Good bye Homestead! Hello Wisconsin

For our final blog entry we will tell you about pulling and de-rigging the boat, say thank you to our new friends in Homestead, relive some favorite memories and missing fotos and try to describe our transition to living in a house in a frigid climate.

Sunday, the day prior to pulling our boat, happened to be one of the busiest days at Homestead Park!  All of the park crew was busy directing traffic, collecting fees, and finally, closing the park temporarily since there was no more available parking!    We left the park and saw a mile of cars waiting to get in.  We were celebrating our last day in Homestead with Rollerblading and a visit to a local vineyard.

We were headed to Schnebley's Winery, where we tasted unique wines (avocado, passion fruit, eg) http://www.schneblywinery.com/Brewery

and enjoyed a lovely ambience.  Just check their website and look at the grounds. 

When we arrived back to the park, the process was reversed: 300 boats needed to be pulled and trailered; it was very interesting to see and very organized. 

We continued to organize our gear.  We emptied gas and water tanks, transferred clothes, food and equipment from the boat to the truck.  We slept on the boat for the last time.

Because we wanted to pull the boat on Monday morning at high tide, that occurred rather inconveniently at 5:30 am.  By 6 am the boat was out of the water; by some act of providence, the boat lined up perfectly on the trailer and was on the hard dripping salt water.  The feeling was incredibly sad and I'm afraid a little prideful.  We had spent 46 nights on the boat and never had fled to town to stay in a hotel.

By 11 am the boat was already in shape to be trailered the 1704 miles to Baraboo.  Still we learned about the boat!  Rather than using the winch on the trailer to lower the mast, we simply ran a line over the truck with two turns around the front grill guard, and with Hector's help, Nancy and Hector lowered the mast smoothly by letting out the line slowly while Dan guided it into place up in the cockpit. 

Another of our biggest worries was the trailer.  Dan replaced the bearing buddy in one of the trailer wheels. We checked the brakes and bearing daily on the way back.   Luckily, we had no more problems in that area.

After a last visit to the Post Office, it was now truly time to say our final good byes to Florida and our friends.  Good bye!  Maybe we'll see you next year! We loved our adventure! Everyone has been super friendly!

Good bye Josiel, Jim and Julie, Good bye Alex and Carlos! Good bye Rhonda, Yadira, Hector, Corinna, Tatiana, Raul, Xavier! Good bye Ryan and Brian and all of the friendly faces of Homestead Park!

Good bye Patti and Bob and Gilbert and Family!  What a fun last night that was at Playa Grill for Dan's last gig.

Good bye Don Pico, we enjoyed the week we kidnapped you!

Good bye camp showers in the cockpit!

 

Good bye everyone, we will miss you, here's to you!!

 

 

 You may conclude that we are safe and sound at home.  We enjoyed one day of 60 degree weather, but yesterday, it snowed in the morning.  No, it sleeted/hailed/rained/snow.  It was quite nasty.  We didn't go outside until 2 pm.

 

Today, Dan went to work, and I did not.

 

Hopefully we will begin a new blog next year with a new adventure.  We hope you have enjoyed our blog as much as we enjoyed creating it.

 

 



I, for one, have enjoyed the bilingual aspect of this area.  At least 50 % of the people speak Spanish and we hear it all over and on the radio.

 

We also love the beautiful flowering trees:

 

 

Not everyone had to leave their cat at home.  this cat's name is Captain Jack Sparrow and had plans to go to the Bahama's with his family from Canada.  Lucky!

 

 

Here is Dan checking the anchor and the scope of the rode.  Always feels good to know that the anchor is set for the night!  We usually try to anchor in about six feet of water. 

 

And more beautiful sunsets and romantic serenades (and popcorn ;-) on our anniversary !

 

And finally, we inflated our dinghy (la lunita) and paddled around a little.

 

 

Earlier this week we went back to Crandon Park, in Key Biscayne, near Miami.  Nice Full Moon!

 

 We walked to Whiskey Joe's, an outdoor restaurant in the shadow of downtown Miami.  Dan enjoyed the mussels in cream sauce and a few beers since it was St. Patrick's Day.

 Whiskey Joe's is in the middle of a boat yard and we watched boats being lifted and hoisted up and down into their parking spaces.

 

Next pictures will include derigging and haul out of the boat ;-(  

This is our last weekend and Dan's last music gig is tonight!

 

 



Hi everyone... After a very successful gig on Saturday night, with cousins from Rockford joining us for a fun night and crowd, here is a picture of the Playa Grill crew and our visitors from IL.

We then departed Sunday morning heading southward to Card Sound.  We hoped to make it to "Alabama Jack's" by Monday, and to do so, we needed to sail beneath a bridge.  That was so cool!  We saw many dolphins swimming near us and the sensation of nearing the bridge that we had seen from such a distance, and then going underneath it, was fantastic.  This bridge is considered to be the true beginning of the Florida Keys since it connects mainland with Key Largo.

When we got to Alabama Jack's, our cousins were there to welcome us!  Yummy bloody Mary's and restock of ice.  By the way, Dan has a new used tshirt with a great logo:  "life is like a bag of ice... enjoy it before it melts" :-)  He got it from the ice truck delivery driver.

We revisited some familiar anchorages on the way south; Wednesday Point and on our return north, Steamboat Creek.  The wind changed both nights and both nights we were awakened by the wind and rocking of the boat, usually this must happen between 1 am and 4 am, by some unwritten law, but the anchor held and though we couldn't sleep, we had no need to avert crisis or disaster.

On Tuesday we had a beautiful sail of 17 miles with clear emerald water all around us.  We had all of our sails out and just watched the bottom of the ocean as though we had a glass bottom boat.  We spent Tuesday night anchored at the north end of Sands Key.  Those of you paying attention might recognize this anchorage as our first anchorage upon arrival.  This is where the storm hit at dusk and we dragged anchor all night.  This night, we had a beautiful night, with our new anchor holding all night and again could hear the periodic breathing and visits from a manatee in the area.

We made a quick escape to Boca Chita in the morning to find a protected harbor from the forecasted winds of 20 plus mph for the next two days. 

Here's the view from our back door. (Well, our companion way hatch).

When we went to the lee side of the island, the water was so calm and clear we went snorkeling a few times here.  We had to share the spot with a few other locals.

We met the Canadian caretaker for the island and he opened up the lighthouse to go up and get a birds' eye view of the island.

We stayed here for two nights, til Friday morning.  We had an exciting down wind sail back to Bayfront Park.  The following sea (waves) were about 3-4 feet and wind was at about 20 mph.  Even though we only had a diaper of a sail out (about 1/2 of our jib) we reached speeds in excess of 6 mph.  Seriously, wheee! For our boat, this is almost top speed, or 'hauling ass!"

Okay friends, all for now,  we should have one more entry before we must pull the boat and start our long drive home.  We have not ruled out a return visit next year!!

March 7, 2014 Friday.

On Fridays we have been coming to the YMCA to exercise and use the showers.  So here we are again, with more exciting news.  Those of you interested in our bird will want to know that Pico flew the coop.  We had saved that bird three times and the last time we left it alone on the boat, it was gone.  However, I did see it several hours later, in a cage, on another sailboat.  We have to assume he is with its true owner.  Now Dan has a new friend, just as pretty, don't you think?

 

This is a blue crab, very common in this area.

 

Here is another photo of us on our boat, taken by another sailor.  This is at Boca Chita Harbor.

 



 

Here's another activity we do often... plotting our course, and reading the cruising guides.

We listen to the NOAA weather channel a lot and plan accordingly.


 

 

We talk with Ryan and Bryan, the Towboat US captains who must go fearlessly into the ocean to rescue boaters with dead motors or who run aground, sometimes in bad weather.  Here's a pix of their boat and the park office.  And another pic of our rollerblading walking road.

 

 

 

I should mention that on Thursday night there was a severe storm, but we were safely tied up at the seawall that you see above.  We were glad to NOT be at sea, since winds were at 40-50 mph.  We had all four fenders and boat secured with five lines.  It was still pretty intense for about 30 minutes.

 

That's all for now.  We head back to La Playa Grill for Dan's music gig. 

 

Talk to you again next week...

Dan and Nancy









Today is Thursday, Mar 6.  We did indeed head south this week and made it to the south end of Card Sound.  After listening closely to the weather all week, we thought it prudent to head to our home marina a little early, since thunderstorms are predicted for today and tonight.  But we had a fantastic time.

On Sunday we went east and anchored at "Coon Point".  On Monday we sailed south to Long Arsenicker Key.   Again, we had a successful anchor.  We also had a little bit of a "party" since we were well stocked in ice and beer.  We went for a swim and snorkeled around the boat and could see the anchor in the sand.  We bathed in the cockpit! There was a beautiful sunset and I believe we went to sleep shortly after 8 pm :-).
Here are photos of that day:

 

 

Can you tell which is sunrise and which is sunset?  We saw them both that day. 

 

Trust us, this is another dolphin that swam near our boat in the morning.  We could hear him breathing when he came up for air.

 

 

 

On Tuesday we sailed southeast end of Card Sound and anchored again at Steamboat Creek.  After a few hours of rocking and rolling we weighed anchor and moved to Wednesday Point.  We had a calm beautiful night.  In the morning, far off, we could see it was raining.  We keep saying, how could the ocean get more beautiful!?  How about a rainbow?

 

 

 

 

 

That was our new record, 3 nights in a row sleeping attached to only our anchor.  We have a small stove to make coffee every morning and two small shower systems. You might wonder what our boat looks like after a month. 

 

When we are not sailing, we go for walks or go roller blading.  Here is a picture of our rollerblading path at the National Park.  We can see our boat from the path across the canal.

We have seen many kinds of boats, from power boats to smaller sailboats and million dollar yachts.  Here is a beautiful schooner that had Dan’s attention.  At this time Dan also saw a sea turtle swim by our boat.  We didn’t get a picture, but here’s one from the Sea Aquarium.

 

After Dan’s gigs on Friday and Saturday night, we will plan to head either south with a destination of Alabama Jacks with an anchorage in north Barnes Sound, or if the wind is in the other direction, we will head back north to No Name Harbor.  Wherever the winds will take us!