Christmas 2017

We had a great time back with family and friends. As always, it just didn’t last long enough! We have too many people to try and see and not enough time.

Billy, Chelle and I got together with our cousins Tammy and her husband Barry, Donna, Danny, and our uncle Dan. We had seen Tammy and Barry during the summer and wanted to spend more time with them. You all know how it goes, we have family and friends we want to see, but just don’t make definite plans and the time slips away. So, before we left Vero heading back we set a definite date and time and made it happen. And we are all glad we did it and want to get together again when we get back up there.

We had our usual get together at Chilie Rojo for fun and great food. We saw George and Pam, David and Betty, and Mike and Phyllis there. Chelle and I went on several long hard walks and loved spending that time with each other. I went back and forth to daddy’s several times during our two weeks back. Chelle and I both spent a night at daddy’s and we haven’t done that in years! We ate way too much good rich food and had several “carb comas” as a result of it! Lauren didn’t spend as much time back home as usual, so we tried to cram as much time together as we could. We did our usual day after Christmas returning and shopping.

My family all had Christmas at Daddy’s on Christmas Eve as usual. We had a great time. We were very busy with lots of eating, talking and laughing going on.

Michael, Ethan, Sarah and Michelle

Michael, E-man and Sasa

Me and my babe, Lauren

Lauren and Sarah

Billy and Daddy

Daddy and his crew

Daddy and his baby girl

Daddy and his oldest daughter, as he introduces me

Papa and his babies.

Sarah, Rascal and Papa

Rascal loving on Sarah

Us

Daddy in his favorite chair with some of his favorites

Me and my "first child". I love her so much!

Three peas in a pod.

Shay, Jason, Travis, Lauren, Jean and I had a great breakfast prepared by Lauren Christmas morning and then opened gifts Christmas. We all got too much stuff and were very blessed.

Lauren's famous breakfast braid

...And her baked French toast. Yummy in our tummy!

Shay got a drone so he can watch overhead while..

...Jason fixes things with his new tools....

...While Jean stays warm in her new coat...

...and Lauren takes it easy in her new lounging pants.

Travis I don't know what happened to us? I know we got gifts. But not pictures??

Shay’s family got together for their Christmas that afternoon and we had a house full. Jean said if we kept adding people, the young ones were going to have to chip in to add on to the house. We are definitely getting too big and we had few people that couldn’t make it. We missed Zac, Sabrina and Aryanna. They are in Wyoming now and couldn’t make the trip back. Jason’s fiancé, Amy had to work so she couldn’t make it. And Lauren’s fellers were back in Wilmington.  We had a great feast and lots of gifts to open.  More “carb comas”.

Jean and all the kids. Look at those yummy desserts.

Wish I had some of those now! I would really appreciate them now!!

Jean, kids, in-laws, except Lisa. You left too early!

Shay, Jenny, Phil, and Joey.

As always, the trip is too short and it’s time to head back. We will start looking for a weather window as soon as we can. You never know, we could get really, really, really lucky and get one in the next few days!

Well, the weather has not cooperated, but hey, Vero is still a great place to be “stuck”. We keep seeing more boaters coming in. Some stay for a while and others are just overnighters.

Beautiful sunset at Vero

Full moon on New Year's Eve. Beautiful weather. We ate dinner outside.

A nice change from the NC weather.

We’ve enjoyed spending time with Richard and Connie and had several great meals with them. Connie had us over for her “ham junk” a few days after New Year’s. Yum. Then she had us over another night for crockpot meatloaf and veggies. Another masterpiece.

The only thing missing is Five Flip Flops. We have spent some time with them since we’ve been here but the boat is MIA. They left it in Daytona for a paint job and it ain’t going well. There have been major delays and problems so Sir David has gone up and been the overseer. The job was supposed to be a 2 week job and at the end of two weeks he went up to see the progress and there was NONE. The guy had told him they were sanding and stuff, but they had not been. So he stayed and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally after about 8 weeks, many discussions, and much ranting from David the job was finished and they got out! They are slowly making their way down to Vero for provisioning and a weather window.

As usual, Shay had been doing hours of weather watching each day. Listening to Chris Parker, looking at lots of weather sites, and discussing options with David, our weather guru.

It’s January 22, 2018, and we have left Vero  heading to Lake Worth. It will be a long day for us; we usually take 2 days for the trip. But we want to leave in the morning from Lake Worth so on we go.

We’ve been making lists of things to do before crossing and checking them off. It’s not even 12 noon yet and I’ve already walked over .6 miles. That’s just on the boat, going up and down the stairs getting things and checking things. We have lots of gadgets to charge, things to get out of drawers and cabinets, and people to call and tell we’re leaving.

We had a good trip down. We left our mooring and went to the dock to fill up on water. We were empty so it took a while to put on 400 gallons. We left the mooring field at 8:23 heading to Lake Worth. That's a full day for us and we're getting a late start. We got here at 5:30 after traveling 9 hours at 6.5 for a total of 60nm. We had a good day, no problems, nice weather and not as many boats on the water as we usually see.

The anchorage at Peck Lake was full.

A pretty old boat along the ICW

And here's another one out on the waterway

Looking toward Jupiter Inlet

 
Jupiter Lighthouse

The gingerbread house is still there

Windy day

Cruise ship at Lake Worth. They left after we were anchored.

 I hope our next blog tells you we had a great passage and hello from Green Turtle Cay!!

Vero Beach 2017

As always, we have had a great time at Vero Beach. I've mentioned before that it's also known as "Velcro Beach" since people come here for a few days and end up getting stuck here. It's a great place for us boaters with free public transportation that not only gets you wherever you want to go and also give you an "up close and personal" look at the people around you. We have met some very nice people and some real strange people. But that's what you see everywhere.

Beautiful sunsets

There are also great places for us to get our power walks in. We can see a mile long bridge from our boat and we've walked it several times. We walk about 2.7 miles round trip. We have a mile long trail at the riverside park that we walk also. We've left the marina, walked to the park, turned and walked to the beach, walked in the sand to the end of the beach and walked back to the boat for about an 4.6 mile walk.

We've visited the farmer's market on Saturday and seen beautiful fruits, veggies, flowers, trinkets, and edible goodies. We've window shopped at some very expensive places along the way.

We've met some old friends and made some new ones. A large group of us boaters went out to eat at a new local restaurant and had a great time. We always enjoy getting together and hearing about others peoples adventures.

Roux, my grand-dog, getting in the Thanksgiving spirit!

The "CLODS" aka "cruisers living on dirt" had a big Thanksgiving meal again this year. They supply the ham and turkey and us cruisers supply sides and dessert. We had a great turnout this year and a ton of food. I appointed myself as the "designated dessert cutter" and I cut pecan, apple, pumpkin, key lime, sweet potato and other pies. I cut up several cakes and other desserts. I know there were at least 12 pecan pies and that many pumpkin pies. We were overflowing with desserts! On the other end of the building were the savory tables and they were overflowing too. Hams, turkeys, all kinds of cranberry dishes, green beans, mac n cheese, sweet potatoes, salads, pastas, and every traditional Thanksgiving dish there is. Then we had the non-traditional things like baked spaghetti squash, lasagna, and others. We had lots of food, people, boat adventures to tell, and lots of fun. There was some great music after the meal, but we were so stuffed that we walked back to get rid of all those carbs. Thanks Vic for all the great Thanksgiving Day pictures. He's a great photographer!

An area of intense activity. As you can see, Shay's right in the thick of things. Doing what he does best, talking. This time Bill looks like he's getting into the conversation. Gigi getting our table ready.

Vic titled this as, "Skinny, this is not how you got that way." He calls me "Skinny" now. And NO eating pie was not how I did it! But I'm only cutting the pie now, and not licking the knife!

Gigi made sure there wasn't any of her delicious cranberry dessert left to spill on the trip home!

We were in the marina office one day and a couple were talking to the dockmaster about getting a mooring ball. They were full so they were double rafting and he was looking for a boat to tie them up with. We could see their boat was a trawler and heard them say they were staying about a month. We knew we could get a "buddy boat" at anytime and were looking for a long term boat rather than a boat that would stay a day or two and then leave a put us up for another new arrival. Shay volunteered to let them tie up with us and we'd even help them get tied up. They agreed and we now have neighbors.

They seem like a nice couple, even if they are from Canada. Ha Ha. They also have a camper and plan to spend time traveling in it. So they told us they'll be the perfect buddy boat. We won't even know they're around since they will be gone a lot of time. We've enjoyed spending time with them and getting to know them. I found out she was a chef and they had their own "farm to table restaurant" in Canada. I told her then I wasn't inviting her to eat with us! But we did have them and Vic and Gigi over while George and Pam were here.

Bill and Lore on Sea Wolf had us over to their boat for a fantastic lasagna meal. Pat and Addison from Three Penny Opera had us and Richard and Connie from SeaSalt over for baked chicken and veggies at their land home. Richard and Connie had us, Vic and Gigi from Salty Turtle, George and Pam our friends from back home, Pat and Addison and Paul and Helle from R'Liberty over for spaghetti, salad and I brought key lime pie. Vic and Gigi had us over for his delicious chicken stew and corn bread. We had Vic and Gigi, George and Pam, John and Carolyn from Ocean Haven over for smoked sausage on the grill, grilled sweet potatoes, Carolyn's beet and quinoa salad and pecan pie. John and Carolyn had us and George and Pam over for a delicious soup of kale, carrots, butternut squash and then chicken and shrimp curry over rice. Yum to everyone! A few nights later, we had panko-pecan crusted chicken breast, grilled asparagus and zucchini, brown rice and quinoa, and salad. Great meal and thanks again. Hey, guys! All this eating can't be good for my calorie intake! I'll have to walk 10 miles a day. Well, its worth it!

Lore and Bill from Sea Wolf

George and Pam came down from Mt. Airy to stay with us a while. We had a great time getting caught up on gossip and hearing what's going on back home. They are such easy guests. Shay and George can talk for hours. Pam and I are happy talking, reading, or just enjoying our beautiful scenery. We took several long walks with them. had several really good meals with them and just enjoyed having them around. As with all good things, they must come to an end and of course they had to go back home. It is getting close to Christmas. Hurry back anytime. Remember, We're going to the Bahamas after Christmas. Come on back with us and see the beauty there! No, seriously!!

As in the past, we are making plans to head back to NC for Christmas. We'll spend two weeks there and then back to Vero for last minute running around getting our last-last minute supplies. We hope to have a good weather window soon after we get back down here.

David and Emma, from Five Flip Flops aka FFF are back in the US and back here in Vero. They have not seen me since we left Green Turtle Cay. Since then I have a new hairdo and clothes that fit me so they drove right by me in the parking lot. They got out of the car and started walking away, so I called out the traditional British greeting of "oy". They both turned around and were shocked. In a good way. After many hugs and smiles we started getting caught up with them. If our plans work out (haha, remember our plans are made in sand) their boat will have been painted and be beautiful just in time for our after Christmas departure.

In early December, we had a super moon and Emma and I were talking about how great it would be to be able to do a night crossing with that big moon. Let's hope we have the right weather, the right moon phase, and the right timing to do an easy crossing. Cross your fingers!

Super moon rising on one side of us...

...as the sun sets on the other side

The pictures below are Vic's. As I said before, he's a great photographer. He's the "official, unofficial photographer of the several schools in the Exumas. Thanks you so much Vic for these pictures and the ones at Thanksgiving.

The artist named this "Unwanted Guests" They will make a mess on your boat!

Stormy moorings

Foggy morning

Calm water

We have rented a car for our trip back home already. Remember, its cheaper to rent one for month, than two weeks. Yeah, hope they don't figure out how dumb that really is. We've already got the small trunk full of Christmas presents and stuff to take back with us.

I've decided to post this now and then finish up with Christmas when we get back. We're so excited to see everyone again. Check back after Christmas and see how ours went. Merry Christmas to everyone and if I don't see you before, Happy New Year!