Pics

Putz'n Around - the adventure continues.

We splashed Putz'n around October 30 and made our way down river  to Legacy Harbour in Fort Myers and our home for the Month of November. After 5 days of non stop cleaning she was ready for another season.  Our friends Terry and Diane Emigh joined us for 4 days in early Nov.  We had a great visit with them prior to their return to their sailboat which they live-aboard in the Sea of Cortez.  The weather was unseasonably hot with many days in the 90's

December 1st we headed to Fort Myers Beach and SnookBight Marina were we spent two months.
We met new and old friends making this marina feel like home! In December my Sister an brother in law visited for 3 days and had a great time seeing them. We flew home for nine days for Christmas. We spent 7 of the 9 days with Jillian, Eric, and Soren.  On Christmas Eve our best gift was seeing Soren take off and walk 12 steps.

The weather in December was great but when we returned in January some one hit the Switch!  January was the wettest on record. We had 3 severe thunderstorm with Tornado warnings and 2 touched down 10 miles from us. One storm blew out the zippers on the windows in the Flybridge and something hit and snapped off one of my 14 ft antennas.  $1400 dollars in damages but we were not the only ones that had damage.  The good news no one got hurt.  The second storm dumped 5.3 inches of rain in two days. Storm 3 had sustained winds in the Marina at 44 knots.  One of the storm surges came all the way up and over Estero Blvd.

Jan. 31st, our friends John and Cappy Clemency came aboard and at 6:30 am we headed to Key West!  We had a short weather window so instead of making it 2 day trip we made ran 140 miles in 9 1/2 hours at 14.4 knots. Yup, we burned some fuel!  The first 1/3 of the trip we had 1-2 ft seas, the second 1/3,  2-3ft and the last third near flat seas. We pulled into the Galleon Marina at 4, and as the saying goes let the party begin!  More in a few days. Pictures to come as well.

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