City of Ft Myers Yacht Basin ---Feb 2016

Our 35 year old nephew Kyle back in Maine messeged us today asking, “How many miles do you go in a day?” After reading our reply of “50 miles”, he promptly wrote back, “Where will you be in June?” Today is March 4 and we are Lake Okeechobee’s South Bay. Our intention is to be cruising into New York Harbor by early June. After having that conversation, it occurred to us that timing is everything. In our younger years we expected to cover hundreds of miles in a day as we crisscrossed the U.S., Mexico and Canada in our various RV’s. Now we are more than contented to report the gain of 50 miles in the same 7 hour travel day. After all, that’s moving along at our top speed of 7 mph! It may be providential that our 50’s and early 60’s were spent traveling in RV’s and our later 60’s (and beyond, we hope) have been spent in a trawler. As our cruising friend Dottie likes to say, “ The 60’s are your GO years, The 70’s are your SLOW years and the 80’s are your NO years.” At 68 and 69 years old, we have nearly reached the half-way point. We’ll have to see how that all plays out.

We spent this past month as residents of The City Of Fort Myers Yacht Basin located in the beautiful historic downtown. It was delightful! Along with re-uniting with cruising friends from last year’s stay, we also treasure the new friendships created up and down the docks and the mooring fields. It sure did feel strange to be in Oric O’Brien’s winter stomping grounds without him. Dad never failed to steer us down some great out-of-the-way places that he had discovered over the 30 years that he lived in Old Bridge Village in N. Ft. Myers. We visited with his neighbors and closest friends. They sure do miss him as much as we do. February has been Parade Month. The Parade of Dogs was followed by the Parade of Children building up to the much touted Edison Festival of Lights Parade. Our trawler was on C Dock backed up to the parade route so we were front and center for each event.

Larger-than-life iron scuptures, visiting from January- March, meet you face to face up and down the streets near the waterfront. Created by Edgardo Carmona of Cartagena, Columbia, each piece shows delightful details of personality. Most of February was spent preparing SUMMERTIME for our upcoming continuous 7,000 mile Great Circle Tour... upgrading, repairing, replacing and stockpiling of crucial parts. When the reverse gear failed in Ortona Lock on DAY 1 of our expedition, it was heartening to discover that the previous owners Ray and Linda had sent us off with the replacement part that we needed...a spare vibration dampener...genuine Volvo...still in the package. TowBoat US delivered us to the nearby River Forest Yachting Center, recommended by our new Maine friends Tricia and Rob, where the capable staff put us back shipshape. God is so good! It’s been very convenient to have our car with us in Brunswick, GA , Ft. Pierce and Ft. Myers, FL. After about a week of cruising, it takes about 7 hrs to return to where we last stayed (in a rental car) and bring both cars back to the new location. Now our car is tucked away at Wally’s mother’s condo in Largo, FL, awaiting out return next November when we cross our wake in St. Petersburg Harbor and complete the Great Loop. Long-time friends Marian and Billy MacIntosh from Nova Scotia brought us back to Ft. Myers this time. They loved their first look at our fair city.

Florida’s Treasure Coast Fort Pierce City Marina Dec.14, 2015- Jan.18, 2016

Florida’s Treasure Coast Fort Pierce City Marina Dec.14, 2015- Jan.18, 2016 We have come to really feel at home in city marinas. Usually their rate per foot for dockage is less than the nearby private marinas. Rates by the night at all marinas are quite pricey, but by the month they are much more affordable. Yup, the Yankee in us still appreciates a good deal...and the resulting longer-term residents are more down-to-earth and welcoming to the new-comers. About 4pm, a gathering spot begins to fill up and we swap stories, compare notes and enjoy a cold one. After a month shoreside we move on to attractive out-of-the-way creeks and bays, dropping our anchor in a different one every few nights. The downtown waterfront of Ft. Pierce is a center of activities. On Wednesdays and Saturdays it becomes a popular venue for The Green Market, the Farmer’s Market and a showplace for the local artisans. The deep sea charter fishing fleet departs from the city docks each day, taking advantage of the nearby Ft. Pierce Inlet to the Atlantic Ocean. Art abounds in Historic Downtown Ft. Pierce... murals, sculptures, 3-dimensional hand-painted artifacts to name a few. The library features a rotating gallery on its street level. Art Mundo: a Center for Creative Expression provides studio and gallery space for over 40 artists offering art classes to the interested public. North of the City Marina,The W.E. Backus Gallery and Museum celebrates a favorite son who created scenes of real Florida throughout the mid-1900s. He also encouraged local black artists to persevere in creating works of art. Selling their framed oil paintings by the roadside, they became known as The Highwayman. Their iconic scenes are still being offered for sale today. At Christmastime the Park south of the City Marina features holiday music with red, white and green lights wrapped around a multitude of palm trees intricately pulsing to the beat. An added pleasure for us was to connect with Darcy’s hometown classmate Alan and his wife Pat. They are enjoying South Florida on nearby South Hutchinson Island from October to May. Alan referees high school baseball and basketball games in the area. We joined them each Sunday morning at the Reach Church at Archie’s Outdoor Seabreeze Cafe. Pat graciously made us dinner on occasion and then we played music. They are experienced guitar players; we are just beginning with our ukuleles. They taught us a lot about playing with a group. What fun! Crossing the Okeechobee January 18-25 What a difference a day makes! Today was a beautiful cruise along the bottom of Lake Okeechobee and along the Caloosahatchee River to the Franklin Locks just east of Ft Myers, but look at the day before. We started out with “Summertime” being crosswise in the Mayaca Lock....learning experience! The only thing hurt were our egos! We then headed across Lake Okeechobee using the previous evening’s forecast. (Weathermen are the only people in the world that can be consistently wrong and still get paid.) As we headed for the rim route around the lake we were told that there was a bridge that would likely not open due to high winds. We should have locked back through to the relative comfort of the St. Lucie Canal, but decided to move on across the lake with another boat. We soon encountered the wrath of Okeechobee...20-25 knot winds out of the northwest creating short 4 ft waves directly on our beam(side). Boy, did we rock and roll! Very quickly we decided to tack like a sail boat so that the waves no longer hit us broadside...much better, but still not great. 3-1/2 hr later we locked through to Clewiston, famous for the Roland and Mary Ann Martin’s Bass Fishing Resort. When we left our topside steering station and returned below, our salon looked like a bomb had gone off with everything on the floor! Wherever the Army Corps of Engineers operates a lock, it's likely that you'll also find an RV Park and a small marina. Because it's a Federal project, the National Senior Pass is accepted...1/2 price for older Americans...yeah! One of our favorite pastimes is to listen to the lock tender as he prepares the chamber for the eastbound and westbound boats. Channel 13 on the VHF radio lets us hear both the requests to lock through from the boaters and the lock tender's resulting directives...always interesting! We noticed that we boating folks tend to be more chummy than the RVers. We help each other with the lines as boats arrive or depart the docks. If there is a mechanical breakdown amongst us, everybody turns to and lends a hand. We gather at the day's end and swap stories. Meanwhile, the only RVers we come across are the ones walking their dogs. The others are inside their rigs or tucked on the waterside reading a book...no sense of community for them!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

May the blessings of this 2015 Christmas Season be showered on you and yours. We continue to enjoy our Summertime life on the coastal waterways...and our summers at the cabin at the lake in Maine. One of the biggest changes in 2015 was losing one of our strongest supporters when Darcy’s dad passed away at 97 and 3 months. He certainly lived until he died. Well done, Oric O. O’Brien! The other big change was when Erin’s husband Brett accepted a professorship at the University of Maine. By June the Ellis family had bid farewell to their Atlanta life. Erin and Brett teamed up to carry out a major home renovation in Orono, Maine while Emily, Bailey and Cupcake bonded with Nan and Pop at the lake. Settled into their new home, they are really enjoying the rhythm of life in their new community. We continued our 15 year tradition of joining the Ellis family for Thanksgiving. Those two weeks were filled with festive family events. We woke up one morning to a world of white with temps in the 20’s! As Christmas approaches, we have moved our trawler from Georgia to South Florida where the climate is more tropical. Our future plans are to spend the summer of 2016 exploring the Erie Canal and cruising Lake Champlain as we progress along on The Great Loop Tour. We invite you to follow us on our blog: wallyanddarcy.blogspot.com Our cell phone continues to be 828-231-5025 as well as our email: wallyanddarcy@gmail.com Love, Darcy and Wally