Our friends Moni & Rick on the boat Moni Jean stayed in Stock Island 2 years ago on the Loop and planned to come back this year so we "invited" ourselves to join them. They now snowbird on the boat between Green Turtle Bay in the summer and points south in the winter. Be sure to check out their blog. It's done very well and updated much more often than ours.....
One day Rick had "tweaked" his back on the boat so we decided it would be a good idea to seek out the best Painkiller on the Island. I'm not sure if we had the best but we sure gave it our all looking!!
It's great to know that both crews have reserved again for next winter! We also had a visit in the Keys from our good friends and fellow loopers Liz & Bob from Knot Sew Easy. This time they traveled to Stock Island in their new RV...which happens to be our old RV. Unfortunately we had so much fun we forgot to get a picture of the 4 of us so we had them send us one with the "rig".
Other visitors included a Manatee family that hung out next to our boat one afternoon. I was very glad they hadn't stopped by the day before when I was cleaning the bottom of the boat!! We love to see 'em but I'd hate to have one sneak up on me while diving... I also tested the camera Joe gave me in underwater mode, it worked great!
Our time in the Keys sure flew by for being such a laid back place. Some days we'd go into town and just walk around or visit favorite places, others we'd hang at the marina by the pool. We made many new boating friends who we look forward to seeing again in the future. One crew we hope to catch up to in the Bahamas are Tim & AJ (and Jasper) on OLOH. If you want to see a truly impressive blog be sure to click the link and start from the beginning.
There was still some damage in the Keys from Irma but it had been cleaned up pretty well. The picture below shows a seawall that had remnants of a few boats that didn't survive.
Once we were able to pry ourselves away from the Keys we headed back to Ft Myers to spend a month at the house before heading out again. It's been a busy month with visits from friends and family and has flown by as well. One visit was a surprise from my sister Kathy and niece Jan who flew down for a belated birthday party for Jill.
Another was from My brother Dennis and his girlfriend Linda who wanted to test the waters for a possible snowbird location in the future. Not sure why I look so much taller in this shot?
So.....the "plan" now is to get underway around Sunday and head across the state to get in a position for crossing to the Bahamas. The earliest smooth window looks to be about the 27th but that's a long way off to forecast. Keep an eye on the tracker to see where we are. I'm not sure how much internet we'll have over there but I'll get out a post if I can.
I'll close with a few more shots from the Keys. Thanks again for the nice camera Joe!!
