Oyster eating at it's best!!

What a great time!!! Thank You, Guys!! Trace & Dianne and all the people we met.... Ft Myers Beach RULES!!!

YUMMM!!!!

We can't eat anymore.

WOW!!!!!!! Friday afternoon..at Burp & Slurp!!!

Amazing fun at Mantanzas Inn (aka managers of the mooring field). What a great time and an even better group of people. At 3pm today we went to an absolutely great Happy Hour/Cook-Out party. A seafood lovers delight!!! Thanks to Trace & Dianne we feasted on fresh!!!!! WE mean really fresh oysters and shrimp...........actually you couldn't even call the shrimp, shrimp, 'cuse they were HUGE!!!! :-0 Dick had his oyster shucking lesson and survived without a puncture.

Sunset in Ft Myers

looking out the bridge Gulf-side....................

Ft Myers Beach

The weather is finally getting a bit warmer and we're in Ft Myers Beach. Old grey Hound is need of gas, propane for Mr. Heater and water.......imagine that! So we'll be spending a few days hear to restock and do laundry.

There are all types of cruisers here on all different types of boats..............from the big ones to the small ones.............. Hey Otium does the Precision bring back some memories????

The "Real" Florida!

Cayo Costa is the largest undeveloped island on the west coast of Florida and I think we hiked most of it today!

Right now we are in the northern most part of the tropical zone and as we hiked around the island today we saw, smelled and enjoyed the island for most of the afternoon. The scenery was great, shelling unbelievable and the staff at the island was really helpful. Barry, the island manager went out of his way to make us feel welcome and the rangers couldn't help enough.

We found some great shells and other "fruits of the sea" and will get to work on making them even better........for you, Erika and Katie!!

Here comes the sun!!!!

Time to get the "stuff" out of the floats and .......let's get going!

Oh boy.......where did we get so much STUFF!!?? Where is this spartan concept??

You know it's cold while cruising when.......

• The skippers wife doesn't go beyond the front of the cockpit (which is under to dodger) for days on end!
• The white pelicans start looking like penguins!
• You know the local K-marts propane department's phone number by heart.
• Ospreys are setting up tip-ups for their fish meal of the day.
• No dumb chatting on the radio for days.
• Your heavy socks seem to smell good even after 5 days of constant wear.
• You haven't had a cold beer in days.
• The ice box is in no need of ice.....it's too cold in there already!

AND finally......we are still the only boat in the anchorage!!

Osprey!!

There are a least 4 or 5 nests in the area.......... we never seem to get tired of watching these guys!

Maybe..........

We took a wrong turn!! It's been pretty cold but that's OK, Mr. Heater and the Honda generator are saving the day!!!! We have another cold night ahead of us but we have really good, warm fleece bedding and believe it or not we've not been cold at night yet. Yesterday was raw!!!! Rain, clouds and wind but we are sitting tight!!! Today the sun came out and we were able to read in the cockpit..... Thank you Cooper Canvas!!!!

January 7th........ah, we are off the dock!

It sure takes a lot more time getting this boat ready when it is cold. But we are off and running, yesterday we left the dock and headed out. It is an 8 mile motor to get out of the canal and we held our breath getting out of the lock but by sunset we pulled up to Cayo Costa for a night on the outside and our best sunset of this winter (ok, our first). The next morning we went inside for a secure anchorage for the upcoming northerly that is coming in this weekend. Of course our 24 inch draft helped out nicely and we are sitting in 4 feet of water with sand under our bottom.

Forecast tomorrow..........more cold!! Guess we'll stay put for a day or so.

PS: those are White Pelicans and they are HUGE!!

Unbelieveable, but true!

Talk about wild and crazy. Here we are working away and a couple goes by dinghy after slowing down and keeps looking at us and GH......what????

Anne says "that looks like Elliott and Linda". Guess what??!! It is them!!!!

So.....after 6 years and many miles of who knows what, those guys are still in Charlotte working away on their steel mono-hull!! For many of you, these guys were at the marina when we helped Tom and Linda put Bahama Hunter, F-33, hull #4 (now EPIC, residing in Hawaii) together back in 2004. Elliot and Linda (not their first rodeo) recognized GH as an F-33......they truly were a big part of the ex-Bahama Hunter / EPIC build process. Ian Farrier mentions them in his web site.

It was really great to see them again and they finally have their boat almost ready to go!!

2010 is here and we're on our way!

Ok, we are in Florida and arrived in All American Boat Yard after a night in Annapolis with Amy and Jason and a night in Largo, Fl with Millie & the Chief (kinda sounds like Bennie and the Jets!!??). Does anybody know where the heat is??????

We have sun, we have plenty of work to do with Grey Hound and we have a good place to work; now all we need is something resembling warm weather. The boat yard and the launch are fine and the dock wall have power but no drinkable water. Yes, the attached picture is correct, in that we had frost on GH for two nights in a row!! Yes, we now have a propane and an electric heater on board!! And for the rest of you........we have our socks, hats and jackets on pretty much all the time.

We thought we left this stuff up north.....!

Happy New Year!

Noon today should find us heading down I-81 bound for Annapolis, MD. It will be the first leg of our road trip down to Port Charlotte in order to get Grey Hound into the water to begin our 2010 sailing season in the warm confines of the west coast of Florida.

We are looking forward to getting out of the snow and cold!!!

On the road again..............

Nap'town

We spent this weekend in Annapolis with Amy and Jason before heading back to CNY.......a nice low key weekend.......... It was also great catching up with Mark and Vicky of "Living the Dream".

Here's a picture of the fireplace at Amy and Jason's..........just what the holidays should be!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!!!!!!!!!