We Are Back In Florida But Have No Place To Stay

January 5 through January 16

After spending Christmas and having an enjoyable stay with Pam’s family in Arizona, we returned back to Orlando late January 5th and stayed in a park and fly hotel near the airport. We were expecting friends to come and visit us the first part of January and stay on the boat with us. Since the boat would be on blocks for longer than we had planned we had to come up with another place to stay.  Not knowing what to do, Pam called friends of ours, LuAnn and Jerry Widergren and ask if their condo in Anna Maria Island would be available the first part of January. To our surprise and good fortune, LuAnn told us the condo would be available from January 5 through January 16.  The next day we met up there with our good friends Mike and Sandy Ernsdorff.  We stayed at the condo on Anna Marie Island and thoroughly enjoyed it.  We can’t thank LuAnn and Jerry enough for this great respite.  We now understand why they love this place so much.  It was great!

This was our greeting when we came into the condo. LuAnn’s artwork…

Between January 6 and January 16, Mike and John went back-and-forth every other day from Anna Maria Island down to Owl Creek boat yard, about a 2 hour drive, to work on the boat and check out what the guys were doing on the boat. We had the bottom painted, pulled the shafts, cutlass bearings replaced, dropped the rudders and repacked them, props tuned and balanced and had the engines aligned with the shafts.

Sandy and Pam went with them a couple of times. On one of those times the girls went to a quilt show at the Lee County Civic Center right beside owl Creek and saw some beautiful quilts.

During the time they were with us we went to the beach, ate at some great restaurants, saw movies, went shopping, cooked out at the condo, watched seagulls steal not one, but two sandwiches right out of Mikes hand, and lots of other fun things.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time with Mike and Sandy and know that we are going to miss them so much when they leave. We appreciate them being flexible since they planned on being on the boat with us instead of at a condo. We left the condo on January 16.  We went to the boat at Owl Creek and stayed on it in the well until Monday morning when we started out for Fort Myers. As we started out we heard a noise so we turned around and brought the boat back to Owl Creek.  We slept on the boat in the well that night. On Tuesday they lifted the boat back out and checked some things so we had to stay in a hotel that night. We found a great hotel, a Best Western in North Fort Myers right on the water.

Sunset at the Best Western Hotel

Beautiful sunset and a free breakfast at the IHOP the next morning.  They worked on the boat on Tuesday so on Wednesday morning we got back on the boat and started down to Fort Myers with the Butch the owner of Owl Creek on board. Still a noise on the boat, we decided that it wasn’t hurting the boat so we made the trip down to Fort Myers and plan on dealing with this it later this winter.

As luck would have it, Mark and Becky Mather aboard Mara Beel were in the slip next to us in the Fort Myers City Yacht Basin. We have known them for about 4 years thru Marc and Michele McCoy. It was really great to have friends right next to you. They showed us the ropes (literally), introduced us to many other boaters, taught us the fine art of Docktails, gave advise and just were very supportive.