Monday, May 9. We had a nice quiet night at the dock.
Boat Trips
Shipping saga, part 2:
I forgot to mention in part one that we HAVE a marina in Washington for Island Girl to live! Yes! Remember, we put our names on three different waitlists at Christmas, and had our fingers crossed that we’d have something come available by May. In mid January we got calls from two of the three marina within two days, saying they had a spot for us! The first call came from our first choice, so we took it! They actually had two slips available, so we got to choose. We picked the one that would be easiest to get into given the prevailing wind, current and approach. WHEW! Then, as it turned out, I was going up to Washington the first week of February to meet our newest grandson, so I was able to go sign papers, see the slip, and give Kenny a video-chat tour. At the marina, there is only one gangway from shore to the docks, and our slip was on the very farthest dock away! Oh well – it was such a relief to have a spot! I guess we could have taken the February shipping date with Cross Chartering after all!
Read moreThe shipping saga
Waaaay back in what, September?, we contracted with Cross Chartering Yacht Transport (CCYT) to ship our Island Girl from Florida to the Pacific Northwest. The actual route is Port Everglades (Fort Lauderdale) to Victoria British Columbia. We’ll be sending her on a Panama Canal Cruise!! Our contract was for shipping her in April. We wouldn’t know the actual date in April until much closer to the time, depending upon when they are able to get a ship contracted for the cargo and route. We paid 25% down, non-refundable, so we were locked in. Here is a map of the usual path the ships take: from Port Everglades, through the Panama Canal, stopping in Golfito Costa Rica, La Paz Mexico, Ensenada Mexico, then to Victoria British Columbia. Island Girl will get to see some great places!
2/9/21 – Heading back to Sarasota
2/9 Tuesday: Up and atum at 6:30. Sunrise is at about 7:10. We’ll be out of here before that. Yesterday, I opened all the windows on the fly bridge, but left the window covers on. Boy am I glad I did that! Everything was SOAKING wet with dew, and I mean dripping as if it rained. But at least the windows were rolled up and open under the cover so they weren’t covered in dew; we’d be able to see where we were going! So I removed the covers, and then I looked like I’d been out in the rain. We unplugged, untied, and away we go!
2/7/21 – Super Bowl Sunday
2/4/21 – Takin it Easy
2/4 Thursday: I went to bed last night with a bit of a scratchy throat, and a big bad headache. Nothing changed this morning. ☹️ I’m coughing, trying to get rid of the tickle in my throat, and my head wants to explode. Of course these days, everybody including me jumps to the Covid conclusion. 😳 But it really feels like we’ve encountered some Red Tide. Maybe the northwesterly wind blew some in? It has been reported (and we encountered it) up north in Lee and Collier counties. The map doesn’t show any present here, but…. maybe? Kenny said his eyes and throat are scratchy too.
2/1/21 – Big wind in Florida!
2/1 Monday: We had a quiet morning just hanging out. Well – quiet in that we didn’t DO anything. The wind did not make for any amount of QUIET in the marina! Waves slapping, sailboats whistling, boats rocking. Fortunately, no dock bonking for us since we have all four corners of the boat tied off to keep the boat away from the dock.
Read more1/28/21 – Hangin out in Key West
1/28 Thursday: Now for some low key days just hangin out in Key West. Shannon fixed us some breakfast, and Captain is really liking having a chef aboard. 😉 (I don’t often fix breakfast). I gave her a tank top with our Island Girl logo on the front. She commented that she wants one that says CREW on the back, like the big yachts have.
Read more1/27/21 – Scuba diving the Keys
1/27 Wednesday: Last night we got out all of the scuba gear to make sure the BCD’s and everything would fit our two visitors. Everything looked good, so our plan was to leave this morning and go out to Sombrero Reef for a bit of swimmin with the fishies. Today looked calm – just some one-foot waves out on the reef. I looked at the weather forecast again, and Thursday (tomorrow) just doesn’t look good out in Hawk Channel for going to Key West. So, I called Key West Bight Marina, and asked if there was ANY way that they could squeeze us in today. By golly, they worked some magic, and said YES! They’d put us on the fuel dock for two nights, then into our assigned slip on Friday. Woo-Hoo! Our assigned slip is A-15, which is just across the fairway from the fuel dock. A few days ago, I looked on NEBO and saw that a Looper boat named Blue Barnacle looked like they were in A-15, so I texted them. Yep – they are, and they’re reserved in that spot until Tuesday, Feb. 2. 🤷♀️ Hmmm…. Oh well, that’s OK – as long as the marina puts us SOMEWHERE that we can get off the SIDE of our boat, right?!
Read more1/25/21 – More Marathon fun
1/25/21 Monday: There wasn’t much going on in the morning. I keep checking the weather for our trip to Key West. Our plan for the seven nights the kids will be here was to spend four nights here, and three nights there. However, the weather on Friday looks like it’s going to blow 15-25 with waves up to 5 feet. Not this crew! So I called Key West Bight Marina and asked if we could come one night early. Yep – they can get us into a different slip, and then we’ll have to move on Friday into our assigned slip. Great! We can deal with moving in some wind, but don’t want to travel the 55 miles in big nasty wavey water. Thank you KWBM!
We got ‘Speedy’ down off of the upper deck. Speedy is one of our new electric Lectric bikes.
