Our friend Carole back in Maine reminds us that she has her map ready to go... bless her heart! It is time to add a sequence to our blog.
It’s been a week since we boarded a plane in Maine and landed in Florida. Our 7 week- stay with our daughter and family led up to Thanksgiving and carried us through Christmas. That was a long time for a young family with a schedule to put up with Nan and Pop who haven’t had a schedule in years. We tried to put our daily “home alone time” to good use! Throughout our extended stay there were so many times for which we are grateful. Thank you Ellis Family!!
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| We had a surprise tea party! |
Allegiant Airline and Enterprise Car Rental Service made our early November travel from Alabama to Maine very pleasant. Providing air service from cold places to warm places and back again, Allegiant flew us non-stop from Clearwater/St. Pete, FL to Bangor, ME... 3 1/2 hours. We drove 7 hours from Fairhope/Daphne, AL to get the Allegiant flight. Wally’s mother has owned a condo for more than 30 years in the Clearwater area. It was about to “go on the market” in November so we arrived in time to make sure it was in good shape; then we caught up with friends in the condo complex and visited with them for a few day before flying north. By the time we returned in late December, the condo was “under contract”. We celebrated New Year’s Eve with our friends around the condo pool. Our 7 hour drive back to the boat in Fairhope, AL put us on the highway on New Year’s Day... traffic was quite light for I-10.
Wind and 4-6 inches of torrential rain had hammered the Alabama coast on New Year’s Eve day. SUMMERTIME looked a bit bedraggled with one springline broken, our swim platform ladder bent and our dinghy on the upper deck filled with rainwater since it’s cover had been partially blown off. We had a dry New Year’s Day afternoon to whip the boat into shape before the thunderstorms resumed on Jan. 2. Our boat’s damage was minimal compared to the myriad of canvas bimini tops and enclosures on other boats that were severely ripped during the storm. We learned that another notable windstorm had trounced this area about a month before. We count our blessings that SUMMERTIME was spared serious damage over the two months that we were gone.
On Jan. 2 we reprovisioned the boat and delivered the rental car to the nearest Enterprise office. A one-way rental incurs a penalty fee. Our’s was $160.00 or so, but it was much more cost effective than the flights we could find from nearby Mobile, AL or Pensacola, FL. Those airlines were super-expensive and all of them made it necessary to catch two connecting flights... with winter weather hang-ups becoming a sure thing in late December. We always try to avoid that!
This leg of our trip is rather “weather-window driven”... we need to make an overnight crossing from Carrabelle to Tarpon Springs, FL. After we cruised from Fairhope to Orange Beach, AL, we got acquainted with folks that have just made the trip on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway from Houson, TX. They have been on their boat for barely 5 weeks. They have many experiences ahead of them! When we connected again in Pensacola, they joined us on our boat for a dinner of comfort food... meat loaf, baked potatoes, roasted winter veggies and homemade apple pie served up with a slice of sharp cheddar cheese... Maine style. Yum! In our RVing days, we enjoyed the Pensacola Naval Air Station Museum, but due to wall-to-wall high-rise condos and hotels, we could find little access to the water. This trip it’s all about views from the water. After 5,500 miles of cute shops and fried fish sandwiches, we are giving beach towns a “slick and a promise” kind of visit.
What’s ahead? Destin, Panama City, Port St. Joe, Apalachicola... then Carrabelle. We have 4 more travel days to get staged for the crossing. Eddy’s Weather Wag site on the AGLCA Forum recommended a crossing today at 3 pm. His predictions are known to be very reliable. We hope he will recommend another crossing for next Thursday, Jan. 12. Based on wind forecasts that we follow, it looks promising right now. The weather predictions today say that tomorrow will bring rain with a potential for sleet! Aargh!! The temperature has already dropped from 70 to 48 degrees and is due to fall into the low 30’s by tomorrow. When we walked our granddaughters to school in the early morning hours in Maine we had freezing conditions. We also had snow pants, parkas, heavy boots, scarves, hats, and mittens. Our layers on the boat are not quite as substantial!!
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