Meandering Magees: January 2017

January 31, 2017
Day 147

Mike and I were back home for a week (meetings and appointments) and while there, he was asked, "What do you do all day on the boat?" In other words, how do we spend our time? I think the short answer to that question is: often it is the same thing other retired people do, only we do it in the sunshine and wearing shorts (most of the time!). Being on a boat conjures up images of sun and sand and water and vacation. But living on a boat involves the daily chores that make up life. There is no cabin steward that comes in to tidy up, make the bed and leave cute animal shapes made from towels.
We do all the things everyone does - laundry, grocery shopping, preparing meals, cleaning, paperwork, etc.

I used to complain (Mike uses the verb "whine") when we washed the RV once a month. We now wash the outside of the boat once a week! Our son Matt said he would take cleaning the boat once a week any day over washing the motorhome once a month. The doing the task in the sunshine and wearing shorts thing probably heavily influences his decision.

Mike and Greg both have "to do" lists. As Karen says, Greg's is a "fix-it" list and Mike's is a "clean-it" list. The chores on the lists are on top of normal cleaning. Most of the things require Karen and I to be involved, when we would much rather be sitting in the shade with a good book. Everyday we do something from either list. Some of the jobs can be done in an hour or so. Others take half the day.

One of our biggest jobs was scraping the barnacles off the bottom of the dinghy. I mentioned before that dealing with the tides is a new challenge for us. So is being in salt water. Barnacles growing on stationary objects is a way of life in salt water. Our dinghy floated in the water the month we were in Dunedin and the month we were at Burnt Store Marina. We knew when we secured it back onto the swim platform for the ride to Marathon that the pesky crustaceans had begun their work and cleaning the bottom of the dinghy would be a top priority once we got settled in Marathon.

We had to find a beach where we could take the inflatable up to shore, remove the engine, flip the dinghy over and scrap the bottom. Finding a sandy beach isn't as easy as it sounds. "But you are in the Keys!" you say. It is easier to find a nice sandy beach in Michigan than it is in the Keys. So much of the shoreline is mangrove trees or rocks. I have not swam in the ocean since we got here. Marathon has a small public beach - Sombero Beach. It took us about 20 minutes by water to get there. When we got the dinghy flipped over, we were amazed at how dense the barnacles were. (see picture below) They are hard and razor sharp so you cannot touch them. It took us over 2 hours using metal scrapers to clean the bottom. We hire divers once a month to clean the bottom of True North.

We now keep the dinghy on the swim platform and only put it in the water when we are going to use it, which we do fairly often. A favorite thing to do is ride through marinas and look at the names on boats. They often reflect a profession. Here are a few I found interesting:
Dr.'s Orders
School's Out
LocoMotion
Dealer Ship
Knot Farming
Private Stock
Sails Call
The Branch Office
Prime Interest
Pharma Sea
No Patients
Prenup
Mental Floss

But don't think life on a boat is all work and no play. When the daily work is done, we explore the area by car and dinghy. Saturday was a cold, overcast day so Mike and I drove north up beyond Key Largo and on the way back stopped at Lorelei's in Islamorada. It's listed in the top 10 of places to go in the Keys. An outdoor bar/restaurant right on the water. Fishing for the guys has begun. Books are being read. Our marina has a beautiful pool area that we use. They keep the water warm for us old people! I can sit out on the back of the boat for hours watching other boats come and go, and the pelicans dive and fish jump and search for the elusive manatees. And every day, late in the afternoon, a catamaran leaves from our marina on a Sunset Sail. I wave to those onboard as it goes past us, as if they were on a ride at Disney World. Then, from the comfort of our own boat, we watch the same gorgeous sunset that those on the catamaran paid to see.

You have to be thankful for the little things . . .

One side almost cleaned off. They look like mush in this picture

but the barnacles are rock hard.

2 hours later - a clean bottom

We used this brush to clear away the barnacles we loosened

The white bristles were as long as the black ones before we started

A diver cleaning the bottom of the boat next to us

Barnacles up close

On our way to Sombrero Beach in the dinghy, we saw row after row

of boats anchored in Boot Key Harbor

A commercial fishing boat. Different from the shrimp boats we saw in the panhandle

After the work comes the play - dinner at the Cheeky Tiki

Greg has outfitted the dinghy for fishing!

They are trying to catch bait fish

Getting off the plane in Key West

That's Mike in the orange sweater

Lorelei's in Islamorada

It looks like the limo is on pavement, but it is in the water

And look at the boat behind it

Only in the Keys!

We had dinner in Marathon with fellow Loopers and fellow Ionians-

Jeff and Carolee MacFarlane

Our nightly view

Day 122
2447 Miles

It has been almost 2 months since my last post and True North has moved twice so time to catch up.
Our month (November) at Marker One Marina in Dunedin was a good one. Mike and I and Matt spent Thanksgiving with Jeff and Julie's family. (Greg and Karen flew home to be with their family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. ) We were also able to watch our nephew Shafer's varsity basketball games. We slid right onto the gym bleachers like they were old friends, as we've spent countless hours over the years at games all over Michigan and beyond.
Many Looper boats came into Marker One while we were there and we chatted and exchanged boat cards (like business cards) with most of them.

We were off the boat for the first two weeks of December as we traveled home to enjoy the snow and cold while celebrating an early Christmas with the grandkids. While we were gone, Greg and 3 friends flew down for a week to move True North from Dunedin to Burnt Store Marina in Punta Gorda. I think they had a little fun in doing so. Just a little . . .

Mike and I got back on the boat, now at Burnt Store, the week before Christmas. Matt and Josh joined us that weekend and our Christmas day was spent together in the Florida sunshine.

A benefit of being at this marina was that friends from Ionia live in the Burnt Store complex in the winter. We enjoyed meals, sunsets at a tiki bar, and watching football with Loren and Marilyn Adgate. And we had lunch one day with our neighbors from the A dock of our marina in Ludington - Mike and Pat Kowatch.

The fun stopped for about a week as True North developed a real issue. The last several times we had pumped out the holding tanks, there was difficulty getting one of the tanks to fully empty. Fortunately, we could use one of the bathrooms on the boat as the pump out on that holding tank worked. You have to be thankful for the little things . . .
But our "pooper problem" with the other tank became a very smelly issue and we spent hours trying to fix it. We couldn't find a service person to help so when Greg and Karen flew to Punta Gorda on January 2, they brought help with them. In exchange for a few days of sunshine and 80 degree weather, Dennis Plamondon (who works on our boats in Ludington) worked all one day in that 80 degree weather and fixed the problem!

We were now able to continue on the Loop and head to the Keys. Greg, Mike and I left Burnt Store Marina by water on Thursday morning at 7:30 and Karen left by car. She arrived in Marathon at 1:00. We arrived at 4:30. It took us a half hour to get out of Charlotte Harbor to the Gulf. Once there we rarely ran in a straight line as we dodged crab pots the whole way. I had taken a book and some crossword puzzles (thank-you, Pat) up to the flybridge for the 181 mile trip but they both sat untouched as all 3 of us had to keep our eyes on the water. As I described them in the last post, the crab pots are a floating balls that can be difficult to see until you are right on them. "Ever Vigilant" should be the Looper motto between watching for debris on the inland rivers and crab pots on the open waters. If we had a nickel for every crab pot we saw, we would be doing the Loop on a yacht. Or, in a more humanitarian gesture, every homeless person could be off the streets. And if there actually were crabs in all the pots we saw, every man, woman and child in the United States could have crab legs for dinner!
By keeping our eyes glued to the water, we were rewarded several times by the graceful arc of dolphins leaping out of the water and flying fish skipping on top of it.

The darker water of northern Florida became more blue the further south we went. Not quite the beautiful turquoise color of the tropical Caribbean seas but the blue-green water we were now in hinted that we were getting closer.

At 4:00 we passed under the famous Seven Mile Bridge in the Keys. Greg said it was a milestone, like going under the Mackinac Bridge. Many travel over it, few go under it. The real milestone was, having passed under this bridge, we were now in the Atlantic Ocean. Some marinas in Marathon are on the Gulf side, but the Marathon Marina and RV Resort, which is where we are staying for the next 3 months, is on the Atlantic side.

After leaving Ludington back on Sept. 7th, 122 days later on Thursday, January 5th, we completed the southern portion of the Loop. A BIG HOORAY!!!! We are truly grateful for the safe journey. And excited that some fellow Loopers have become real friends. (We traveled with Gypsy Spirit from Little Diversion Channel on the Mississippi to Green Turtle Bay on Kentucky Lake and met Dan and Jenny for lunch when we were all back in Michigan in December. And we FaceTime often with Jim and Terri from Lucky Ducks, who are taking a break from the Loop and spending the winter in St. Maarten.)

The next 3 months should fly by as we have friends coming for visits and side trips planned to Key West and the Bahamas. I'll be sure to post on those excursions.

So when we head up the east coast for the second half of the Great Loop, whether it be this spring or 2018, True North and its crew will be headed true north. Headed home.