Blogless
in Florida, some redundant...
For
what ever reason, the Google Blog site has chosen to forsake me, my last newsy
blog of Feb. 20 went missing in the Google blog cyberspace known only to a
chosen few. Memory will not likely
serve me if I try to recreate that blog, but suffice it to say that we were
departing Dunedin, Fl after a lengthy(33 days) unplanned stay there. Dunedin is a jewel of a town to get
stuck in , the town dock was inexpensive, my Aunt and Uncle live there during
the winter, the town full of interesting restaurants is within walking distance
and the 34 mile Pinellas paved hiking, biking trail which runs form St.
Petersburg to Tarpon Springs, intersects the town. Add to that beautiful weather, dolphins that fed in the
marina basin, a visiting Green Heron who took a liking to our Hobie sail-yak, a
sky litered with osprey, great white herons and fanciful pelicans, and one has
every reason to enjoy an extended stay there.
We
took every advantage of our time there that was extended due to a transmission
problem that necessitated a rebuild which necessitated waiting for a tiny
o-ring that obviously was carried to Dunedin from NJ by someone hiking.
The
Pinellas trail afforded us the opportunity to break out our folding bikes out
and explore the near environment.
A road trip brought us to Honeymoon Island State Park, a 2810-acre
barrier Island resplendent with white sand beaches, and pine forest that is home to great
horned owls, bald eagles and osprey.
While hiking we came upon two gentlemen sporting SLR cameras with 800 mm
lens attached, they were observing a great horned owl nest with two
babies. What a thrill it was to
look with the magnification to see the Mom owl with her downy babies nestled
under her wing, Papa owl was in a
nearby tree and apparently providing well for his family as I have since
learned that both babies fledged and can be seen practicing their flying and
foraging techniques.
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| Fledged Baby owls on Honeymoon Is |
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| Momma Owl and baby |
A 2-hour
road trip to Summerville brought us to Elaine and Ron’s home where we
celebrated my sister’s 75 birthday with her and her sister-in-law Lois who was
visiting from Southold, a wonderful time was had by all.
On
Feb. 13, we departed from Tampa airport and flew to New Orleans where we spent
two nights at Place d’Armes before driving to the Castille family reunion that was held at Fausse Point State
Park near Lafayette, LA.
Place d' Armes
Gerry
and Robyn met in New Orleans and
later shared out lake front (literally
suspended over the lake) cabin.
Frank and Yvette did a phenomenal job providing most of the food for the event, Frank was the
master chef for huge pots of
boiled crawfish, and assorted
savory gumbos. He outdid himself
this year and between he and Yvette, and a delicious Jambalaya made by Jan, and
Alligator burgers that Brian provided the three day feast was complete. Kurt Jr and family participation
ensured quality grandchildren time for Kurt.
Kurt,
Carl and I drove to Avery Island, perhaps best known as the home of Tabasco
sauce, of greater interest to me was the Civil War history and tour of 250 acre
managed park Jungle Gardens on the Island that is situated on a massive salt
dome.. It is one of five salt dome islands along the Louisiana Gulf Coast. It formed when alluvial sediment
covered a vast plane of salt left behind by an ancient saltwater ocean.
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| Bird City |
In
1895 Edward Avery Mclihenny (third generation of the island) creator of Tabasco
Sauce, helped save the Snowy Egret for extinction by establishing a rookery
that became known an s Bird City.
Today as many an s 20,000 snowy egrets nest on long nesting platforms suspended over a
protected lake.
In
addition to the protected nesting site for the magnificent egrets the island is
home to exotic plants, with numerous varieties of azaleas, Japanese camellias,
Egyptian papyrus, majestic live oaks, a jungle garden and bamboo. A shrine housing a centuries old bronze
Buddha sits atop seven “hills of knowledge” in the Jungle Gardens. It sets
overlooking a little pond in a very peaceful existence since the early
1900’s.
On
Feb. 22 we finally extricated ourselves from Dunedin and headed south along the
Gulf coast, stopping at Venice Yacht Club where Kurt reconnected with second
cousins Sigrid and Hans.
An
uneventful 30 hours of non-stop travel brought us down the western shore
of the Everglades and through the cut south of Flamingo. Into
Florida Bay. After bouncing alone
the shoal bottom of the cut we arrived in Plantation Yacht Harbor in
Islamorada, Plantation Key, FL, where we spent an idyllic 9 weeks fishing with Neail, pushing our
sail-kayak to the max, visiting
friends and entertaining treasured family.
The first to visit were Kurt's niece Sharon with her daughter Jordan and hubby Chris...being from Plano, TX, Jordan had a couple of firsts such as swimming in salt water....swimming with dolphins....catching her first fish
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| Jordan's first fish! |
Jordan and Mom enjoying a singing lesson.
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| Jordan's first swim in salt water. |
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| Sharon and Jordan after dolphin encounter. |
Next to visit were my son Matt with daughter Isobel and wife Gala. They too enjoyed swimming, playing with dolphins, snorkeling on the reef.
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| Gala getting "kisses" |
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| Belle shaking "hands" |
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| Matt hanging on!!! |
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| Belle hanging on with determination!!!!! |
Easter Sunday found us is Everglades National Park enjoying the
active Wood Stork and Roseate Spoonbill rookeries and the endless array of lazy
alligators woven in the shallow water and shoreline.
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| Gator |
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| Wood Stork |
A trip to Key West is always a must so on a somewhat non-tourist Wed, we drove down
the Overseas Hwy the 87 miles to the famous (now ruined by cruise ship stop
overs.) A tour on the Conch tram
re-familiarized us with the unique
architecture and topography of Key West. Since then I have read “Hemmingway’s Daughter” a wonderful
novel for anyone who has read “Old
Man and the Sea” by Hemmingway.
As
I type this we are 8 hours into a 24 hour voyage to bring the boat from
Islamorada to Owl Creek Marina near Fl Myers where we will store the boat for
what is likely to be for us a very long 7 months. With plans to spend 6 weeks in Alaska this summer and a two
week river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam planned in October, we decided to leave the boat in FL. The solidly overcast sky has lifted off
the horizon and there is an orange cast to the sky below the sugar candy clouds to the sea surface
which is steely gray with a enough wave action to give it a textured look like
corrugated steel. Soon the sun
will dip below the cloud line in a brilliant mass of pulsing energy protesting it’s
confinement behind the blackening
clouds.
Night
has fallen like an opaque cloak, we go from navigating through fields strewn
with crab pot buoys to absolute darkness in a sea still strewn with crab pot
buoys but now the fate of those bobbing foam markers that mark the scrounge of
crab existence are out of my
control. Life in the wheel house
takes on a different appearance a night; the chart plotter that tracks where we are and
where we are going has a muted soft red screen, the radar screen takes on new
importance as my night vision, a white light blinking every 4 seconds is
visible on the horizon, not yet visible on my radar set to three miles. As the sea jostles us about the white
light appears to be wildly dancing about, not the steady flashing beacon suspended 18’ above the water surface.
My chart confirms the bouy’s presence. A commercial ship has just called the radio to the Coast Guard on Channel
16 asking about information regarding the presence of squalls in
the area that we are both motoring through.
Earlier the radar showed a significant squall activity that thankfully
passed behind us. The captain was advised to monitor 22 Alpha,
the station that the coast Guard mans for non-emergency communications. Earlier today there were repeated Coast Guard Channel 16 announcements regarding the danger of sea spouts that several were sighted off Miami, boaters were advised
to “use caution., ” and avoid the areas where the spouts had been sighted. I am reminded that previously when we were
in this area in the day time a Coast Guard helicopter was hovering over a boat
practicing with a diver being lowered to the boat, I am every mindful of and
grateful to the Coast Guard and
the many lives they save.
The
structure of the blinking light is now showing on my radar at the one mile
range, I'm concerned that it didn’t show up when it was three miles away, need
to adjust the radar settings, My auto pilot course will bring us too close to the marker
so I will adjust the course to go around it.
Because
we are leaving the boat for several months, we have emptied and turned off the freezer which is now
defrosting like a calving glacier, dumping huge slabs of ice into the bottom
drawer of the freezer, as Kurt sleeps, in between checking the radar, engines
and generator temps, and oil
pressure, confirming our course, perusing the depth gauge, watching for boats I
am running down to the galley to shovel the chunks of ice from the freezer drawers. At midnight I have to wake Kurt so that
he can switch the fuel tank; we have 4 and occasionally “forget” to switch them
before they run to empty and the engines suddenly lose power….. never a good thing, most especially not
good at night while rocking and
rolling on the Gulf. The wind is
slowly building, it’s close to twenty and lightening illuminates the uninhabited
Everglades shore, again the marine forecast was dead wrong.
A gray, wind swept morn brought us through the narrow channel into the Ft Myers area and to Owl creek where we were welcomed by pelting, wind blown rain. Very sad to be leaving our Water View home..........
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