Loading the boat 11.22.11

It has been a busy last few months. The work on the camper/hauler is almost finished.  The living quarters have been completed but for a little trim.  All the cabinets, the converter (dark thing between cupboards) as well as, the windows are all from the old camper.

The bed is folded up against the front wall…you can see the hinges.  It was very comfortable. We bought a memory foam mattress for a hide a bed. We were impressed with how well we slept.

The bathroom is from the old camper. Jim painted the tub and seat to match. I love the blue.

We do have to rough it abit.  The sink is fold down….must fill it then dump it in the tub. It lifts right out…..just a stainless dog bowl.  But it does work well.

We only spent 4 nights in it…but so far it will do the job.

The kitchen and all the windows are from the old camper. The fridge came with the car hauler.

So……now we are concentrating on cleaning and loading the boat. I have all the bedding aboard…food stuffs go in Thurs am.  Friday we will launch…hopeing that everyone will be out shopping….after all…it is Black Friday.

We’ll be heading N on the St Johns River, FL. Larry and Diane of “A Dollar More”  Albin 27, are already on the river. They trailered down from OK.  We would have met them sooner but went to a carshow/ swapmeet in Moultrie, GA in our new “camper/hauler”. Just had to road test it and try out everything we’d done to see what needed more work. Right now…it seems good the way it is.

But……..no matter how comfortable it is…..it is still land bound….I can’t wait to get aboard Slow Motion and start cruising. There’s a bunch of big gators just waiting to have their pictures taken.

Looks like a short postpone….

Jim is doing really well on getting the camper/hauler in shape. Installed the on demand water heater today. Don’t have to worry about scalding yourself but it will do. It sure isn’t as nice as the heater aboard Slow Motion.

We are going to a carshow/swapmeet in Moultrie, GA the weekend of Nov 18,19,20.  We should be home and unloading the camper and loading the boat by the 21st.  Then we’ll head  to the West Coast of FL to meet Larry and Diane and their boat  “A Dollar More”.

If Jim’s brother, Carl, is available we’ll pick him up and have him take the truck and trailer back to his house. That way we wont have to worry about it and we can cruise back to Sanford via the ICW and the St Johns River.

 

Getting ready for an Oct cruise near Pensacola, FL

Larry and Diane have spent a lot of time getting their boat, “A Dollar More”', ready to tow from OK to Pensacola, FL. We are to meet them there late Oct.

Jim has been busy on the camper/hauler (car hauler made into a camper and car hauler) made with parts from our old camper. It was literally falling apart.

I’ve cleaned most of the interior of the boat, checked for charts and charts for the chart plotter. Just ordered a GPS for my computer so I can use Offshore Navigator Lite as a backup, if necessary.

We are having perfect boating weather…cool nights…warm days. I’ve even had a small fire in the woodstove early in the morning to enjoy my coffee by.

Most of the Monarch and Queen butterflies will have emerged and if not the “Butterfly House” can be put on the back porch with the door open so they can fly away when ready.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Oh yeah…..the truck is hooked up to the wrong vehicle.

Check back at the end of the month to see if we made it to the water.

Boat cleaning time

We spent 5 weeks on the road…..NY, VT, TN and home. We were hustling back to get things squared away before Hurricane Irene hit….

Unfortunately Brattleboro, VT ..where my kids and grandkids live got hit pretty bad with flooding from the storm. Everyone is OK…just hard to get around with so much water and road problems.

My Dad in NY fared very well. His power never went out…all our friends in surrounding towns lost theirs.  He’s 90 and on oxygen, so someone was definitely looking out for him.

Now that we are home….and lawn is mowed, a few weeds pulled and caterpillars gathered for the Butterfly House (  www.wildlifearoundus.blogspot.com  ) and Jim is working on the car hauler/camper…. I am going to be working on removing all the mold that has accumulated in the cockpit. The V berth and sleeper are fine…just need some wiping down and spraying for spiders. Nothing like having one of those big “housekeeper” spiders run across the ceiling in a confined space.

Hope to have some tales from the water before much longer. Larry and Diane  (A Dollar More) are planning a trip at the end of October and want us to meet and cruise with them. Lets hope it is a go.

Until then…smooth cruising.

Monday…July 4th

We are meeting Carl at Lake Monroe Park, Debary, FL  where we leave our truck and trailer. It is a busy place today. Even more boats on the water.

On our way there we spotted all these boats nosed up to the shoreline.

I wasn’t able to get them all in the picture.  Normally we only see a few boats here…but the river is low and there is more beach exposed.

Everyone is out today…water skiers…jet skiers….fast boats…slow boats (us) and everything in between. Lots of big houseboats. Most will be anchored in the lake tonight for the fireworks.

We anchored and Jim and Carl took the dingy ashore to pick up a pizza for supper.  Boats coming and going all around us.

As the sun was setting the "River Queen” was heading out for it’s dinner cruise.

They had a big crowd aboard.

One of the nice things about watching the fireworks on Lake Monroe in Sanford, FL is the ability to watch all the fireworks in the towns around the lake.  I counted at least 20 different ones. We couldn’t hear the explosions but some of them on the opposite side were beautiful. Next year we’ll anchor in the middle and get to see them all.

Once the fireworks were over we took Carl back to the dock…dropped him off….took the trash to the dumpster, then  headed back to the anchorage by G109. Butcher’s Bend.

It was a fun evening. Glad we made a plan change so Carl could join us.

Sunday…..

Now I know why we didn’t see many boats yesterday…..they all waited until today!!!

It was wonderful….boats of all kinds and sizes.

We don’t usually see much wildlife when there are so many boats on the water but did manage to find a gator sunning itself on one of the side creeks.

Most of the gators we’ve seen…and there have been many….have been in the water. The river is so warm I guess there is no need to sit in the sun. There were lots of Painted turtles.

We decided to anchor for the night behind Hontoon Island. We followed the river back always and find a nice spot near some very tall pine trees on the west side. It was very hot today and we’ll be able to get shade a lot earlier.

BIG MISTAKE!!!    We did get shade earlier than if we’d been someplace else….but forgot that the bugs are worse near the land.  The “no see-ums” were terrible.  We dusted down with baby powder …and that helped…but just before dark we decided to haul anchor and find another spot.  We ended up anchoring on the bend in the river that is near Lake Beresford.  We’ll anchor here again. We didn’t really have a breeze but there was air movement….and no bugs!!!.

Saturday….

We didn’t see many boats on the water yesterday. There were a few more today but not as many as we had expected for a big weekend.

As we were getting underway we spotted a deer swimming across the river. This was within a few hundred feet of where Jim had spotted the big gator. 3 guys on Jet Skis saw it and hung out with us to see if it made it to safety….It did!!   We were amazed because it was in a wide part of the river and we knew about the big gator….perhaps all the action with us and the 3 jet skis kept the gator away.

We don’t meet Jim’s brother, Carl, until Monday so we can take our time on our way back to Lake Monroe.

Our anchorage for the night is on the opposite side of the river of the Highland Park Canal at marker R36. It’s a wide part of the “jug handle” off the river and we’ll get a nice breeze while watching the boats go by.

It also has a nice piece of high ground for walking Raisin. We take her ashore whenever we can find a good spot…but she is trained to use a carpet on the foredeck…so there are no more trips ashore after dark (gator feeding time).   It is much nicer this way….and safer. We had an incident with her a few years ago….it was long after dark….and we were tied up near the lock on the E side of Lake Okeechobee, FL, waiting for good weather for the crossing. On our way ashore we had to row thru some water plants that evidently looked like grass to Raisin and she jumped overboard.  Very scary…luckily I was able to grab her before she could swim very far as she was headed away from us and the weeds were very thick. We decided then that she needed to be trained to the deck. The next morning we spotted a big gator swimming in that area.

It was a nice afternoon and evening on the water.