We sat around discussing what to do a month or so back after a failed attempt to depart for the Bahamas.
Spending the day and well into the night sailing a long tack (40 miles total) off shore only to manage to make five nautical miles off shore gave me a reason to want to give up on sailing again. That was a short lived thought though. We sailed nicely under most sail and it gave me a lot of night experience, which was great.
Our extra crew member was disappointed, but he took off for California a few days later (and sooner I think than he’d originally intended). But, in the end, all was good. We got back in our own slip the next day and we’re back on the docks.
Our discussion turned to doing a road trip, which both of us are always up for.
So, contacting our son, who had wanted to meet us in February anyway, JoAnne and Nick planned a place to stay, dates, and so forth. We also contacted friends there, and made a decision also to look at a second boat (maybe because it was supposed to have a new engine in it).
On the way to Florida, we were passing through Brunswick, Ga, and the car started acting weird, right after fueling up. Finally, she sputtered and died at around 75mph going south on I-95. We coasted almost two miles on the side of the road to get us closer to an exit, and presumably a tow truck.
I checked the car, the computer system, the gas (thinking I somehow stupidly put diesel into the gas tank, which I had not) and couldn’t figure it out right off. It seemed like perhaps the ignition system was acting up, but I kept going back to the fuel system. Eventually, we found a place that would take us ASAP and got a tow, and were towed to a little place within three blocks of four hotels.
As it turned out, the fuel pump failed. Not sure why, but it did. Ended up getting it replaced. Wouldn’t get the parts until next morning, so we hiked with our bags to a hotel. On the way out to hike to a place to eat, we spotted the street sign on the street the Hotel was located.
We spent two weeks and a few extra days bopping around from Ft. Meyers, to Tampa, to Largo and back over to St. Augustine.
Yeah, we’re cursed to remain in “Southport” forever, methinks. Every time we’ve left Southport, something has happened to bring us back there. Everyone says we’re fated to remain in Southport, NC.
Even our car seemed to find a home named Southport…. :rollseyes
We visited our friend, Ray (and his son, Dakota, as Ray’s wife, Amanda was out of town for work), the cats and peacocks down in the Ft. Meyer area, as he had a steel ketch he inherited. I was considering buying it, but it wasn’t exactly what we expected, and I couldn’t see an easy way to move it. The engine likely had not been run in about 10 years. Probably not a good engine at this point. The rigging was pretty loose, a lower spreader having been rotted out and fallen off, leaving the majority of the standing rigging wiggly. So, that was a “no”. We did get to see Lake Okeechobee, rode on Ray’s boat, and found some cool Mexican food there.
We rode on Ray’s boat to see the sailboat, down the ICW towards Okeechobee.
We visited about half dozen breweries, ate out a bunch, JoAnne and the boys cooked at the AirBnB in which we stayed.
We had never stayed in a place like that. Nor a place like this one in particular. I’ve honestly never seen a place like the “Casa Loco”.
There is nothing better, sometimes than a picture, which it is said is worth a thousands words. So, without further ado, here’s a few thousand words.
I’ll just leave those there. The last one is the kitchen. Those are Jello/cake molds, on the ceiling. The second to last is the bathroom door…..
The bedrooms were covered in freaky “masks”, African, Spanish, Mexican, Demons… you name it. I can’t imagine small kids sleeping in this house without having severe mental issues afterward. haha
We four, Nick, Levi, JoAnne and I, spent time on the beach, visiting places, friends and having a good time.
After “Casa Crazy” we went to stay with JoAnne’s brother, Paul and his wife, Cathy and met the new poodle pup named “Buddy” who is a biter. He nipped Paul, JoAnne, Cathy and me, drawing blood from all of us. He’s a good dog, but he’s got to learn not to bite.
From Largo/Tampa we headed over to St. Augustine to visit with our friends from South Harbor Village Marina in North Carolina aboard “Enamoored”, Herb and Jan. They left at the end of February, about the time we left, to go down to St. Augustine, and they found a nice slip there in the town. We couple reasonably have walked from their boat to most places, if Jan and JoAnne both were up to the walking. Instead we drove a lot to breweries and out to eat.
We visited Hurricane Patty’s, at River’s Edge Marina, and could see our friend’s (Stephen and Judy) old slip from where we sat to eat (they are up north somewhere now). We had visited St. A’s before a couple of years back and stopped at River’s Edge to check the place out.
We stayed two nights with Jan and Herb and headed out early in the morning headed home for Adventure. We discussed stopping at a hotel one more night (for a big bed, showers, hot tub, pool, and just to decompress) but that never happened. I guess I owe JoAnne a night in a nice place somewhere with a big bed, showers, hot tub pool, or just decompressing. Haha!
Finally, we arrived back at our marina, tired and relatively warm. That changed quickly because, well, apparently winter is nuts and it keeps coming back to bug us.
All in all, our adventures don’t have to be aboard “Adventure”. We have just as much fun in the car as the boat, and it seems like it’s easier to do some times. But, I don’t think we’re giving up the boat any time soon.
The last thing for this entry is a purely mercenary event for me, so bear with me one more moment.
Back in November, I published my first SF novel, the first is a series called “Estrellita Chronicles”, first book is called “Aftermath’s Children” and was a very, very long time coming. I started writing that book in 1985 or ’86. It was a collective work based on a role playing game that I ran as Game Master with friends back in the early to mid 1980s.
The book has been sitting around in mostly completely form now for many years, but I published it on Kindle.
This week, I completed the set up for paperback books, and yesterday (Friday, 9 March 2018) I posted the last files, cover changes and information for the book. Today I finally got the price set properly.
So if you like Science Fiction and are interested you can get the book either as a digital version for Kindle (or kindle app, or Amazon Cloud reader) or paperback. I’ll post the links here. Normally, I don’t advertise anything with the blog at all or ask for anything, but I’d sincerely appreciate it, if anyone reads the book they write a short review on Amazon. Here are the links, top one is for the paperback, the second for the digital version for Kindle.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1973270501/
https://www.amazon.com/Aftermaths-Children-Estrellita-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B077BFKQ5W
This is my Amazon Author Page:
https://www.amazon.com/Rick-Donaldson/e/B00Q514LD0
This is my author blog:
https://rddonaldson.wordpress.com
Please visit those and leave comments, and PLEASE do a review if you read the book, it helps to bring the book into focus for those visiting Amazon (and helps get me sales, and by the way, I make a couple of bucks off each book, not as much as you think an author makes!)
Winds of Time 