Animals of the Norwegian Cruise line

Every night (as you know if you’ve been on a cruise) they make a towel animal on your bed for you Here is some of the “menagerie” that we found over the 10 days.

Another way to cruise



Our home for 10 days

 It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything but, that’s for a reason. You see, our friends Ken and Sue (in Michigan) gave us a call back in Nov. and asked us if we had any extra money! Interesting question. What they were really asking was if we would like to go on a cruise ship with them to the Caribbean. We jumped at the idea, all we had to do was sail from NC to Punta Gorda, Fl before Jan 10th. It was a bit of a push to get down to south Fl, around the Keys and up the west coast in time for the trip but it was worth the effort for the cruise turned out to be excellent. On January 15th we stepped onto the Norwegian Jade and headed to the ports of Key West, Tortola, Saint Martin, Saint Johns and Puerto Rico on a 10 day cruise.


Schooner off Key West

 It’s been over 10 years since we have done anything like that and the wait was worth it. Tropical islands, warm breezes, friendly people, fabulous entertainment, and … the FOOD! WOW! It took a lot of effort in the fitness center to keep the weight gain down to only 2 lbs! (I think that having 3 deserts every night as my down fall). All in all, it was a great holiday taking a cruise that wasn’t cruising in the Snow Goose.

Just one of the great sunsets seen from the cruise ship

Moving time

Sometimes winter time is when we find a place and settle in for a month or two but this year, (so far), has been move, move, move. As in, move down the coast to Fl, move down Fl to the Keys, move thru the Keys, move up the west coast, etc. It’s nice to see new places and meet old friends but it does get old to only see these places as you slowly sail by. After a month of travel we’ve finally reached our destination here in Punta Gorda (which is about 50 miles south of Tampa) and will be here for the next month.

About 1200 miles

Traveling in Fl (by water) does have one large challenge, Crab Pots! The waters around Fl’s southern end have delicious “stone crabs” in them. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_stone_crab ]



Before



After!

 The stone crab has LARGE claws. If you can catch them you can snap off a large claw and the crab will grow a new one back in a few years. So, the fisherman place 10’s of thousands of traps in the waters around here and each trap is marked by a float.

It was a foggy morning and this would appear.

This one is nice and bright, most are dark and hard to see.

Notice the strong current?

At times it’s hard to imagine any crabs surviving the vast fields of traps that litter the oceans around here. It also makes it difficult to travel by boat for it’s easy to snag one of these floating lines on your prop. In the worst case scenario, if you do wrap a line around your prop shaft then your engine suddenly stops dead and the sudden stop can rip your motor mounts apart! Not a good start to a day. So when you’re motoring you have to constantly be swerving around these hazards.

So, other than warm weather, friends along the way and the boredom of sailing we have had moments of crab pot terror every day. It’s been a long month and we sure are glad to be at a stopping point for awhile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dragging the bottom

It’s the day after Christmas and we are heading down to Fort Pierce for a haul out. I know, that’s a bit unusual for us but we had a bit of underwater issues. The centerboard on the Goose unwound its cable and the cable pulled loose and is laying on the bottom. This now gives us a 10 foot draft! Well, the ICW does not tolerate a boat with a 10 foot draft so, I went diving to pass a rope thru the board and then crank it up using the winches. I should be able to replace the cable with a new one and be back on the water again in a couple of hours (if everything goes correctly). Wish me luck!

How come the "Captain" always has to go diving?

The blue rope is holding the centerboard up.

Well, the board is tied up to the boat again now, it's a 10 mile trip to the haul out.

Installing the new cable.

Florida again

Here's a chart view of Cap Canaveral and the shoals

Coming in off the ocean at the Ponce Deleon inlet keeps us from having to go around the Kennedy space center (which sticks out into the ocean) and its shoals that extends another 5 miles further off shore. If you round the cape on the outside you are just about into the north flowing Gulf Stream… not where you want to be with a north wind behind you. So, we tuck into the Indian River. It’s a wide estuary behind the coast that extends about 100 miles north to south and provides a save enjoyable way south in this part of Fl. There are also some nice places to visit along the Indian River; Titusville, Coco Beach, the Kennedy Space Center, Vero Beach, and many, many nice anchorages to boot!

Nice sunset

 

We stopped into Titusville on Friday for a “cloths washing day” only to find out that the marina was having their annual Christmas day dinner on Sunday so, we satyed a few extra days, made a dish to pass and joined in on the fun. It was a great time, lots of food, friends and even Christmas karaoke! The palm trees and warm balmy breezes didn’t seem like Christmas to us Michiganders but the friendly spirits that we found sure spoke of the Christmas Spirit to us.




The dessert table after 50 cruisers had their way with it!

 The hurricane also was strong even down here in central Fl and the effects of it could be seen all around us.

 Oh, and if you don't know, Anna has changed the website over to wordpress and the URL to it is http://svsnowgoose.com/wordpress/

 

 

 

Merry Christmas to all!

 

 



On the waterway again

For once Anna is posting more than I am so, that leaves me with little to talk about plus, I have been really busy keeping the Goose working (maintenance), driving the boat (playing Captain), and all of the other stuff that goes into moving the Goose 1000 miles south.

Sun rise on the ocean

We have had a good trip down this time by breaking it up into 3 passages. Two Ocean passages and one good size chunk of the ICW. The Interesting thing that I found this year on the ICW was the amount of damage that the latest hurricane did to the property along the way and the number of boats that are sitting on the shore along the way. I’ve seen more that 30 boats that have been tossed up on shore during this trip. Here’s just a few more that Anna hasn’t shown you already.
 

 

We are now down in Fl and have slowed down a bit so, I hope to bring this blog up to date.

Everyone up north… stay warm!

I want to steal this old bus... it's so cute!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little work on the side

Instead of boat work this fall I’ve come into a bit of contracting. The house I’m working on (down here in NC) has a type of plywood siding called T1-11 which means that for every 11 inches of siding there is a 1 inch decorative grove cut into the plywood. This gives a nice vertical look to the house. The issue is at the bottom of the existing plywood, it was never painted and rot has developed.

The original siding

So, out comes the nails,,, hundreds of nails,,, (seems like MILLIONS of nails), each one put in with a nail gun and every single one a real bear to remove. The guy must have put over 30 nails per board!

Most of the nails had to be removed with a "crow's foot" and lots of pounding

 

The old comes off and...

 

The wall is stripped back to the blue board.

 

With Anna’s help, we installed new, primed siding and the wall looks great again. Now, it’s time to paint!

New T1-11 on, the windows trimmed out and everything primed ready for new paint.