Update for 8/24/09 to 9/19/09

On August 31st, we moved from Redington Shores to Gulfport to get ready to go into the marina there so that we could leave the boat to fly up to Connecticut. When we pulled into the anchorage off the town of Gulfport we saw Blue Skies, a boat we recognized, anchored there. We had met Margie and Alex last year down in Cape Coral and it was good to see them again and catch up on what they had been doing for the past year.

On September 2nd we went into the Gulfport Municipal Marina and spent the next day getting the boat prepared to leave it. We needed to get her ready to handle a tropical storm if one hit while we were away so everything was secured and lashed, lines doubled up, etc. We had chosen this marina because it is the most protected in this area of Florida and we wanted Enchantress to be as safe as possible from a hurricane while we were not there to protect her. There was even a live webcam that you could use on the internet to keep an eye on her while we were in Connecticut. You could zoom in so close you could almost see into the windows of our boat!!

I guess we must be fun to watch in a marina since we are always anchored out or on a mooring (permanent anchor with a mooring ball) and rarely go into a marina. It had been 13 months since we had stayed at a dock!! We just couldn't get used to having electricity to plug into! When Linda wanted to use her hot rollers for her hair or we wanted to turn on the TV, I would head out to the cockpit to start the generator and then remember we were plugged into the shore power! Once I looked out the main hatch doors and caught a glimpse of a large sailboat right behind us at the dock and I was startled thinking it was WAY TOO close, then remembered it was tied up to the dock right behind us. If we see a boat that close while anchored it means either they or we have dragged our anchor and are about to hit each other! We also had trouble sleeping because the boat was not rocking!

On the 4th, Linda's stepsister picked us up and took us to the airport for our flight up to Connecticut. The day after we arrived we went with Amy, Mark, Olivia and Laura to Mystic Seaport Maritime Museum. It is a recreation of a 19th century whaling seaport and town with old (one whaling ship is over 160 years old!) ships and boats. It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time. We toured the ships, learned a lot about whaling and history, etc.

Below are some photos of our trip to Mystic Seaport:









Laura's birthday party was the next day, a magician theme complete with a professional magician who came to the house, and all the kids wore the magician capes that Linda had made, black top hats and magic wands. It was a great party and the magician was very funny, just right for a group of 5 year olds. Laura is growing up fast!

Here are the kids watching the magician:



And a photo of Linda, Kathy and Amy in the T-shirts Linda made for them for the party:



We went "geocaching" (treasure hunting with a GPS) on Labor Day and unfortunately while we were in the woods Olivia fell off a rock and cut her leg. Mark and Amy took her to the children's hospital where they waited 5 hours for her to get treated and she got 7 stitches in her leg! It was good that I, Papa, was at home with Linda taking care of Laura instead of being at the hospital as I am afraid I would have been arrested for threatening the doctors long before waiting the 5 hours to get her treated!!!! :-( Anyway, it has healed now and the stictches are out.

The girls started school on the day after Labor Day. Laura started kindergarten and Olivia is now in the second grade. We watched them go off to school on the bus together, amazed at how fast the time is going and how fast they are growing up!!

We had a great time and on September 13th we flew back to Florida. Enchantress was fine, waiting patiently for us, tugging at her lines ready to get out of there and go sailing again! Apparently there had been a very heavy rainstorm while we were away because Little One, our dinghy, was about drowned, almost entirely full of water!! We spent the next day getting everything back in order on the boat so that we could escape from the marina and get back to being anchored out!! We sailed out Pass-A-Grille inlet into the Gulf and sailed down to Anna Maria Island (our "home" anchorage).

We are now waiting until Tuesday, Sept. 22nd, to go into a boatyard for a few days to have Enchantress hauled out and have the bottom repainted with anti-fouling paint (it has been two and a half years since it was last done). When we get back in the water after the work is done, we will begin moving south back towards the Keys. We should arrive there in October sometime. If the Okeechobee Waterway is open (work on the locks is delaying the opening), we will cross the state on the waterway from Fort Myers on the west coast to Stuart on the east coast and then down the east coast to Miami and on to the Keys. The Okeechobee Waterway is about 150 miles long and is a series of rivers, canals and Lake Okeechobee (that really big "hole" in the center of southern Florida that you have all seen on maps). It has a number of locks since Lake Okeechobee is higher than sea level. We have never been through locks and want to do something different.

Will update the blog again as we start moving south again.