Look at the heavy morning dew! You never see anything like that in the desert.
Tuesday was our last day at the resort before heading out on our boat. Monday had been a lot of work, and we envisioned a more relaxing day for Tuesday, hanging out enjoying the resort. We were wrong!
Here’s what the top of the boat looks like where the mast attaches:
This is the plate at the bottom of the mast that attaches to the top of the boat. It’s not supposed to be all bent!
John had to removed it, pound it flat, and reattach it. It looked to me like it would just unscrew, but nope. He had to go to the hardware store, buy a drill and new rivets. He then had to drill out the old rivets in order to get the plate removed. He then banged on it with a hammer for some time out in the parking lot, using our trailer as a surface, until it was sufficiently flat. He then re-riveted it to the mast. It took him all morning, but he got it fixed.
Here’s where I spent most of Monday and Tuesday, sitting at a table in front of our hotel room, with a view of the water in the distance. Here I wrote blog posts, talked on the phone and video with my friends, and caught up with emails.
I also did some coaching on Monday and Tuesday evenings, but I took those calls inside.
On Monday and Tuesday I was thinking about what overall story I am telling on my blog about this trip. It has been a varied trip so far, with amazing parts and challenging parts. What perspective am I taking? I value authenticity, but what is authentic? I could make this trip sound terrible, or I could make it sound wonderful, and be completely truthful either way. How do I want to portray my trip? For that matter, how do I want to portray my life?
It occurred to me that the stories I tell about my life not only influence other people’s opinion of me and my life, but they also influence my own opinion about my life. So should I always keep it positive? No, I don’t think so. I could post gorgeous pictures and tell everyone (and myself) how amazing Florida is, but maybe John and I would actually rather be quietly riding our bikes at home? That’s not as fantastic of a story, but is having a fantastic story the goal?
What if John and end up coming out to Florida every year, imagining that’s what we enjoy doing – but we don’t actually enjoy it during the process of doing it? What if we’ve just convinced ourselves that we enjoyed it because it sounds cool and we get beautiful pictures? On the other hand, maybe that long, long drive was worth a blissful kayak trip or two? Or maybe it doesn’t matter whether we enjoyed this trip at the time, because we will get a lot of future satisfaction out of knowing that yes, we went to Florida and sailed around in a tiny boat?
I decided I would like to portray this trip in a reasonably non-judgmental way. By that I mean I want to stop one step short of declaring things good/bad/wonderful/terrible. I will simply describe the trip in a reasonably authentic manner and you can see what you think.
Is this a wonderful trip or a terrible trip? Interesting or maybe not interesting at all? Worth it or not? I’m going to leave those evaluations to you. Some of you would find this trip a nightmare, others would love to come along.
Stay tuned because I believe it’s going to get more interesting here very soon!
On Monday we went kayaking. The water is beautiful! I took dozens of photos. It’s extremely shallow, so the water varies in color from place to place, depending on what’s down below.
Lol, I could not seem to take enough pictures of the water! Instead of paddling, I was just leaned over hoping to not drop my phone (or my paddle) in the water. We have floaters on our paddles for just such an occurrence (see blue thing in picture above), but in this case the water is only a couple of feet deep.
On our way back we came upon a couple of women and their small child enjoying the water next to the cement ruins of an old dock, in front of a recently-rebuilt house. They pointed out something large and white floating in the water and asked us what it was. It was too far out for them to reach it and they had become mesmerized by it! What in the world was it?!?
We paddled out to investigate. As we got closer, it looked like a floating duffle bag. Maybe a canvas bag full of lifejackets or other lightweight boating equipment? Then we thought it was an errant boat cushion. Turns out it was a marine beanbag, in pristine condition. I have never heard of such a thing, but the tag said “marine beanbag” right on it, so that’s how we knew! It must have blown off of a large, fancy yacht. Boats the size of ours have no room for marine beanbags, lol!
We towed the beanbag back to the women and it was the perfect size for their kid. I didn’t think to take a photo until we were too far away, but you can imagine, a couple of happy women standing chest-deep in the water, with their little child floating on a big fancy white marine beanbag 🙂
We spent the afternoon discussing our route. We are just north of the highway on Little Torch Key. The numbers in the water on the chart indicate depth, in feet.
Most decent sized boats need several feet of water at least. We have a retractable keel, and when it’s pulled up, we only draft 8 inches (would run aground in less than 8 inches). We need more than that to actually sail, because we need the keel down to keep the boat from heeling over too far under sail (to balance the pressure of the wind in the sail), but we can motor along slowly in a foot of water with the sails down.
The “correct” thing to do from where we are docked at the resort is to lower our mast and motor south, under the highway bridge, and then raise our mast and sail southwest and then south to the deep waters south of the highway, where all the rest of the boats go.
What John wants to do instead is go north, where no one except a few kayakers go. We run the risk of running aground. Look at those shallow depths! One foot, two foot, three foot, or yikes, only half a foot! That’s where we run aground, at half a foot. Well, we can’t say we weren’t warned. We can’t really sail up there because there’s no room for the keel, and even if we stick to the narrow channels, we don’t have enough sideways room to tack. John just wants to motor out a few miles and anchor, and use the sailboat as home base (like a mini houseboat) while we spend our days kayaking around. I think he’s more of a kayaker and fisherman than a sailor.
Well, I can’t talk, I’m not particularly interested in the sailing part of sailing either. Although I much prefer riding under sail than motoring. Outboard motors are obnoxiously loud and spew fumes and chew through the gas at a wasteful and alarming rate. Also while motoring you catch a lot of wind in your face and you beat across the waves. Sailing is so much more civilized. You are going with the wind, so you don’t feel it. The boat glides silently along. It’s very graceful and relaxing, as long as you don’t mind being heeled over (the boat does not sail level, it lists sideways against the push on the sail; that’s normal and to be expected).
In my opinion, we should have launched the boat from the state park on Bahia Honda Key (middle-bottom of this photo), and sailed north into this area that has somewhat better depth, so we could actually sail around without running aground (but it’s still remote with no one out there).
However, it turns out I would have been wrong! Turns out it’s a good damn thing we had the boat in a slip, handy by our resort for a couple of days rather than trying to launch it immediately from a state park and sailing off. More about that next post!
Here’s a couple of evening pictures John took while I was inside coaching my clients (via phone). I know I don’t have to coach while on vacation but we’re going to be gone a month and I didn’t want to drop all my clients. I just have a few of them and I’ve scheduled them for evenings while we’re at the resort, so it doesn’t interfere with our daytime activities. Being in eastern time zone helps. I typically schedule my clients, who are from all different time zones, for the end of the afternoons in mountain time, so their sessions automatically became early evening sessions. I’m only coaching Monday and Tuesday evening this week.
Ok, here’s John’s pictures. Yep, yikes, a snake. Nope, I don’t know what kind. I only know southwest desert snakes.
After a week on the road, we’ve finally arrived at our vacation rental where we will stage for the big adventure part of the vacation – the actual sailboat trip!
Ours is the end unit in this 4-unit building.
It’s an older style resort where each room has it’s own windows and door to the outside, and its own little wall heating/cooling unit that vents outside. That is, it’s not sharing a huge building-wide HVAC system with all the other rooms. There’s no ductwork and we don’t air-share with any other rooms. When we arrived we aired it out for an hour or two (all windows open and a fan on) while we messed around outside getting our boat unloaded. We felt it was covid-safe to occupy our room after that.
I spend most of our down time sitting at a little plastic table on the deck. This is my view. The temperatures are mostly in the 70’s going up to the low 80’s.
Here’s a map of the resort. You’re like, “Kristina, why are you posting that?” Well, I like maps, and maybe one of you does too, who knows. Someone might! We are in the room called “Gull” and our boat is in slip “C”. (This is your “Where’s Waldo” puzzle for the day.)
We had a bit of a time getting the boat off the trailer. John had installed a new anchor mount on the bow and it somehow got wedged against the trailer bar when the boat first started to float off the trailer. We had to winch it up and try again, but we got it in. You can see the narrow little boat ramp in the background. Phew, the boat is now safely in the water where it belongs!
The first day we wore our masks when outside walking around the resort, but then we quit by the second day. It seems like only a few of the “just-arrived” tourists wear theirs. I wonder if it’s because it starts feeling like “home” rather than a public space? I’m not going anywhere near the swimming pool though! I’ve got my own pool back home.
Speaking of posting pictures no one wants to see, here’s John fixing the toilet when we first arrived. It kept running, which was annoying, listening to it turn itself off and on all the time. I’m easily annoyed and John’s very handy, so we are always fixing things. (Thanks, John!)
It’s not exactly a fancy place, but we are quite happy here.
OOOPS! Here’s me at the end of the day. Yikes, I look awful! (My friend who recommended I post more selfies is really regretting that now I’m sure!)
I have no idea how I got so sunburned that first day. I didn’t do anything in the sun other than help guide the boat off the trailer and into its slip. I didn’t do any sunbathing and wasn’t out on the water. And it’s not like I’m coming from spending all winter on a couch in Michigan or somewhere! I’m outside in the sun in Tucson all the time! Turns out the burn it wasn’t as bad as it looks, and I’m being more careful now.
Also on our first day here we walked to get some take-out from a nearby restaurant. It was our first (and so far only) restaurant food on this trip. Unfortunately the food was absolutely terrible. The only thing recommending that restaurant was it was within walking distance. And it had a cool vehicle out front. Stickers!
The key lime pie looked good but unfortunately didn’t taste like anything except sugar. There was no lime bite at all. Good thing we only got one slice. It still took us 2 days to finish it. Two people! Two people two days to finish ONE slice of pie. Ugh.
We’ve since gone back to happily eating the food we brought from home. There’s a mini-fridge in the hotel room and a microwave in our van. We make it work 🙂
Here’s some pictures from our walk to the restaurant:
It’s common to see houses on stilts, with vehicle storage under them.
I asked John about that, because a lot of the bigger, newer boats (not ours) cost more than it would cost to refurbish a flooded house. Why would they put their most expensive possession in harms way, and elevate their lamps and couches and things? John says when the hurricanes come, it’s a mad rush traffic jam to tow the boats inland. Doesn’t sound fun to me.
There’s lots of evidence of past hurricanes. It’s a real jumble of new construction and remnants in disrepair, such as this less-than-flattering view of a section of our resort:
There’s also falling down buildings, abandoned rusty boats, trash heaps – it’s a real mix out here. We’re about 2/3 of the way down the keys – I’m sure it’s different out in Key West.
I promised more selfies, so here we are. This is what happens when I sleep in a van in the Florida humidity. My hair goes bonker-wonkers. I wasn’t originally going to actually post this picture, but heck, why not. Good morning sunshine.
You’re going to have to take my word for it that there was an amazing bright red bird at our campsite. See that red spot on a branch? Yep, it was a very cool bird.
I was busily trying to take a picture of a frog when some guy bicycled by with a camera on a stick. The first time he went by I had my head under the van (that’s the direction the frog went). When the guy came back again a minute later (and I still didn’t have a picture of my frog), I had a flash of sudden grumpiness and took a picture of the guy instead. Fine, if he’s going to put me on his youtube channel, I’m going to put him in my blog.
He was narrating something as he pointed his camera right at me. I don’t know what. Probably something like, “What is that crazy lady doing hopping around like that?”
This isn’t exactly a boating post, but pet care while away from home is an important part of vacation considerations!
Sorry to worry you the other day when I got distressing news from Sandy about Kai, and I was feeling completely helpless – busy dragging a boat behind a van out here in Florida. Turns out, Kai is fine. Apparently he was just being a little tyrant and needed a few time-outs!
He always did think he should be running the show. The only reason he’s been so well behaved all these years is I’ve always made sure it was in his best interest to behave. A lot of dogs are genuine people-pleasers, but Kai has always been like, “What’s in it for me?”
We’re going to have to swing north to Albuquerque on our drive back from Florida to pick him up from Sandy. Then we’ll hang onto him in Tucson until we can get him to Serenity at some point.
Sandy just posted this on facebook; she’s got his ears clipped up out of the way while feeding him canned pumpkin, lol.
Poor guy’s going to have a rude awakening when his diet goes back to dog food only. Three more weeks of vacation Kai, and then it’s going to be time to go home – back to the daily grind. So live it up while you can 😉
This was the second trail we took, the Gumbo Limbo.
I really liked the different colors of tree bark.
The Gumbo Limbo tree has rust orange bark.
Loved the striped bark of this palm tree.
Alligator!
This one was moving!
Earlier in the hike we had come up behind this family too quietly, and accidentally scared the little boy. He turned and looked up at me and screamed! So much for my ego. I was happy to be able to point out the alligator to him a few minutes later – they were very excited to see it. That alligator – now that’s a scary mug!
On the left side of this picture are several branches with epiphytes.
I don’t even remember what the rest of the Gumbo Limbo tree looks like, I was so taken with the orange trunk.
This is the first day we haven’t spent most of the day driving. It feels like the first real day of vacation! It started out rainy, but I didn’t even mind. First of all, it was hot. Rarely in my life have I experienced true warm rain. In the southwest desert it can rain on hot August days, but the rain itself is not warm. I’m cold-blooded too, so for me to feel warm – while it is raining – it has to really be warm! It definitely feels warmer here than in Tucson.
I can’t even tell you how glad I am to be off the dang freeway. So what if it’s raining? At least we’re not hurtling along at insane speeds for hours at a time. I actually don’t mind sitting in the car reading, or writing, or looking out the window, or taking my turn driving. It all seems fine to the thinking part of my mind. It’s my subconscious that gets all freaked out about it. After awhile I’m just emotionally shot.
I’m finding it relaxing to hang out inside the van with the door open, watching it rain. I took this picture through the mosquito netting across the doorway.
We decided to cook a little while waiting for the rain to quit.
We have a hot plate and a microwave, but had not been doing very much cooking so far on the trip, mainly because we’ve been driving so many hours each day. I’m getting tired of dried fruit, bread and cheese.
After lunch we walked to a local lake.
Then we drove a short distance to a few trails. I took tons of pictures, so I’m going to write separate posts about each of the trails.
On the way to the trails I took a picture of a sign I’ve never seen before. What is that warning us about? Panther? I’d love to see one of those! (From a distance. In the daylight.)
Here’s today’s selfie:
And John:
But you don’t want to see more pictures of us. Today’s goal – to see an alligator! Stay tuned…
After our quick overnight stop at the very pretty Lake Griffin State Park in northern Florida on Thursday, we are now on the road for our final day of driving. We never saw the lake itself, turns out it was quite far from the campground, accessible by kayak but not by trail. But that was fine, we were pleased with the hanging moss and all the lush scenery that we aren’t used to seeing.
I’m hesitant to post this first picture because of what it stands for. It is nearly impossible for me to fathom that not all that long ago people (many in the north as well as the south) thought it was somehow ok to own and enslave other people. It’s just incomprehensible.
I do think that southerners should rightly be proud of the south. It’s an amazing place, with incredible plants and animals, architecture, food, music…so much to be proud of! Even the history of the south has a lot that we can be proud of, but unfortunately that flag isn’t one of them.
As we head south, it’s getting steadily warmer. The southern sections of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were surprisingly cold and brown as we went through. In Florida it’s so much greener. I actually don’t understand why northern Florida is so much greener than southern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama because they are at the same latitude. Of course the difference is even more dramatic now that we’re heading south instead of east.
These pictures were all taken out the window of a van going 70 mph, plus I had a lot of reflection in the window, so please forgive the poor quality.
We drove all day and near dusk we arrived at our next stop, Long Pine Key in the Everglades. We booked two nights here, which means a day off. Finally a day off of the freeways! I’m realizing that I’m not very good at spending days on end on the freeway. It completely rattles my nerves. I was in such need of a day off the freeway!
Since we were staying two nights, we went ahead and unhooked the boat.
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