We’re Liking Winter in Florida

Fort Myers Florida  *

We have adapted to Southwest Florida living very quickly for the new year. With our home state and port getting pelted with snow and below freezing temperatures, our first winter in the south as Hoosiers is feeling pretty good.

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Our hearts and prayers go out to our beautiful daughter in law who was in a horrific automobile accident north of Chicago (horrible weather) and broke her back just a couple days into the new year. Fortunately, things are progressing well for her, but it will be a long, painful haul.

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A reminder to be careful out there and hold your loved ones near. Sending our love and prayers to Lauren and Nick.

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After our shit show docking adventure upon our arrival at the Fort Myers Yacht Basin, we again faced the hazards of 1/3 boat length skinny pier fingers. These are so difficult for getting Remy on and off the boat. David must do all the heavy lifting and it is quite the strain. Tasha spent a couple days accessing the situation to see if there was somewhere we could move to allow us to use the ramp or our Marquipt stairs. David even purchased a new extendable dog ramp to help with the efforts which did not work on the dinky fingers. After walking the docks, watching the tides, we decided on two areas that would be suitable for Remy independence and David’s back. Tasha approached the dockmaster and the first ask was shot down. The second ask was approved.

So, we moved the boat. This included a .2-mile trip from one side of the dock to the other. To get the Caloosahatchee River view, the sun off our aft deck, and the wind to our aft cabin stateroom window, we bowed in. It was a very easy docking situation for the captain (piece of cake compared to the one on New Year’s Day). However, it meant, double the length in power lines and longer water lines, and doubling up on the sanitation line when a pump out is needed. This marina has pump out capabilities at each dock! We went ahead and pumped out before we moved (always a joy!).

It took us awhile to reposition our lines and cords (pain in ass), but now we have the dock and sidewalk along the full port side of the boat. We are using the Marquipt stairs that allows Remy independence and saves the captains back. We have turned the dock and sidewalk into our own patio (little bit of southern Indiana redneck in us)– enjoying our nightly libation on land. Remy certainly is enjoying it as she has received lots of attention, pets and treats! This was a good move for the whole crew.

We’ve been exploring Fort Myers on our bikes (best purchase!). Our marina, the Fort Myers Yacht Basin, is central to downtown. Fort Myers has a vibrant restaurant and artsy downtown and we’re so fortunate to be so close to enjoy the community for a couple of months. There are some marina’s we tried to get into in SW Florida that have nothing around them. How lucky are we that they said no (we didn’t feel that way at the time!)! We have been eating out too much as it is close, fun, and easy!

We made the easy one-mile trek on our bikes to the grocery store. There is a Publix in the downtown area, a true blessing for cruisers. Tasha had told David she would really like a basket on her bike to carry her treasures (it hasn’t appeared yet!). We loaded up with a soft cooler with an over the body strap and a backpack to carry our purchases. Even with those, we cannot buy too much at a time, but we can use the exercise to go the store more often. The first mate needed wine and chose box wine for practicality of getting it back to the boat (and she really doesn’t mind it). It didn’t fit in our cooler or backpack, but we discovered it will fit under her fender rack and stay put for the mile trip home. No judging, it was practical, and boating is expensive, no crying over broken bottles!

We were able to meet up with several friends our first week here. We have said it before, and we will continue to say that the least fun part of this adventure is being away from family and friends. We will also continue to encourage all to reach out to us if you are anywhere along our route – we would love to see you if we can all make it work. It warms our hearts to see family and friends along the route.

Our first visitor in Fort Myers was Pete. He’s been following us, lives in Fort Myers, and came a knocking on our boat – what a delightful surprise! We haven’t seen Pete in about four years since he left Jeffersonville and moved to Fort Myers. It was good catching up a bit with the promise of going for a boat ride (his boat) and spending more time together over the course of our two month stay in Fort Myers.

We then had the pleasure of spending the day with our longtime dock mates from home Lisa and Bill. They have a second home in Cape Coral and were here for the holiday. They picked us up, Remy included, then we were joined by Bill’s mother, Carolyn, and friends George and Kim for lunch at Cape Harbour Marina. We were wanting to check this marina out as it is one of the marina’s that we are on the wait list for next winter. Yes, a year in advance, every marina in Southwest Florida has a waitlist, or so they say. We aren’t getting many straight answers on how the lists work and believe it’s a more of a game of who you know and the right timing rather than calling in advance. However, it appeared to be a nice marina, surrounded by restaurants and shops and a grocery just over a mile away. It probably wouldn’t be our first choice, but we are working so we have options.

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After lunch, we returned to Lisa and Bill’s house for cocktails and pool time. Remy enjoyed it more than anyone! She fished in the cement pond, spying the speckles on the pool finish, a few leaves, and who knows what else. Carly, Kim and George’s golden joined her for a swim. Remy really enjoyed her time off the boat, in the water, and the yard! We can’t thank Lisa and Bill enough for including our baby in our day in Cape Coral. We are hopeful they will be down again before we head out the end of February.

We also had the opportunity to go to lunch with gold loopers (one time around!) Barbara and Joe from Lexington, Ky who have a home near Lover’s Key at the beach. It was so nice to share adventure tales and learn what’s ahead in our journey. They looped in 2018 and gave us a lot of good advice and places to check out in the months ahead. After lunch, we were able to go to Cosco, a favorite of Tasha’s. We have been trying to pare down our freezer and panty inventory so we can restock before heading to the Keys, so we didn’t buy much, but always enjoy looking. Felt like a very normal thing to do and was good to stretch our legs a bit. Funny how a car ride and a shopping trip rejuvenate you. Normal things we just don’t do much of anymore.

Barbara and Joe – lunch and Cosco with Gold Loopers from Lex!

Our week ended with the Fort Myers Seafood festival and family members Tiffany and Mark joining us for a dockside happy hour on our new deck, and a stroll through the festival, and exploring the heavily action filled downtown Fort Myers for dinner. There were several bands, arts and crafts, food vendors, and such all through the festival and downtown. We are really enjoying being in the heart of Fort Myers and all the activity. The festival went on through Sunday. The music permeated through our marina the entire weekend and most of it was good. Remy enjoyed walking through and trying to clean the streets. She can be such a scavenger.

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The week ended on a high for Remy when her friend, Guinness, pulled up to the gas dock. This old girl started to climb their ramp to get on their boat to see her friend. When he saw her, he came flying off the boat. They were both delighted to catch up for a 4^th time on this trip. He will be staying here a week with this family, and I am sure the two of them will be hanging out a lot together. The sweet boy and his mama had a Christmas present for Remy (we last saw them at Clearwater and left right before Christmas!). She received a reindeer lollipop toy and loves it! So good to see her have a good week.

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Our first week on our winter Florida layover was a lot of fun. For our second week we are hitting the chore list and hiring a few chores done (new to us!). We’ll try to remember to take more photo’s, we get to having fun and forget to document our adventures.

Our view through the end of Febuary!

Cheers! D, T & R

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