Captain's Choice blog: Ringing in the new year and December stats

Vacation is over and now we understand what it's like to live in a warm climate, take vacation and then stay in warm temps. Of course if you love the snow and cold you don't mind going back to it but on the other hand...no shoveling, no boots, no hats and gloves, no wind chills less than 0, this is sounding pretty amazing as we experience what it is like to live in a warm climate for winter.

On Thursday before everyone flew in we meet up with Jeff and Wendy (whom we had met at the Sea Ray rendezvous in August) and their daughter Nicole. They were vacationing in a nearby town and it was great to reconnect over a late lunch. Thursday night our home port "M" dock group flew in.
We started out on Friday visiting another "M" dock neighbor, the Woodrow's, as they were here closing on their Florida home. It was great to get the tour and spend sometime with them!
We rang in the new year "Florida style" and we liked it! What's not to like when the temps are in the 70's, you start out the day boating with your friends to a great waterfront restaurant, followed by dinner at the Sunset Grill located in Times Square, Ft. Myers Beach and then just before midnight you walk out on the beach and enjoy a spectacular fireworks display. It was awesome!
The rest of the week was filled with beach time, pool time, shopping, fishing ...fun, laughter, good conversation and we are sorry to see it come to an end.

Have I mentioned the snap, crackle, pop sound that we live with since being in the south. It sounds the same as pouring milk on your rice crispies. The first time we heard it we were quite worried that we had unwanted guests aboard. After googling it we found that when you are near the piers the sound from the barnacles transfers through the hull. We verified this when we spoke with the divers prior to going home for the holidays. The divers also said the waters in this area lead to rapid growth of barnacles so we scheduled to have the boat bottom cleaned as soon as we got back. Luckily they said the growth wasn't too bad, cleaned it and changed any anodes that were less than 50%. As the diver was in the water a manatee swam up and the diver explained that the manatees have barnacles grow on their back. Manatees are very smart and although the divers aren't able to touch them there is no law that the manatees can't rub up against the divers to help get them off.

                             December Stats   Loop to Date
Days looping                 31                     232
Travel days                     5                     121
Miles traveled             103                    4900