February 27-28 [wish it was leap year!]

February 27-28

I’m pretty sure I forgot to bog last night... oh, yeah, I did. We were “out”!

We got down to Boynton Beach the day was uneventful, unless you count all if the ridiculously HUGE boats and houses we passed. The amazing thing is: the houses can’t be all that expensive to build. The exterior is cement blocks with coloured parging or stucco. The interiors are wide open and I would think the biggest expense would be the enormous windows. There are no two alike My theory is each town has about 400 plans and you aren’t allowed to build one that looks like your neighbour’s!  The gardens are spectacular and we even passed a mansion with kids toys in the yard. See, if you can afford one of these AND kids, how expensive can they be?? Although we did see a few places where the outdoor furniture cost more than our house!!

Junk that sank They never remove debris?

A fixer-upper

Tanks at a commercial shipyard...neat graphics

Really?

An alien

See the yellow fag? means foreign boat not cleared by immigration yet. My entire family could live on that boat and not be crowded

See, if you leave too close together, they breed!

No idea what this is but its big!

pretty bridges down here

Steve and Nancy on the dock

Boat dock in the park, but the spiders were huge.

We ate on the swing, and it was windy

Cool lawn ornaments

Love the entranceway!!

Hey Jack lets buy this one. It continues down the bock!

Checking the bottom

Checking the anchor

More lawn ornaments

Think the dogs are having fun?

Do you REALLY need to go fishing in a storm?

Scrubbing the bottom

The jerk who was yelling at us. He quit when someone else came on the dock

Storm going past us over land

The boats are another story. I have a theory about that, too. They aren’t paid for: you pay the minimum amount on the loan and have fun with the boat. When you die, they take it back!

As we approached the last bridge yesterday, Steve (Virginia Lee from Lady’s Island) was yelling at us from the dock!! We had to go through the bridge since it was on demand, and we had ‘demanded” it.  We went into the park inlet and docked the boat. There was a guy in there who came over because his mom is Canadian and they own property in Lake of the Woods park area, so he was familiar with Thunder Bay. He wanted to tell us all about it. We had to spin the boat when he finally left. We went back to the bridge where the Two Georges Restaurant was and looked for them but they weren’t there. We sat down and had supper then went back to the boat. It was a really nice night... warm and quiet although we were expecting a thunderstorm.

Feb 28

This morning w went back to see Steve and Nancy. We caught up quickly as they were going shopping with their daughter and we had to get back to the boat to Face-Time with Liz and the kids. We had a good long talk although none of them was particularly interested in conversation. I guess we asked the wrong questions, like... how’s school? What are you doing? [Q]  What’s new? Is it cold there?  Anyway we saw them and they saw us. It was good!

While we were standing there a couple of guys on bikes came by [serious riders...cycling gear, helmets, cleats] and were asking questions about the boat so by the time we actually got away it was noon. We managed to get through 5 or 6 bridges...lost count...and we are now sitting at anchor in Hillsborough Inlet , on the ocean, in a howling gale and bouncing like a cork. There was a marina just past the bridge that we probably should have tried. They have a couple of transients slips [or not, depends which guide you read] but we didn’t.

As we were coming through the bridge and into the anchorage, some guy fishing on the dock starting yelling obscenities at the “stupid Canadians”.  I can’t imagine what set him off, but he kept it up for about a half hour while we were docking and getting stuff organized. I can’t even write some of the ugly things he was saying, but we ignored him... well, I did. Rick is deaf anyway. I was so tempted to flip him the bird, but it seemed to make him even madder that we ignored him, [which was my goal anyway :)] then some other people walked out onto the dock and he stopped. That’s the first time we’ve had anything like that happen and it’s very disappointing.

Anyway, we got the anchor down and then Rick dove on it to make sure it was set. Then he swam around the boat scrubbing off the underwater lights and the depth gauge and speed log. The water here is crystal clear and we can see the bottom. The underwater lights are cool here!

So, going to bed so we can get some sleep before the thunder starts! It may pass us to the north. If it’s a good day tomorrow we might be able to catch C-Soul. If it’s a crappy day we’ll just go slowly down the river.  Maybe Virginia Lee will catch up too!

Yesterday’s and today’s pics... J