Tuesday 5/10 – I spent the morning trying to find places for us to stay for the next week or so. I got a few reservations to get us through Sunday, but after that, we’ll be on the Atlantic coast, and it’s a little harder to find space. Some marinas I’ve checked with don’t have any transient space because they’re full with annual or seasonal slip holders. Dang! Another one we’re on a waitlist for Monday. And then we have to find a place to leave Island Girl for two weeks while we go home and wait for ”our ship to come in”! Agh! The cheapest marina that I can find is where I thought we might stay for a few days and ’stage’ until our loading date. It is $1.50/ft/day plus $16/day for power. That’s dirt cheap for the Fort Lauderdale area. The problem now is that we’ll need to leave Island Girl there for at least two weeks, and the transient dock is not secured, and has open access to a huge parking lot at the beach. And I’m not sure if we have to pay for power? Hopefully not, but even without it, it’ll be nearly $900 with tax for two weeks. So I started looking for alternatives. In ”Snag-a-Slip” I found private dock owners that are advertising. They all want a long term lessee, but what if somebody has mercy on us and our situation? The best rates are $20/ft/month, or $900-1000/month flat rate, so we could come out ahead paying for a month. And then Island Girl isn’t sitting at a public dock. Hmmm.🧐 I sent six requests. We’ll see!
In the meantime, I decided that we should enjoy the amenities that we’re paying for here, so I went to the pool for awhile. Ahhh! The water was as warm as the air, so not very refreshing. But it still felt nice. It is nice that our favorite pool is actually enforced as adults only now.
We have a lot of fun memories from over the last seven years with friends and family at this pool!
I did wander over to the main family pool, which is a fun action-packed place. There are complimentary chairs and umbrellas out on the beach, and all of these things make the Pink Shell Resort one of the top resorts in Florida, especially in Southwest Florida. I even checked out the gift shop, but didn’t find anything that I couldn’t live without.
Just some pretty bright colors to share with you.
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Wednesday – I’ve had two responses to my private slip inquiries. One said ”6 months minimum”. 😟 The other said ”give me a day to get back to you”. Oooooh —- there’s hope!
We chilled out in the boat most of the day, but we did get Speedy and Speedo (our electric bikes) out and rode to Times Square. That’s the area in Ft Myers Beach that has all the beach shops, ice cream shops and restaurants. We enjoyed happy hour at a beach front spot with a beverage and some food. And check out this flowering tree! Isn’t it gorgeous?!
Back to the boat, and then I went out to the beach for sunset. Kenny is in a funk because he’s so ticked off about the whole shipping delay. 🤷♀️ Whatcha gonna do? Might as well enjoy where we are because there isn’t anything we can do about it but keep moving toward the goal. Even though it’s costing us THOUSANDS more than planned, with paying for an empty slip at the marina in Washington for months, finding and paying big bucks for marina space while we wait here, and we’re missing out on plans we had with our kids and grandkids. And, on top of it all, diesel prices keep rising and the investment market sucks so our retirement funds are shrinking fast! Grrrr. We SOOO should have taken the February shipping date offer!!!
So – find some beauty. And I found this pretty sand castle that apparently was made for a wedding on Saturday. It was about five feet tall!
The sunset was glorious, and reminded me that I have so many things to be thankful for.
So long, favorite swimming pool! We likely will never see you again. Chances are that we won’t come to Pink Shell by land. It’s more likely that we would go to a Caribbean resort if we were going to go resorting. (Oh – that’s another whole story for later this year! You’ll love it!)
Tomorrow we will continue our journey, but we aren’t going far. Just up the Caloosahatchee River to Fort Myers. Another familiar and favorite spot to waste a day or two. The good part is – there is a donut store that Kenny is looking forward to visiting. 🍩 Maybe it’ll sugar his blues away. 😉