Paul and I got off Daruma and flew home for Christmas. How time flies. These friends are sitting in Daruma next to us in Naples right now. Yes, we are still friends from living in tight quarters.

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We were playing cards with them last night and it donned on me that it was five years ago that we took that adventure. Our youngest son was sixteen at the time and he joined us in Guadeloupe for the last 2 weeks. I look back at that blog with fond memories and thankful that we have it (I made it into a book for ourselves). Memories can be confused and mixed up after five years, sure enough, last night that blog was opened up to "clarify" a fact!

I have posted on our blog for two years on our catamaran Coyaba and last year we did a cross country (2 countries, Canada and U.S.) trip, I posted on another blog for that too. We are on Time Out now and another excuse to post on our blog. I do email and phone friends and family, however, people do like to read a post now and then to see where, what, how and why of our lives. We have American friends, Canadian friends, German relatives and relatives on Vancouver Island, they are all near and far.

As the American Thanksgiving approaches, we don't need a special day to be thankful, Paul and I are thankful every day!

Health and Happiness to all.


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VIEW FROM SALON

This is from Saturday night, the sky was perfect for a photograph sitting on our couch across the port side windows. Just had to share.

WEARING FLIP FLOPS ... TO RUN OR NOT!

No picture for this post because I want you to picture me in this true story. 

I pre-ordered and paid for 2 lbs of stone crabs at a small building that gives Swamp Tours to see alligators. These stone crabs are common around here and sell fast. We had never tried them so I knew to buy on the way into Naples and pick up on the way back. No problem. Then when I parked the car a few hours later and got out, there was an alligator 20 feet away from me! Yes! Granted he was in the water.... but right there in front of my car staring at me. No barriers, no walls, no fence. Now, this may be common for Floridians and an every day experience for them, but as a northern Canadian girl, I looked at that alligator (let's call him Charlie, as I am sure he hovers there everyday) .....and many thoughts went through my mind. I remember many documentaries that showed alligators move quite quickly, can they outrun a human? He is only 6 feet from shore, he could swim fast, then run to me even faster. But those same documentaries show that they are not interested in humans, hmmmm. All these thoughts in seconds. Do I scream like a "girl" and look real stupid! Afterall, it is just an alligator in the swamp, quite normal. Do I get back in car and forget about the delicious stone crabs? Do I run in flip flops all the way to the building? Or walk backwards? Decisions had to made. I just turned slowly and carried on into the building like this is a normal occurence for me. When I started walking back toward my car, the Swamp Tour Air Boat was arriving down a ways and there goes Charlie.... looks like he was just waiting for the arrival of the boat. I think he knows people of a certain kind like to take pictures, maybe give him some food and he smiles for them. He was not interested in someone like me!

Yes the stone crabs were delicious. We eat only the claws. The fishermen go to their traps, break off a claw and throw the crab back into the water. These claws will grow back. Perfect.

DID YOU KNOW:
The truth is alligators do not like to run on land for long distances. It is rare for an alligator to chase a human on dry land. An average human can outrun an alligator.

VIEW OF OUR BACK PORCH

Yes, this is what I see when I come out to put some cardboard into the garbage on cockpit! He is hoping to get scraps. This marina we are in is a big fishing marina. At around 5pm all these fishing vessels come in and then if they had a happy day (besides beer!), and they caught some fish, they clean them. The scraps are suppose to go into the garbage, but however, I believe some scraps get into mouths of alligators, that is why they hover and come "out" at around 5 or 6 pm. DO NOT FALL INTO water!

DOLPHINS WITH US

We left Fort Myers to come to Port of the Islands Marina, south of Naples on Saturday. We travelled in the Gulf of Mexico and enjoyed many dolphin encounters.

There were two to six of them not following us, but leading us at the bow. They love the swell there and it seems they are competing against each other. I am not zoomed in, they are that close.

As we are out in the open waters we come along this......

I counted 60 small one man (or really, one child) sailcrafts. Look how far from shore they are! There were about 8 "supervisors" in speed boats taking care of them and reining them back in. There were obstacle courses for them to maneuver through and yes some looked like they were going to tip over. Yikes! We stayed far away, they didn't need unnecessary waves from us.

Standing on starboard looking out back,
beautiful weather and calm seas in the Gulf of Mexico

Today is the 11th day of the 11th month, on the 11th hour I remembered! Remembrance Day ceremonies went on in Canada today. Lest We Forget.

    

TIME OUT IS IN

Hello everyone, she is in the water! This is the view from our "Back Porch".

We left River Forest on the Caloosahatchee River (say that 10 times fast!). We had stored Time Out there for hurricane season. We are now docked in the City of Fort Myers Yacht Basin. A large marina here on the west coast of Florida. Yes, it is very nice temperatures here and we will not complain one bit that it is sometimes too hot!

We travel over 80 miles (123 km) tomorrow to the marina we will be at until we leave in January for Bahamas. We will be south of Naples at Port of the Island Marina. We have good friends living on their catamaran there and will appreciate them keeping an eye on Time Out while we are home for Christmas. We will be out in the open water tomorrow in the Gulf of Mexico; last August we were out there for a couple of hours. Tomorrow we will be out there for much longer. Dolphins swam alongside us in August, I sure hope they would like to do that again.

Did You Know... Two hurricanes struck Fort Myers, one in 2004 (Charley) and one in 2005 (Wilma), wow! We don't see a hurricane on the horizon now, whew.

OUT OF THE WATER

We moved our Jefferson to a storage building for hurricane season. It is now out of the water and put "to bed" until the end of October when back to Florida once again. Our very first day alone on "Time Out" was eleven hours. We enjoyed driving her. It was over 100F or over 40C! Thanks goodness we had the AC on!

This is looking behind our boat out in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Dolphins were swimming along with us sometimes. They are fantastic!

Will resume blog end of October once again.

THIS IS IT

THIS IS IT, our Jefferson Motoryacht!