Reflections

It's hard to believe that our first season is coming to a close!  We left Stillwater September 18th and cruised the first half of the Great Loop to Florida. We traveled the river systems of the Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, Tombigbee, and inter coastal (ICW) . We crossed the gulf in a night passage from Carrabella, FL to Tarpon Springs and then down  the ICW to Fort Myers arriving on Nov. 6th.  All in all we have traveled over 2900 miles by water this season.

I have been on the boat for 7 1/2 months with only 9 nights off the boat.  Brigitte flew home about every 4 weeks to keep her Partylight business alive and well.  She did it again and we are going on her incentive trip to  Jamaica  the first part of June.

We spent two months + and the Holidays in Fort  Myers at Legacy Harbour Marina.  On Jan. 15th we moved to Fort Myers Beach and SnookBight Marina. Brigitte went home for a month waiting for our Grand Daughter Soren to be born.  I waited until labor started and then flew home for 5 days. Yes we are proud Grandparents.

On the 15 th of March we headed out to do the Florida Loop with friends Dick and Inga Bonfoy.
They travel with Baily their chocolate lab on a 40' Mainship trawler ( Bon Foyage). We crossed the gulf again from Marco Island to Key West.  From there we spent about 6 weeks staying at Big Pine Key, Marathon, Islamarad, Keylargo, Coconut Grove,  Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Stuart, and back to Fort Myers by crossing the state through Lake Okeechobee.  We are spending a week in Fort Myers  getting the boat ready for summer storage.

On Friday I took one final cruise up the river. We are storing the boat at a boat yard 26 miles up the Calooshatchee River from the gulf. The place has been around since 1953 and as Bud the manager said we haven't lost a boat yet.  Once up Owl Creek they lift the boat out of the Creek and travel
about 30 feet and drop us in a fresh water Lagoon. Putz'n around will spend the summer in fresh water in a covered slip.

We got home Saturday Evening after driving 1700 miles in 2 days.  We drove across many bridges that we had passed under many months ago. This felt a little strange but did rekindle many memories of a great adventure.  We hope you enjoyed our journey and we will pick up again next Nov.  We would like to thank God for his protection, for all the wondrous places we have seen, and the great people we have met during The Great Adventure of Putz'n Around!

Stuart to Ft Myers

We spent three days in Stuart with our good friends Jim and Linda.  They are Jillian's God Parents and we had not seen them in 25 years.  We had a great visit with them and we picked up again just as if we had seen them last  week.  Jim was kind enough to take us to the produce stand, Publix, and West Marine.  I had to get a patch kit for the dingy as I  caught a 3 lb. catfish and while trying to de-hook him he managed to put a hole in each tube with his sharp spines!  From now on I will cut the line and let the hook stay in  their mouth!  On Friday we took off from Stuart and headed down the St Luise River and the Okeechobee  Waterway and across the lake.  We had to wait on numerous bridges and went through 2 lock and dams which took us 8 1/2 hours to go 60 + miles. You only cross the lake for about 20 miles to Clewiston.  We had light winds and a minor chop and were lucky as boats crossing earlier had 2-3 footers with full on beam seas.  Not a lot of fun rolling in that. We spent the night at nice little Marina that had live music and a decent restaurant. We took off the next day at 8:30 and ended up running all the way to Ft Myers doing 3 more lock and dams and a couple of bridges.  Around Moore Haven FL I picked up something around the starboard prop. We could only run about 8 knots with out it vibrating.  I tried spinning it off in reverse a couple of times and was able to run about 1800 RPM's and 10 Knots.  We pulled back into Legacy Harbour Marine where we had spent Nov and Dec around 5:15. This completed the Florida Loop from Ft. Myers Beach around the Keys back of the Florida east coast and across  Okeechobee to Fort Myers.  600 miles in just shy of 6 weeks.  I had the bottom cleaned this AM and the diver pulled off a bunch more nylon rope off the shaft.  I will post one more time with my final thoughts about Putz'n Arounds great adventure.

Other boats of mention!

April 14-21

We spent 5 nights in Fort Lauderdale, enjoyed bike rides, local restaurant's, and the never ending parade of mega yachts. We have become so jaded, we don't even look up at boats in the 65" range. We went for a dingy ride and up the canals and looked at more homes of the rich and famous. On the 19th we headed up the ICW to Boca Raton and stopped to see our ex neighbors from El Paso, TX.  They live in a townhome with a Marina out their back deck. We stayed on the boat but where only 50 feet to their place. We had a fantastic visit? Poor Cody, their place does not allow pets so 3 times a day we would sneak him into the car a take him off property to do his business. He really didn't mind.
On the 21 st we took off between thunderstorms and headed to Stuart (58 miles) . We passed  through Palm Beach went by the Jack Nicholas and Tiger Woods compounds on  Jupitor Island.  The wealth down here is like nothing we have ever seen. It's not that some have so much money, but the tens of thousands that have that kind of money!  Below are more pics.  I will probably post early next week as on Friday we will start our journey back across the state through Lake Okeechobee and to a Fort Myers.  We are head home in less than two weeks!

Fort Lauderdale

On Tue. we said goodbye to Miami and headed up the ICW where with every turn we saw multi million dollar homes and yachts.  As we pulled into Fort Lauderdale we past Steven Spielberg's yacht. It is the blue one.  For scale the tender in the side garage is about 28'. Just past there we turned up the New River. This is more canal like with a 3 ft tide. It is very narrow with lots of twists and turns, and very heavy traffic. Lots of tour boats, water taxi's and huge yachts being either driven or towed. The biggest boat we have seen go past us was about 175 ft. The homes that line the river and side canals are most impressive.  We arrived right in the middle of downtown Fort Lauderdale and tied up to the sea wall. This is operated by the city and has water and power for $1.34 a foot, what a deal, we will probably stay 5 nights. One of the pictures shows a white yacht tied to the wall. It's 2004, 98' Lazzara for sale for 4.5 million.  The  turquoise yacht has a deck hand on the side to give you some scale.
For you past or present 3M'rs we had dinner with Jesse and Susan McCoy last night. It was great to see them!
Cheers for now

Coconut Grove / Miami

Had a great couple of evenings eating out here.  We went to the downtown area in Coconut Grove for dinner one night and a great Cuban restaurant the next.  Descent City Marina, ok average at best but a great location and $2.85 per ft per night compared with downtown Miami and $5.

Key Largo to Coconut Grove

We departed John Pennycamp State Park after 1 night on the mooring ball and 3 nights in a slip.  We had a beautiful day of cruising as we traveled up the Atlantic side for about 22 miles with 1-2 footers slightly of the Starboard side, no issue.  We cut across to the Gulf at Angelfish Creek, there are a couple of pics showing some unbelievable homes! Once in the gulf we had unbelievable aqua green water and  slight chop. You could easily see the bottom as we had 3 feet of water underneath the props for the entire trip up Biscayne Bay some 30 miles.  We pulled into the mooring field at Dinner Key in Coconut Grove.  We got tied up and I dinged over to our buddy boat to assist. Some how they ended up bass acwards on the Ball.  We were fighting pretty strong winds and 2 footers in the mooring field.  Once tied up Cody and I put our life jackets on and Dingy the half mile to an island for Cody's releif.   We just got back to the boat and we got a call, Dicks Dingy wouldn't start and back to the island to get him and Bailey ( their Lab) sea tow to the rescue.  Finally back to the boat we were bobbling like a cork on the mooring ball with a 12 knot wind  and 2' + chop.  We had a light dinner and had a glass of wine looking at the Miami skyline wow what a day.

The morning started out well, but the winds and chop were not letting up so we swallowed our pride and headed for the Marina! Brigitte was driving and I was getting us off the mooring ball. Tough to do in the wind and seas.  We inadvertently caught the mooring line around the starboard prop.   S@&$!,,,,, we were now back acwards ourself hung up.  We called Sea Tow and Brian (from sea tow) came to the rescue!  For you boaters this is how it's done.  We put our anchor in his boat and he took a 100 ft of chain upwind. With the anchor set, he came back to the boat  and free dove on the mooring ball. Once freed we pivoted and the anchor held us in position.  After checking forwards and reverse we pulled anchor and headed to the Marina.  Brian came over to the Marina and we did the paper work.  What an interesting Guy, Probably 50 from Switzerland. He had taught sailing to the German Navy in the Canary Islands, has sailed the Atlantic and Caribbean . And his next goal is a sailing around Cape Horn . You meet some of the most interesting people boating.  Headed into town for some action tonight and maybe South Beach Miami Monday night! More latter.
Cheers

Islamorada to Key Largo

We left for Key Largo Tue. and John Pennycamp State Park.  We cruised up the Atlantic for about 22 miles in 3-4 ft seas. We stayed closer in shore as waves in Hawks Channel farther out were 4-6'. We tied up on a mooring ball for the night. We bounced around a bit with 15-18 knot winds and 2 ft chop.  Not great taking Cody into shore at at 10pm. The next day we called the Park and they had 2 of 3 slips that would fit our boats and in we went. 52 bucks a night sweet!  The park here is spectaclar diving is as good as it gets in Florida, unfortunatley with 18 knot winds out side, going out to the reefs was out of the question. We road our bikes and did some dingy rides.  Coming back into the Marina with a strong incoming tide got Lil Putz up to 30 mph. One of the pictures you can see our boat in the moring field.  Another picture shows Cassiopeia  Jellyfish in about 3 feet of water.