Short on words.....

Let's go short on words and long on photos, shall we??  Yup that's what it's going to be because after the last two weeks working in 90+ heat and 100+ humidity with NO air conditioning........the words might be a little too graphic..

The "storage shed" formerly 'the bridge'

The dish washing station

Boat yard camaraderie moving Jerry's work tent to the far end of the yard

The "beauty parlor"....( term used very loosely)  more like the scalpers chair

Then there is my (almost finished galley)....I am totally thrilled it is gorgeous, and if "mama's happy" every body's happy right?? 

The captain likes this decorating idea, very convenient.  Unfortunately they don't last long in this heat.

and our new 12 volt galley lights so that I will have light to do dishes when on the hook.  It got expensive tossing them overboard!!

  

one of our three Florida afternoon thunderstorms last week....we could say that we lived in a "gated, lakefront community!!

Remember how we damaged our props last spring in South Carolina?  Well we had them repaired in Michigan and here he is painting over all that Brass Beauty!!!  Evidently the zinc paint helps keep them free of barnacles, or so we hope.

We changed the bottom paint and no it is NOT black....just a VERY dark blue.  At least it goes better with the gray props!

Because I'm always behind the camera I know you all think I don't do any work, but here is the proof!  I still have mad skills climbing a ladder and waxing a boat.  All those years working at Merrill Marine are still paying off.

Although I will say  " It is NOT as easy as it was 20 years ago by any stretch of the imagination..

 
 So.....today was the day....LAUNCH 2014!!  
I think the bottom paint looks great!  It WAS my idea  :-)

 and she went Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Gary was saying hello once again to "Bessie and Bertha"  his affectionate names for "his girls"

Looks fierce and it was a whopper!   at least 3 feet....just a baby folks. cute as could be but all the sad pleading eyes in the world would not convince us that we need a "boat alligator" aboard.  Bob would be ticked!

 

We plan to leave tomorrow after taking our grand kids for their first boat ride.... we have been looking forward to that for a long time.  Stay tuned..................

Here We Go Again!

Sorry to leave you all wondering (short lived I'm sure, ha)...... anyway....we are still alive and well. We left the boat in the storage yard, mid January.  In the past five months  ( Oh my, how time does fly) we have been in Michigan where we saw minus 25 degree temperatures and lots and lots of snow!

  

Then a few days in Florida before we headed to daughter Dorian's in Denver the end of Marchhe, where we visited the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and the Garden of the Gods..that was a great day.  The sun was shining, it was in the 60's (a step up from the frigid temps in Michigan) and we got to see things we had never seen. ....

Air Force Academy Chapel

Dorian and Jann

Air Force vs. Michigan Lacrosse game...we saw the warm ups but didn't stay for the "match"

Pike's Peak from the Garden of the Gods welcome center

Manitou Springs, Co.

 then of course after the beautiful weather we had snow the day before we left!  It didn't stay on the ground for long so it set it apart from Michigan, where I think it may still be on the ground :-) !!

Todd, Dorian, Jann & the "Captain"...feasting at, oh yeah baby....The Texas Roadhouse!!

Bob, in a face down with the Violet....he was game but she was NOT!

We returned to Florida in the beginning of April and stayed for five weeks with our son Cory and his fiance, Jessica.  God love them for putting up with us!  I had cataract surgery, both eyes, which required us being in Naples for a month, lots of checkups. We were there to help them move into their new home ....mmm, heard of paybacks??  and in between all of the legs of our jet set life style I spent over two weeks in Tampa with the grandkids, I am one lucky mom and grandma!!

Now that you are caught up with my blog hiatus, it's time to get her rolling again......

On the hard...January 2014

I sure wish I had a Genie up my sleeve...

We decided that it was a good time to spruce up the galley while we are 'on the hard'...sailor speak for shored up on land...it's time to attend to a few cosmetic issues.  We saw an older boat in Tampa where they had painted problem areas (in our case those would be water damaged teak veneer and about 7 screw holes in the walls for each of the previous 5 owners), it had the additional plus of brightening things up a bit (lots of wood on this old boat) so we decided it was the way to go.  Gary is doing his usual fabulous job and has spent hours sanding and painting  and varnishing and I am doing an equally fabulous job of finding more things to varnish.  

Galley with lots of wood


and a new look............

A new way to wash dishes...

F.Y.I.....the head does not function on land...so all is not as it appears.
This is what is called "living outside the box".. (or as Gary likes to remind me, it's part of the adventure) hmmmmm?? 

Makeshift galley...Nuke Zone

We even have a 2 level galley now
Lower level ....crockpot and toaster territory
This is the "serve yourself" zone

Nasty old helm....
miracles do happen..........

I've been waiting for this for 3 years!  Hip, hip, hooray!

This part is getting pretty old though...talk about camping......

I am gaining ground day by day on learning how to go with the flow......

What about Bob? He doesn't know what to make of this.  The other day we caught him under the table in a basket in the sun with a "this isn't what I signed up for" look on his face!  

It'll be ok Bob!!!!

Crossing our Wake...My thoughts on the Great Loop and more....

Jann & Bob in a wake crossing moment....

We crossed our wake in Charlotte Harbor Florida on Sunday January 5th. This means we have officially completed The Great Loop !!  

Synopsis of this fantastic journey:

350 days

6400 Miles

93 Locks

Were there arguments and cabin fever, you bet, where there scary moments, you bet, did we meet interesting people and see places we never could have seen otherwise, you bet, are we glad we did it, YOU BET!!  It was our trip of a lifetime and we saw America and a small portion of Canada from a view not seen by many.  We made many new friends and it is odd that in the boating community we will likely see a few of them again on the water somewhere. We met people doing the loop from Canada, Brazil and all over America.  Some of them were seasoned boaters and others had purchased a boat to do the loop with the plans on selling it on completion, we met one couple who planned on continuing around again but only half way where they would have their boat shipped back to the West Coast.  Would we recommend anyone else doing it?  Without a doubt.

We've been asked where we liked the best, it is so hard to choose....The Hudson was interesting and dodging the logs from the floods definitely kept us on our toes. Lake Champlain was beautiful, Canada was awesome. We had perfect weather through the St. Lawrence and although the 44 locks on the Trent Severn got very tiring the scenery was great. The 30,000 Islands in Georgian Bay was the highlight of pretty much the entire trip though.  They were spectacular.  Lots of rocks, not very nice weather but it was such raw beauty it made a huge impression on us both. A lot of people we talked to were to scared to try weaving among the rocks knowing there were more under the surface, but where's the adventure in that??? It was cool, especially since we didn't run into any.
Then there was Michigan...the shoreline of Lake Michigan is awesomely beautiful, especially the dunes. The ports were welcoming and had lots of shops to explore and if it hadn't been so windy we probably wouldn't have been so anxious to get off the lake and into the protected waterway again.  Made me a little home sick, because even though we choose to live in Florida Michigan will always be "Home".
The Illinois was interesting because of all the barges and the commerce with the moving of goods by barge. The Mississippi was a let down.  The vast river in my minds eye turned out to be the least scenic on the entire trip. No paddle wheel sight seeing boats running by, just barges and shorelines with nothing on them and no where to stop.  Very dull territory.  The Ohio was so short I really can't comment much.  But then we hit the Cumberland and the Tennessee.  Now these were some beautiful rivers.  We missed the fall color but I would go back there in a heartbeat to explore more, especially the Tennessee as we didn't make the side trip to Chattanooga (had to leave something for another trip :_).  Maybe someday.  After the Tennessee the weather started to turn chilly and the Tenn-Tom offered very shallow anchorages and very few marinas.  We made it through but it was not our favorite.  We had expected lots of anchorages but I guess do to the shallow water this year, most were unusable for us.  

Since we were trying to get a crossing to the west coast of Florida before Christmas and they were few and far between we had to rush through the panhandle and didn't see much but we are close enough to make a trip back in early spring when the north winds aren't as prevalent as they were in November!  So that's it ....

As you can see too many favorites.

We had a great Christmas  with our kids and even got a boat ride in!

Gary Jann and the 'grands' Sydney and Cole

Kent, Sydney, Cole, Chris

Our 'pay it forward' on boat ride day. Four rather clueless young guys.  There motor quit and after giving them a gallon of oil to put in it we ended up towing them back to the marina.  They returned the oil a couple of days later but were still pretty clueless. They had tied the boat up to the fishing dock  and left it while they returned to Orlando, the wind was viscous for a couple of days and after they realized there boat had damaged the dock they got it off of there pronto and anchored in front of the beach where the next morning their boat was high and dry at low tide.  It was gone the next day and we never found out if they had it towed away or the marina did.   

 Dorian and Todd 

Cory, Kingston (grand dog) and Jessica




Sorry Kingston it is SO NOT gonna' happen!

The Apollo Beach Power Plant from the Manatee Observation Deck

The gray bumps in the water are Manatee in the warm power plant water basin

Animal lover Dorian 'smooching' a manatee

Todd's find...a 'tree crab' high up in a mangrove at the Manatee observation area.

We left Ruskin late Saturday morning because we wanted to get to  Charlotte Harbor before the weather turned to North winds 35 mph on Monday.We spent Saturday night in the mooring field at Marina Jack's in Sarasota. We'd been there often by car when we lived in Venice.  It was a gray windy night but the party was still on at the bar.  Not that we made the effort of course.  Oh, how our priorities have changed over the years!!!

Sarasota skyline...we took the ball closest to shore after reading the reviews on the mooring field and the rocky conditions due to a very limited no wake zone.  As it was it was pretty quiet for a Saturday night and the rocking and rolling was kept to a minimum.



Sunday morning we rose to a picture perfect Florida Winter Day....mild no wind ......PERFECT!! and everyone was on the water enjoying the lull in the bad weather.

Ooooooo...Daddy, can I please have this one!!!!!................  
"Only if you win the lottery honey"

Pelican graffiti

Sunday scullers



Usually it is the Dolphins who like to play in our wake and today was no different but we also had a couple of Kayakers' who said it was much easier to paddle your way down the ICW if you could find a nice boat wake.  They stayed with us for a few miles paddling away!

Sunday was a calm beautiful day on the GIWW
(the gulf intracoastal waterway)

We have been treated to lots of wildlife on this leg of the trip...

White Pelicans near Boca Grande

 and the Boca Grande Swing Bridge opening to some of the prettiest boating in Florida!!

But as they say "all good things must come to an end"

It was an incredible journey and we have some awesome memories . For now Tie A Knot is getting some R&R, but never fear we'll have her ship shape and ready to start a new adventure before you know it!!!!