Back to Texas

I must admit I am writing my last blog entry from my own computer right here in Corpus Christi!  Nope, I am not out on the water sailing along !  The last few days of our three month vacation in Florida became VERY busy, so I just didn't get to it!  Then once we got home last week, our home needed our attention after three months of our being gone!  So, today is the day to finish the blog I started way back in April.

June 14th was our day to leave Ft. Meyers, and a beautiful day it was.  Sunny, hot and bright!  We had decided to make the trip to Bradenton in two days.  The seas were realatively calm and yet we had wind and were able to motor sail most of the way to Venice, FL .  We had stayed at the Crowsnest Marina before in 2014 and were pleased it was an "easy off" from the Gulf.  On top of that, they have a wonderful restaurant, the Crowsnest" on property, so we were hungry for a good meal.  Everything remained the same from the year before, so we were happy that we made the stop.

Leaving Venice for the Gulf

Next morning, we were ready to shove off for our very last day at sea in the Gulf.  Spring/summer in Florida usually involves at least one shower per day, as well as hot, hot, hot temperatures.  We actually dodged the rain showers each day of this trip to Bradenton!  Snead Island Boatworks was our destination, and we arrived mid-afternoon.  This particular marina/boatworks is very protected, and can be used as a "hurricane hole" in case of BAD weather.  So on these HOT days, there isn't a breeze gently moving through this marina! (will explain why this was NOT good in the next paragraph!!!!)

Monday afternoon and Tuesday, we spent the time setting up the work that was going to be done on the boat, ordering a rental car and securing a POD that would hold all of our "things" from the boat.

At 7:00 AM on Wednesday morning, the POD arrived and we were ready to start the process of removing sails (we have three) and packing ALL of our things.  Down below on the boat it is air conditioned but not up top!!!!  I believe it was 90+ degrees with HIGH humidity and we were up and down and back and forth to the POD with all of these bundles!  I wish I had better descriptive words to explain just how hot it was, but perhaps those words are better left unsaid ###@@@****!  Let's just leave it that I am not a fan of high humidity and physical labor!  WAA WAA WAA!  We finished by 1:00 Thursday afternoon, and pulled out of the marina headed north on I-75.
We were exhausted by six that evening, so we checked into our hotel and after a nice meal, just fell asleep rather easily!  We were in the panhandle of Florida and thought we would make it to the Louisiana/Texas boarder that night.  Well, we were in Houston by 4:30, so Steve decided he could do the 3 1/2 hr drive from Houston to Corpus and then we would be home!  So, that is exactly what we did!  Our own bed never looked so good that night!  As I mentioned earlier, after being gone for several months, MUCH needs to be taken care of at home and we have been doing just that!
This part of the blog is the END for me.  AHHHHH!  Steve plans to return to Florida in August to sail Kathryn home across the Gulf.  Let's pray for NO hurricanes!!!!  He will finish this adventure then and give you a "blow by blow" account after he returns to Texas.  So, this is it....it's been a lovely cruise!

Our Full Pod

Our Empty Boat

Last Days in Ft. Meyers....Thanks For The Memories!

We were lucky enough to be able to spend a whole month at the Pink Shell Marina.  I have shared pictures of the great facilities we enjoyed while we were in Ft. Meyers.  If you like the beach, pools, food, drinks...this might just be your kind of place!  Then on top of that, we were lucky enough to have friends close by to entertain us.  Plus, those friends had wheels which made commuting much more pleasurable!  I must say, though, we made good use of the trolley system.  IF you wanted to ride with senior citizen status, you had to produce your Medicaid card....nope, a driver's license would not do!!!  For flashing that little piece of info, you could ride for 35 cents anywhere you wanted to on the trolley line!  There is nothing cheap about me!!!

During the last week in town, we visited a few of our favorite restaurants, again, and spent some time with our friends RJ and Elaine Smith, again....hopefully they didn't get too tired of us and toting us around the area.  Below you will see us at the Mucky Duck on Captiva Island which is suppose to have fantastic sunsets.  We, of course, were there during the day but we'll take their word for it!
BUT, all good things must end and you do have to return home, so we got ready to head North to Bradenton.  Steve had made arrangements to leave the boat at Snead Island Boat Works to have some major maintenance work done on Kathryn.  So, "Good - Bye Ft. Meyers Beach"....you were GREAT FUN!

Company

When you are traveling on a boat, you are usually the "company" of someone in port or at the marina.  We were lucky enough to have company on Kathryn and entertain here at the marina a few weeks ago.  Perhaps not everyone knows that I attended college at Midland University (back in the day it was Midland Lutheran College) in Fremont, NE.  Small but mighty is the way I remember Midland and it offered an excellent education to many young adults from the mid-west states and a few other locations. It is there that I met many wonderful life long friends.
 
With that explanation, three friends from my era, now live in Florida.  Pat, my college roommate, lives in Palm Court and Sharon and Ron Larsen were here from West Palm Beach.  The Larsens were in Ft. Meyers for a family reunion, so this little get together worked perfectly for them.  Pat drove down and stayed on the boat with us for a few days.  Pat and her husband Bill were the couple that allowed us to visit them on their sailboat in Belize and Roatan a number of years ago.  So, she is not a stranger to living on a sailboat.

To sum up the time we spent together, two words come to mind....talking and laughing!  Pat, Sharon and I were all members of the same sorority, so we had to catch up on the friends we have kept in touch with over the years.  We decided Face Book has been such a blessing for keeping those friendships up to date.   Ron and Steve managed to tolerate our "girl talk" and found many things to discuss themselves.  Now Pat and Sharon are in the process of trying to plan a "reunion" for our sorority sisters from our era to take place possibly in Florida within the next years.  We all have our fingers crossed.

So, here's to old friendships and good friends....45 years later!!!!

Sharon, Nancy, and Pat

Good Bye, Dear Friend

                                 
It has taken me two weeks to write this blog....almost too painful to write the words but it is part of our three month journey.  We received word from Corpus Christi that my dear friend, Jackie, had passed away very suddenly.  Steve and I both felt we needed to fly home to say good bye and be there to support her husband, Rick, her children and grandchildren.  In less than three years, Jackie and her family had become our dear friend.

Jackie was my 1st friend when I moved to the Island!  She was in charge of membership at our Yacht Club, and our "Iowa bond" soon was the beginning of a friendship.  The day she called me and asked me to go to lunch in Port A, I knew I had arrived and had that "girl friend" I knew I would need in Texas.  There were many wonderful tributes to Jackie at her wake and funeral, but that didn't even say it all.  Jackie was a wonderful wife, mother, nurse, and friend to all.  If there was anyone in need, Jackie was there with a visit, food or just a call.  She loved the beach and her "turtles" that called Padre Island home.  We walked for an hour almost everyday of the week on the beach.  If it was rainy or just too cold, we headed for the German Bakery on the Island for coffee and a "goodie"!  Even though our friendship was cut way too short, we bonded on our walks.  Our joke was that we solved many a problem in those hours....if anyone had a problem, give it to us and by the end of the walk we would have a solution for them!

Jackie loved to party.  No one's birthday passed without a lunch at a restaurant or at her home with her "secret" chicken pecan quiche!  There were always sparkler candles or a birthday beanie...that was Jackie!  She loved to send postcards (not many folks do that now of days, but Jackie did), buy cute little gifts that were just right for you and just invite you over for some iced tea!  That was Jackie....she loved life, her family, angels and her beach.  My heart is sad, but what a blessing to have had this wonderful lady to call friend (even if that was a short three years)!  RIP dear, dear friend!

Hale Me A Cab

The great thing about being in Ft. Meyers, is the fact that we have some long time friends that live in this area.  Our past dockmaster from Corpus Christi is in Punta Gorda.  Augie and Rena Wagner drove down to take us out for lunch one afternoon!  Since we are "walkers", friends with cars can be very helpful.  We spent a long time at Pinchers eating and talking about the latest happenings in Corpus!

Another couple, RJ and Elaine Smith, go way back to our days in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  They are the BEST entertainers and "foodies" you could ever meet.  We've dined at their home and came home with left overs to last a long time, plus hitting the local restaurants that have served some tasty morsels.  BUT, their latest adventure has been wine making.

We arrived when their batch of wine was ready to be bottled, so they asked us  to join them and learn "the ropes" of wine making.  We did everything from washing the bottles, filling the bottles, corking the wine, wrapping the neck of the bottles and finally putting on the labesl.  The end results were thirty bottles of cabernet.  The best part is the naming of the wine.  This particular batch received the name "Hail Me A Cab"!  I think that is extremely funny/cute!!  Oh, I forgot to mention that we had to taste it, too!  After all of that work was completed, it was time to begin a new batch which I believe takes about three months to get to the bottling stage that we had just completed.  The company they work with to make the wine has all of the different kinds of grapes and ingredients that go into wine making.  So, it was an interesting day and I realized a lot goes into that bottle of wine you might pick up at your local liquor store!

Bottling The Wine "Hale Me A Cab"

Making a New Batch of Wine

We have had super weather here in Ft. Meyers....sunny and hot, sunny and hot,  mixed in with a few late afternoon rain showers.  That's Florida, right?  The rest of the time we have been busy with a few boat projects, walking the beach, laying at the pool or the beach and checking out some of the local restaurants.  It's a hard life, but we are just the people to do it!