Today is a beautiful winter day in Florida. The high will be in the low 80’s and the low will be in the low 60’s. Shorts, T-shirts and flip flops are the recommended clothing. We certainly cannot complain about the weather here. In fact, we aren’t complaining about anything. We’re still at dock at The Marina at Edison Ford and it has been wonderful.
We booked our slip for a month to get the reduced rate, but I doubt we will be here that long. We’re starting to feel barnacles growing under our feet and are getting antsy to start moving again. Yesterday we went to the AGLCA seminar that was our primary reason for coming to Ft. Myers and will have a few more boat chores to finish next week. Then it looks like we will be heading north. We are scheduled to be in Sarasota at Marina Jack on 2/22 for a week while we attend the DeFever Rendezvous, that leaves us a few weeks to sightsee and get prepared for the Bahamas. There are some anchorages that I really want to try out that have been highly recommended and I’m ready to just hang on the hook a while. Tim and I have realized that we have slightly different “ideals”. I love being at anchor and just swallowing up all other nature around us. Tim really enjoys the comforts and security of being at a dock. We’ve come to accept that both have advantages and disadvantages , so we will plan to have a mix of each.
We’ve used this dock time to get several “jobs” done. We rented a car last week and did the mandatory West Marine trips, stocked up on Maggie’s food and treats (extremely important), CVS, Home Depot, and took Tim to the airport for an interview so he could get approved for the Small Vessel Reporting System. The SVRS will make reentry into the US a faster and easier process. We also took a road trip. We drove east along the Caloosahatchee River to Lake Okeechobee. We stopped at a few marinas along the way to help us plan our trip in early March. Since we are right next to the winter homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, we had to take time for a tour of the estates.
We also used this time to complete a few boat jobs. While in St. Pete, Tim bought the stuff to install an under sink water filter (Thanks, Andy) and was able to finally get it installed. We also pulled out my sewing machine and set it up in the V berth so I could make no-see-um screens for our doors and hatches.
