Goodbye to Ralph and June

We dinghied Ralph and the luggage to the dinghy dock and then I returned to get the rest of the crew. Ralph and June were scheduled to be picked up at the local restaurant, O'Maddy's at noon.  Gulfport was having a street fair so we all had time to visit some of the venders.  Before departing the boat and saying goodbye the Captain officially promoted Ralph and June from Swab to Mate. And well deserving they were!!  After the van picked them up Denniese, Maggie and I visited more venders and had a veggie panini at an outside restaurant.  We enjoyed watching the people and dogs on parade past our table.  My friend Robert called and said a storm was heading our way.  We walked back to the dinghy dock and guess what??  The dinghy motor would not start.  A local marine policeman was nest to us and he towed us back to our boat just as the storm started.  We watched as a sailboat drug anchor and floated past us.  We felt good about our anchor so we took the opportunity to take a nice nap with the wind and ran.  Sooo nice!!  Later as the skies cleared we cleaned and I worked on the dinghy motor but no luck.  Tomorrow we will worry about that,, Scarlett.....

Goofport

We departed Tarpon Springs Thursday March 29th. Our destination was Gulfport, which is on Boca Ciega Bay next to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Before we left Tarpon Springs we boated around the Sponge Docks and saw sponge divers cleaning the recently picked sponges.  It was a beautiful morning and Ralph and June had a pleasant experience on open waters. We were not long before we were in the intercoastal waterway and driving the boat behind condo's and nice homes.  Our first flameout occurred not lone after we were in sheltered waters.  We had several flameouts but Denniese and I were able to get the engine running within a minute or so each time.  We arrived in Boca Ciega Bay and Gulfport just about time to serve wine.  We set the anchor and motored to the city dock and walked to a local restaurant named O'Maddeys.  We had some great pasta and Maggie enjoyed eating with us outside. We walked the little city and found an ice cream shop which not only served good ice creme but made a fresh pot of coffee for me.  Friday morning we started to raise the anchor and the engine died.  Instead of doing our flame out procedure we just decided to stay put on anchor and enjoy the day.  We dinghyed ashore and walked into town and come back on board for supper.  The wind had picked up and I let out a little more rode.  I watched a dinghy float by and tried to make the owner aware the his dinghy has come loose but was unable to raise him.  Later a good Samaritan caught up with the dinghy and brought it back but to the wrong boat.  So we watched the drama unfold but it was fun. Ralph and June depart tomorrow for TN. Tonight should be good with a nice cool breeze.  The pic is of the dock and town building at Gulfport.

New Back Yard

We departed Carrabelle on schedule Monday morning at 8:00am. Ralph and June helped us with the dock lines.  Lifestyle had been in that one spot since December 6, 2011.  We enjoyed our stay and got some work done and also visited home during Christmas.  It was a good stay but we had been waiting for a good weather window to make our crossing to Tarpon Springs and Monday was it.  The trip is 135 miles plus some time at each port.  We had planed about 30 hours but were hoping for less.  The weather was good, although we got bounced around and had to tie the dog down for most of the trip.   The Gulf most always has rollers or slow moving waves that bounce off your boat when you least expect them.  Once during the trip I went below and discovered most of the drawers open and chairs tipped over.  That happens even after we put everything away and lock down as much as we can.  About 6 hours into the trip everything was going so well when without warning the engine stopped.  We did our "bleed the engine drill" and had it working within a few minutes only for it to fail again shortly.  After several tries to make it stay running I went to the back up fuel delivery system, jerry jugs.  I was ready with them but the jug  only ho1ds 1 1/2 hours worth  of fuel.  So every hour and half all night long I was refilling jerry jugs and keeping the engine going.  We arrived at Tarpon Springs and tied up to the dock at 10:30.  That's about 26 1/2 hours of boating across the Gulf.  Our new back yard is almost as quiet as Carrabelle but with lots of boat traffic. We will do the tourist thing after we take care of the boat and get some rest.  For now we are just sitting on the aft deck looking at our new back yard.

The Forgotten Coast

The Pan Handle of Florida is called the Forgotten Coast.  It is so different from the rest of the the coast of Florida that it could be called the Easy Coast. We see a few wave runners, a few fast noisy boats but mainly its easy going.  Saturday morning we drove to Panama City Airport and picked up Ralph and June Vaughn. We then drove back to Apalachicola for a street fair and lunch.  We had a great fresh sea food lunch with lots of conversation.  We ate at BOSS OYSTER where Ralph and I grossed out the ladies by eating some of the fresh raw oysters.  The town has a very active downtown with most of the stores open and offering local art and tourist items. A wine tasting started in the late afternoon and local musicians started close to sunset. The weather was perfect and we walked over the downtown and stopped at a lot of stores and even purchased a few trinkets. Ralph has done professional writing for years and I ask him if he would follow this paragraph with his impressions of his visit. We are still on schedule to depart for our crossing to Tarpon Springs Monday morning.  Ralph and June will follow with the car.  Mike

Some folks say that Florida is famous for sunshine, scenery, seafood, and of course sand.  We have enjoyed a good dose of those attributes...and more.  The best part of our trip is spending quality time with Mike and Denniese.   Sunday morning we attended worship service at First Baptist Church in Carrabelle and were blesssed through singing and preaching.  Afterwards, we ate lunch at a small restaurant near the beautiful Carrabelle Bay.  The food was great but the fellowship was better; capped off with a young singer who sang one of our requests -- Wind Beneath My Wings.  I think June suspected that I am crazy when I suggested that Carrabelle might be a good retirement village with its oneACE Hardware store, a grocery store and a Dollar General.  With the seafood restaurants and the beautiful water, what could a person ask for in retirement?  Thanks to Mike and Denniese for letting us tag along.  Of course, Denniese is the admiral; Mike the captain; June and I are swabs.  (Ralph)

Carrabelle Police Dept.

Chores almost all done we walked into town. We found a great little cafe named Carrabelle Junction and had a fresh made sandwich.  I had a wonderful veggie with sprouts and avocado, onion and tomatoes.  Best I have had in a long time.  Denniese had the Italian hoagie.  Ronnie, our friend from ACE Hardware was having lunch and joined us.  He is getting married early in April and spending his honeymoon in Gatlinburg.  We enjoyed sharing stories about Tennessee. We finished off our lunch with a old fashion chocolate milkshake. We walked back to Lifestyle II about, two blocks, and stopped at what is labeled as the world Smallest Police Station. It is a pay phone booth, but Maggie enjoyed the shade of the tree next to it.  The afternoon was spent relaxing and visiting with our only neighbor.  Wayne is refurbishing an old Carver but in another life was the Capt of the Chattanooga River Queen tourist boat.  The weather forecast is still good for a crossing Monday.  Stay tuned!!

Dollar General Super Store

Carrabelle has no Walmart super store but it does have a Dollar General that sells canned goods, milk even cartons of ice cream.  I call that a Dollar General Super Store.  We visited it today and came back to the boat with a car load of stuff.  I don't know what we are going to do with all the stuff since we are not going to be here long enough for a garage sale.  Anyway, the slow moving front is moving out and by Monday we should have weather fit for crossing the Gulf.  Our weather expert say it will be a good day for crossing.  Ralph and June are arriving Saturday and we are going to enjoy some of the local events. Robert sent me a notice that Apalachicola is having an event this w/e so we will drive over to check it out. Ralph and June will move our car to the Tampa area when we depart and meet us down there. Denniese finished cleaning the upper helm and I cleaned the bilge. She also did laundry. I stayed in the bilge. The laundry and the upper helm turned out better than the bilge but she said she would give me another chance. We found a local seafood supplier and purchased a large red snapper steak for supper.  It was soooo good. We told him we would be back. The gas grill is acting up so I tomorrow I will work on it.  I only visited ACE twice today.  Standing on the bow of the boat I took a picture of my favorite place in Carrabelle.

Carrabelle Sweet Carrabelle

Wednesday started like most days for me here in the forgotten coast.  A trip to ACE hardware!  This time it was a navigation light that was bad.  Since we will be traveling at night I checked all the running lights last night and found one bad.  Ronnie, the owner said he didn't have one but could order me one that would be in on Thursday. Denniese also had a list of supplies for me. I returned to the boat and found she had started a painting project.  It seems a steel pole on the sun deck needs some chipping, sanding and a fresh coat of paint.  While she started on that I checked out the nav light and found it was corroded which was causing a bad connection. It was necessary to crawl into and under the instrument panel to remove the light. After the third time of removing and replacing the light I finally had it working. " Boat Rule number 10... Repairs usually take 3 tries"!! Some folks in a couple of vans pulled up in front of the boat and seeing that I am the only person around they ask if there was a bar around here where they could get lunch. I told them not here but about 20 miles West was Apalachicola and it had lot of bars and restaurants. They also ask about fishing and where they could rent a boat.  Half the group left and the other half stayed and watched from the parking lot.  It looked to me like they were on a convention and had skipped out of the meetings. As much as I tried the repairs did not take all day so I started on another chore.  This time it was the macerator pump.  I had suspicions that it was not working . "Boat rule # 16, never go looking for problems,cause you will find them"!!  After spending an hour taking the hoses off the pump and testing it I found the reason it was not spitting out "stuff" is because the holding tank (sewage) was empty.  I had forgotten that we had it pumped before we got here.  That's OK the smell kept any visitors from coming up and asking a lot of dumb questions.  It looks like the Gulf may be calmed by the first of the week for a crossing.

Carrabelle is Great

Today is Tuesday, March 20th, the first day of Spring and it is Spring in Carrabelle. Getting to know the places we visit is part of the fun of doing the Loop.  In between doing chores on Lifestyle II, we visit the local spots.  Here at Carrabelle that can be accomplished in about an hour.  Well it would seem that way since it only has one grocery, a couple of restaurants and no real retail community.  Today we visited the other restaurant.  It is at the other marina, the Moorings.  No connection to the world wide charter business with the same name.  The sign out front said "Carrabelles best breakfast".  We found that the Mayor and the Sheriff have breakfast there on most days.  The mayor was still there.  We talked, well he talked we tried to talk but he is a little hard of hearing and so it was best just to listen.  We did find out that he had lived in Green County, Tennessee, above Knoxville.  He is now on his sixth four year term.  He must be well liked or either they can't find anyone else to work for such little pay. I told him we loved Carrabelle and after traveling all over we decided that Carrabelle was the perfect city.  It has one road in, one road out.  It does not have a Wall-Mart or a traffic light. They have a downtown revitalization program that is coasting over $200,000. and consist of replacing the sidewalk for one block. He was real proud of the project. I asked him about not having a stoplight and he said they had one at one time but it caused too many accidents and had to take it down. Malinda served us breakfast and it was maybe the best we have had. By the time we were finished it was close to 10AM and the mayor said he needed to go to the office.  At least he has the right work ethic for the job.

Back on board

We arrived safely in Carrabelle Saturday afternoon around 4:30.  During the drive from Tennessee, Mike checked the weather forecast and wind predictions for the Gulf and we made the decision to not cross on Sunday.  The wind was forecast to picked to around 20 knots before we could get across.  So at this writing, the predictions are for fair winds on Friday.

It's a good thing we have a few extra days to prepare since the water heater element went out and we had no hot water when we arrived.  The hardware store is closed on Sunday, so after visiting the First Baptist Church of Carrabelle, we began cleaning the boat and getting stocked up on food and water. Mike changed the oil in the engine last night and tackled the water heater this morning.  After only two trips to Ace Hardware (which luckily is right across the street from the boat) we have hot water again!
 but
Maggie and I have been checking out the neighborhood a littler better when out walking.  There are so many old, small homes here and it looks as if the occupants just up and left all their stuff.  Windows are boarded up and it seems almost like a ghost town.

This area is called "The Forgotten Coast"  and I can see why - it is like a step back in time.  There is one grocery store and it is next door to the Ace Hardware.  We found a little diner across from the Post Office and there is a nice little park across from the Baptist Church.  Everything is within walking distance so Maggaie and i are getting plenty of exercise. 

We may have to dine out tonight because Mike is equalizing the batteries for the DC power source and the it takes around 8 hours.  I can't cook with all that going on!!!!!!!!

We have had 2 beautiful days with perfect temperatures, but the sand fleas are ferocious.  Unless the wind is blowing, they will eat someone alive.  We've got plenty of Skin So Soft and that helps keep them at bay for awhile.

The Adventuer Continues

Last March we started this adventure in Stuart, FL.  We had just completed a new house and moved into it for one month prior to the start of our trip.  By June we were traveling up the Hudson River. We moored Lifestyle II at Poughkeepsie Yacht Club in New York for 10 days and  returned home for a family reunion. At home we took the time to unpacked the remaining boxes. We celebrated my birthday, September 19, at Rock Harbor Marina, in Nashville, only 30 miles from our home in Murfreesboro.  At that stop we pulled Lifestyle II out of the water to do some bottom work and we spent time at home hanging pictures and getting to know our land home. By December we had made it to the Pan Handle of Florida but the winter weather was setting in and we decided to leave our floating home in Carribelle and drive to our land home for Christmas and the winter. That decision worked out well because we were able to spend Christmas with family and have some work done on our beautiful boat in Carribelle.

An early Spring seems to favor a departure from Carribelle by late March.  We have enjoyed our stay in Murfreesbor but our boat is calling and we are ready to get back in the grove of traveling.  We look forward to visiting familiar places along the Gulf Coast and crossing our wake at Key Largo.  As soon as we are back aboard Lifestyle II we will start the Blog on a daily basis or as the signal allows. Stay tuned for our report....

Mike,Denniese and Maggie Mae
M/V Lifestyle II, Marine Trader 40