By glbuzz, on April 20th, 2010
As we traveled on Tuesday, we thought that we may have gone back in time. The Nina and the Pinta passed us as we were getting ready to leave the marina. No we weren’t drinking and we really hadn’t traveled back in time. The Niña and Pinta are touring together as a new and enhanced ‘sailing museum’, for the purpose of educating the public and school children on the ‘caravel’, a Portuguese ship used by Columbus and many early explorers to discover the world.
Traveling along the canal, we saw many unusual sites including this camel.  The hubby is sitting beside me as I type this and is musing about how much a camel must cost and better yet, how would you find a vet to care for it if it gets sick. Ahhh… to have money to burn!
As we got to the Moore Haven lock, we caught up the the Nina and the Pinta and we locked though with them. It was neat to  say that we had locked through with the Nina and Pinta but it was kind of nerve-wracking. Lots of folks were out to see the tall ships passing so we felt a LOT of eye s on us too. All went well and soon we were following the Nina out of the lock. Phew!!!
A few more miles through a swampy area, where we saw a lot of different birds, including eagles and ospreys took us to the Clewiston Lock to the Roland Martin Marina, our destination for the evening. The wind was blowing like crazy but we were able to get Misty tied up to the dock for the night . It was another long day for us and we slept well that night, in spite of the wind.
By glbuzz, on April 15th, 2010
We left Gasparilla marina early Monday morning. We waved goodbye to some new friends that we had made and we were on our way. As I  mentioned in an earlier post, we had a captain got with us on the first day of our trip. Mark is from New Zealand and now makes his living diving to clean boat bottoms, captaining and other “stuff”. With his help, we were able to make the first day of our trip a great experience with much less anxiety than we would have had, if we had tried to do it alone. The Franklin Lock was not very difficult to lock through and we did fine.
We discovered that going through a lock was not all that difficult. Here we are starting through. Of course,on this lock, Mark was still with us to drive the boat. From then on in, Steve had to get the boat in place, put the engin es in neutral and then hold the rope so that our boat didn’t swing away from the wall.
We ended the day at Rialto Marina and thank goodness, Mark was there to dock the boat. Docking the boat at that marina was NOT for the faint of heart so thank goodness we had Mark there to put the boat in for us.
Rialto Marina was beautiful and a great place to spend the night.  Didn’t Misty look nice in this setting?
Well, since that was on Monday and this is Thursday, there is obviously more to write about. However, I am finding two things. By the end of the day on the water, I am VERY tired. The other thing is that wifi has really been hard to get so it is more difficult to get post done. I really miss my home computer and wifi setting and before we take this boat out next year, we will be finding the best way to have a more reliable setup.
More tomorrow…IF I have a connection (sigh)…
By glbuzz, on April 11th, 2010
We had hoped to be on the waterway in a couple of weeks after our arrival, heading for new adventures. Alas, we are still here at Gasparilla Marina a month later. Don’t get me wrong—Gasparilla Marina is a wonderful place with lots of friendly, helpful folks. It is just that we arrived here on the 12th and moved onto the boat the next day and we had hoped to be on our way within two weeks. Sigh…
We had prearranged to have some work done on the boat as soon as we arrived down here. We were told that the work would take a week and then they would have us back in the water. We opted to stay onboard even though the boat was “on the hard” (boat speak for out of the water and on the ground). We w ere about twelve feet in the air and our ”amenities” were few (i.e. no running water, a long walk to bathrooms and shower) but we figured we could rough it for a week. The plus side is that we had a birds-eye view of the marina. The not so good side is that the week was closer to two weeks and the work ethics of the folks doing the work left a LOT to be desired, but we won’t even go there. Ugh!! Suffice to say, we would NEVER have any boat work done at Gasparilla Marine Services again (they are NOT (and I repeat NOT) a part of the marina even though they share similar names). The manager is one of the most rude and arrogant people that we have EVER met. My hubby said that he was treated better in basic training ( a very LONG time ago—but he still remembers  ).
Enough of that. The good news is that we are ready to start our trip back. We will leave tomorrow (weather permitting). We will leave here early tomorrow morning and head for the city of Fort Myers where we will start to cross Florida via the Okeechobee Waterway.
Tomorrow night at this time (if the good Lord is willing), we will have passed the first lock on the waterway from this direction (W. P. Franklin Lock). We will stay at Rialto Harbor docks. Hopefully, I will have good wi-fi connection and I will be able to write about our first day on the water.
I will try to write more regularly. The wi-fi here at Gasparilla was my only complaint with the marina. I was only able to get a wi-fi signal sometimes and it never was a very strong signal even though we have spent the last couple of weeks quite close to the building that the wi-fi is in. I understand that it is something that they are going to work to improve.
 If ever you are in this area and looking for a marina, give this one a try. There are ospreys all over (we have counted four pairs from one viewing spot, pelicans, gulls and other birds. We have seen porpoises swimming right behind the boat and also we have seen manatee’s a couple of times. It is near the Boca Grande beach area and the area is delightful. While we didn’t plan to spend so much time here, it is a very nice marina and area.
By glbuzz, on March 10th, 2010
We are off on a new adventure. We left on on the 6th and headed for Pennsylvania for a short visit with family and now we are on the way to Florida to take possesion of our new “toy”.
The new toy is a 42′ motor yacht. Those of you that follow this blog know that we have been looking for a boat for about a year. We found this  one last fall and after some negotiations, we finally finished the deal. The boat is ours!! Her name is going to be “Misty Moose” and we are heading south to start moving her north. If all goes well, we will proably do the Great American Loop but for now we will learn to run the boat and head up to the Carolina’s.
Retirement is great and we are looking forward to our travels. We hope that you will travel with us!
By glbuzz, on March 1st, 2010
It has been a wild and wacky winter for much of the United States. Places that are usually warm were cold and had snow, places that are usually cold and snowy—well, not so much.
Our son and his wife, live in  Maryland, close to Washington DC. I don’t need to tell you that they have had one of the snowiest winters on record. For a while there, every time the TV was on, we would see photo’s of the snow piling up around our nations capital. These kind of storms are really tough because most folks don’t have the snow removing equipment that we have up north. Check out this photo of our son after the second storm that hit the DC area. He didn’t have a plow truck or a snow blower to clear the driveway. He described the shovels that were left in the house by the landlord as about the size of a postage stamp. Brings a smile to my face every time I think of him digging out that much snow with a teeny, tiny shovel. Our daughter-in-law is from Guam and the last place they lived before moving to DC was Hawaii. Talk about a shock to the senses! I’m happy to report that they made it through the storms and just think of the memories that they will have when they grow old. They can talk about surviving one of the worst winters in DC while they rock in their rocking chairs, probably in a warmer place.
We up here in Maine, fall into the latter category. We usually have LOTS of snow and cold but comparing this year to most, I would have to say that the weather here has been almost balmy! Last winter (and most winters up here), we couldn’t see out of the downstairs windows because of deep snow. The plow guy ran out of places to put the snow so the hubby was constantly on the tractor trying to push the snow back further to make room for vehicles to get through the driveway. Oh yeah, did I mention the cold that we had in previous years to go along with that snow?!
This year has been a whole other story. The last time that we had to have our driveway plowed was January 20. Since that time we have only had light amounts of snow that melted without the help of shovels or the plow guy. Some of Maine had more snow than we did but in our area, we had a measly 3″ of snow for the ENTIRE month of February. While the folks down south are getting cold temps, ice and snow in places like Texas, Florida and Alabama—we have had rain and temps in the 40′s during the day for a good part of the month of February. This winter has been a disappointment to the snowmobilers, cross-country skiers, and those that love winter sports but to many of us, this has been a GRAND winter. We just ended February with a rain and wind storm and tons of bare ground and ice melting faster on the lakes than ice fishermen would hope. The annual ice fishing derby on Sebago Lake had to be canceled after seven people and a number of automobiles, ATVs and snowmobiles went through the ice. The day before that a game warden went through the ice on that same lake. Click HERE for the full article in the Bangor Daily News.
On that same weekend at Nicatous Lake (further north from Sebago), this young lady found a sandy beach to tickle her toes while her mom is resting from ice skating. Like the young lady’s dad said when he sent the photo— “Only in Maine”. Thanks to these folks for sharing their photo. We hope that all of you had a great winter no matter where you live. Spring is almost here!!
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The hubby is sitting beside me as I type this and is musing about how much a camel must cost and better yet, how would you find a vet to care for it if it gets sick. Ahhh… to have money to burn! 
say that we had locked through with the Nina and Pinta but it was kind of nerve-wracking. Lots of folks were out to see the tall ships passing so we felt a LOT of eye
s on us too. All went well and soon we were following the Nina out of the lock. Phew!!!
. It was another long day for us and we slept well that night, in spite of the wind.
